Help! I'm in D-former hell!
andya_b341b7c5f5
Posts: 694
I spent a good two frustrating hours adding d-formers to a clothing item to fix multiple poke through issues. Eventually got the effect I wanted, and saved the scene and closed it to work on another. I have just reloaded the scene with the d-formed clothing, and though the d-formers are all still there they are doing absolutely nothing at all to the clothing item. Zilch, nada. The poke through issues are all back and the d-former fields do not 'light up' the clothing vertices like they should when I select the base of a d-former in the scene tab. This surely can't be right. Can anyone please suggest a solution to this, other than repeating the process and just not saving any scene with d-formers in it?
Honestly, d-formers are going to be the death of me at this rate. I'll be most grateful if someone can save my sanity.
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Do you mind if I ask what version of Daz Studio are you using? I save scenes with deformers quite regularly, and haven't had any issues. I don't do anything special. I just choose File->Save. I am currently using Daz 4.8 Pro.
Of course, that is a perfectly legitimate question. I should have thought to say. I am using 4.8.0.59 - still the latest full release, I believe - on Win 8.1.
I have loaded the scene again more than once, before and after shutting the machine down overnight, and as I expected it's made no difference :(.
I don't what the answer is for but I'm having a hard time having anything working in Studio 4.8.59 including D-Form!!!
dbb
Well, further investigation suggests the problem is caused by, or at least related to, saving a scene with the d-formers hidden by use of the visibility icon in the Scene tab. If they are visible when the scene is saved and closed, then they still influence their parent object when the scene is re-opened. If they are hidden when the scene is saved and closed, then when the scene is re-opened the d-formers are present but no longer have any influence over their parent object. Very, very irritating, as you really want to hide the things once you've got your desired effect with them.
Daniel - I feel your pain, in general and particularly in relation to d-formers. I am trying to learn not to stress about the stuff that doesn't work as it should, and remind myself that DS is not mission critical software - phew! - even though I am using it in a work context.
Please report this behaviour as a bug, via a Technical Support ticket http://www.daz3d.com/help/help-contact-us
Did you report it? Once and only once a long time ago I had the dformers suddenly no longer working on an object when loading the scene, and perhaps this could have been the cause. It would be nice if that were resolved in a future version.
Did you try Add Node to re-connect them to their parent object?
Thanks Richard, I will report it but want to be sure I have a reliably reproducible test case, ideally with a simple scene file to show the issue first. The scene I have the issue with is big and busy with lots of distractions and needs trimming to the essentials. I have enough technical support experience to know how frustrating it is to have bugs reported with insufficient information, or too much irrelevant information.
jestmart - no, I didn't try Add Node, not familiar with that function. Where can I find that?
Well, I finally had a bit of time to devote to trying to create a simple scene in which this d-former misbehaviour could be demonstrated for a bug report. From my tests it turns out that the issue - d-formers no longer affecting the item they belong to and the fields disappearing - actually seems to be caused by problems in the Scene tab which are intermittent but recurring, and which I have experienced in DS 4.8 ever since I started using it several months ago.
In the Scene tab, I sometimes find that when I click on an item to select it, half the items in the scene light up though I have not touched any modifier key such as Ctrl, Alt or Shift. (I have seen this misbehaviour mentioned by others in the forums.) I also find that occasionally when I click on an item (A), another item (B) gets parented to A for no reason that I can see. It's easy not to notice this if you're not aware it might happen, and can cause very confusing results. I think that B may be the item that is already selected before clicking on A, but I'm not absolutely sure
So suppose I have a d-former field selected, but possibly cannot see it is selected because its scrolled out of view in the Scene tab. Now I click on another item. Then the d-former field gets parented to that other item without my say so. The other item may be miles away from where the d-former is, so the d-former field effectively disappears from the part of the scene that is visible in the viewport as it jumps to the location of it's new parent. If the field is small, it can disappear inside a larger object which is in view. Of course the field will no longer affect the item it's supposed to be deforming, and the d-former appears to be 'broken'.
Couple this with the random selection of multiple items and you have a potentially ugly mix.
So, I have concluded that the fault is not with the d-formers but with the Scene tab. One can perhaps hope it will behave better in DS 4.9.
Here's some new d-former madness which I can't explain. Anyone have any ideas to explain this or see what I am doing wrong please?
I have added a d-former to a G2F based figure. As she is sitting on the floor I want to flatten her butt a bit, and spread it a little. (I would avoid d-formers if I possibly could, but the products I have (Glute Control etc.) won't do this, and DS is determined that any editing I do in Blender is changing the vertex count or something else that means it can't/won't create a morph, although I have only used proportional editing.)
I have only scaled the field down, and am having a nightmare trying to position the 'hot spot'. As you can see from the attached pics, the 'hot spot' is nowhere near the field, and does not move in anythiing like a logical, predictable fashion when I move the field. For example to move the hot spot from the left foot to the right foot (i.e. from left to right in the scene) I have had to move the field from right to left - the opposite direction! (Compare Dformer03-foot.jpg and Dformer04-foot2.jpg.) To say this is frustrating and awkward is a colossal understatement.
I would rather she didn't look like she had a cast iron rear, but it's proving ridiculously tough to achieve something better.
The field is taking account of the zero position - you could load a second, unmorphed and unposed, figure to act as a guide when positioning the field.
But even though we can set field and positon again with zero pose Actor, we need to manipulate filed for the item which posed and fitted to character,
then decide influenced area . But it do not work correctly with filed movement. it is actually approximate work.
and after set filed to decide influence area, next problem is the handle movement and effect not much about direction.
when tweak detail, (eg some hair part hidden by actor mesh) we need precise work.
the posed or morphed Actor change D-former field is just start problem. but actually there are other problems about D-former
when use with item which fitted and posed Actor.
It has been reported by many user, I think. after all, I give up,and DAZ may not change about D-former any more.
Thanks Richard, I suppose that does explain what I am seeing, and may also be contributing to the cases where the d-former field doesn't seem to be influencing the item it's attached to at all.
I have to say though, that is a feature that makes using d-formers very tricky and time-consuming indeed (as kitakdoredaz also points out), to the point where the benefit tends to outweigh the cost. Now if only I could work out why DS doesn't like what I am doing in Blender to create morphs I might be able to kiss d-formers goodbye....I feel a new post on that subject may be required.