Saving headspliter morphs to a character preset
I'm attempting to go through my character library and splitting any character which doesn't have the head and the body available for sperate shaping. I've figured out how to do this using the head splitter d-former, using attenuation and yada yada. All the the tutorials I've found describing this process have been very helpful in helping me figure this out, with one exception. None I've seen so far detail how to save these morphs to the character preset so that I can apply them whenever I load one of these characters. They all seem to end with the process but none seem to describe how to permanently apply them as saved morphs to that character.
I'm gonna plead cluelessness here because whenever I try to save this as a character preset, I get error messages saying that something or other is missing. Obviously this is possible but I don't have a lot of experience creating custom characters other than just saving that character as a scene subset and using it when needed.
Comments
Make sure that the moprh is zeroed (and has a zero default value) the use File>Save As>Support Assets>Morph Asset to save it/them so that it will be available on all figures of that base. Or just save a character perset but use that to load a new figure, not to modify an existing figure.
Oaky I'll give that a try.
That I tried but couldn't find the morph available in any shaping menu. So I must not have done something right.
As Richard says, you need to save Morph Assets first before saving Character Presets... Better reload your characters after saving morph assets.
What is the procedure for creating a "morph preset" file? A preset is a .duf file you can double-click on to apply it.
When you look at the File -> Save As menu, there are many Save As "Preset" options, but nothing called "Morph Preset".
File -> Save As -> Support Asset -> Morph Asset(s)... creates a data file only. This isn't a preset file that can be double-clicked on. Yes, it's one part of the equation, you need a data file first so the preset can execute it, but where is the other half of the equation, creating the preset file itself?
A Shaping Preset is the one you want, assuming the morph's type was set to Modifier/Shape.
File -> Save As -> Shaping Preset...
Ah, I missed that one. Thanks!
Okay, I've got that solved. The morphs are saved and I'm able to apply them parameters morphs tab to the base Gen 9 figure. What I've run into (see examples below) is that applying the morphs works fine when the base figure is in the zero pose. Once I apply a pose, the base figure which is using the head splitter morph becomes severely deformed. The figure on the left is using the character morph from the Morph Loader Pro head splitter application. The figure on the right is using the base Gen 9 with only the shaping slider from the character's library shaping option. Both are set at 80%. The zero pose is fine but any attempt to pose the head splitter morphed figure results in these deformations.
It's because the mesh no longer fits its skeleton. Edit > Figure > Rigging > Adjust Rigging to Shape. Generally, you want to tick Adjust Center Points and Adjust End Points, and UNTICK Adjust Orientation.
You would need to rebuild the joint adjustments, which move the centres around which the joints bend to match up with the morphed shape. In principle you should be able to do it by duplicating the erc links from the full morph to the lower body (for the body morph) or head (for the ehad morph) with some tweaking most likely needed on the necka rea; you will also need to relink the CBMs (JCMS as were) that apply corrective morphs to keep the bends nice when the morph is applied (again, you should in principle be able to copy the links from the full morph as needed, rather than having to make a fresh set of adjustment morphs).
Well, what do you know. That worked. That's awesome. A big high five to you. Thanks!
You're welcome, enjoy! :)