Smart Parenting, or Rigid Follow Node, but Not Both?
lukon100
Posts: 803
I’m making a prop.
If I save it as a Figure/Prop Asset, I can have “Smart Parenting”.
But if I want to add a rigid follow node, I can’t save it as a Figure/Prop Asset (but instead a Scene Subset), and therefore cannot have Smart Parenting.
Bummer.
But is there a way I really can have both?
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Save the prop as a prop asset first, then save a Wearables preset for the hierarchy.
This did not work. I was not allowed to create a wearables preset.
Here's what I did:
I created my prop asset with smart parenting.
Then I made a rigid follow node.
Then I selected the prop.
Then I attempted to save it as a wearabale preset.
I got an "Selection Error" message stating that I must select a node that has other objects parented to it, in order to make a wearable preset.
This baffles me. I thought I DID select a node that had other objects parented to it. I thought the rigid follow node WAS the other object parented to it.
I then tried parenting the prop to other loaded copies of the prop and trying various parenting heirarchies among them. No matter which object node I selected, Daz would throw my the same selection error message every time I asked to create a wearable preset.
Yes, this prop has no occassion to be parented to a skeletal figure. It therefore makes no sense to save this prop as a wearable preset.
Therefore...
If I understand you correctly, you are recommending that I simply save my prop as a scene subset, because that is the only way I can save the prop with the rigid follow node.
But this returns my to the original delimma: I can't have both a rigid follow node and "smart parenting".
So, are you in fact confirming that there is simply no way for this prop to have both a rigid follow node and smart parenting? (no way short of parenting it to some random rigged figure)
This gives me an idea. Is it possible to temporarily parent my prop to a rigged figure long enough to save the prop as a wearable preset with its rigid follow node, but then un-parent it and let it stand alone as an unparented wearable preset type of prop from that point on, forever?
The hierarchy has to remain for the preset to apply. You could create a really simple figure as a root for parenting, that would have very little impact on the scene.
I'm not clear on your objectives. What do you want the rigid follow node to do?
I want the rigid follow node to move anything parented to it when it moves.
There is a morph that will move the rigid follow node up and down. I want anything parented to the rigid follow node to move up or down with the morph.
The prop is a planter that you put plants in - plants like flowers or ferns.
The soil in the planter is the rigid follow node. So if you parent a flower to the rigid follow node assigned to the soil, then the flower will move up and down with the morph that moves the soil up and down. The morph that moves the soil up and down is the morph that changes the height of the planter.
You could do the same thing with an invisible plane inside the planter to which you parent your desired plant.
I do not understand how this could fix the problem.
Where in the structure is this invisible plane? Is it built-in to the planter's mesh? Is it a separate mesh that is parented to something?
I already have a plane that is built into the planter's mesh. In is the inside the planter, a little lower than the top rim. it is the plane meant to be the top of the planter's contents, such as soil. It is the soil I mentioned earlier, to which I have assigned the rigid follow node. So I have a soil plane that is the rigid follow node, to which I parent the flower. This soil plane in not invisible. It takes on the soil shader. Ok, so I have a plane of sorts already. it is not an invisible one as you suggest. Which leaves me wondering why the plane you suugest must be invisible. And I wonder about what other ways the plane you suggest must be different from my soil plane. Perhaps the plane you suggest is not only invisible, but is also separate from the planter's mesh - a separate node at least. And if this is so, I'd like to understand how - and why this could fix things.
You see, I don't understand how a plane that was not already part of the planter's mesh could move up and down with the morph that makes the planter shorter or taller. The morph already does move the soil plane up or down, because the soil plane is part of the planter's mesh. Too bad I can't simply parent the flower to the soil plane. That's why I wanted to make the soil plane a rigid follow node. I can parent a flower to a rigid follow node. This method totally works! Only problem is rigid follow nodes can't be saved with regular props. They must be saved as scene subsets. But scene subsets can't have smart-parenting. And I want smart-parenting. Hence the title of this post.
I never said the plane had to be invisible, that was just a suggestion. I assumed you were modeling this planter yourself, and could thus easily add another plane to parent the flower, but that doesn't seem necessary. Have you tried parenting a plant to the soil plane and just decreasing the Y translation? Or moving the bone of the soil plane lower relative to the mesh?
Worth a shot. So I tried it. I made a rigged version of the planter. It had 2 bones. One of the bones was the soil surface. Parenting a flower to it failed to make the flower move up or down with the planter's height morph. So back to the rigid follow node idea. I made the soil surface bone also be a rigid follow node. Parented the flower to the rigid follow node, Failure again. Flower did not move up or down with the morph. No point in even trying to save this failure as wearable preset or in any other form, since it didn't work.
BUT... I found a solution that did work: Don't use a height morph on the planter. It seems items parented to something that moves by means of morphing won't follow the morphed movement unless using a rigid follow node. So, since I can't use a rigid follow node, I can't use a morph. So I used another method for changing the planter's height. I converted the entire top of the planter to become the second bone of the the rigged planter prop. Unlike the experiment in the previous paragraph, this time the second bone includes the top rim of the planter, not just the soil surface. Now that the entire top of the planter is the second bone, I can adjust the planter's height by YTranslating the second bone. The rim and the soil move up or down together. And, flowers parented to this second bone will move accordingly. DONE!
This only worked by the graces of how simple my model is. I consider myself lucky.
Oh.
Ya. I'm making the prop myself.
Well, the prop had no bone for the soil plane when I started this post. But now it does. And the solution I eventually found seems like what you are driving at here. Ya. if yr curious how I fixed it, read my reply to Richard where I describe my solution.
Thanks for yr help, Gordig!
Smart Parenting is used for the case that a Figure or Prop is designed to be fitted or parented to another Figure, like a garment, a bracelet... When you save the asset, the user-facing file will be saved a Wearable Preset.
But in your case as you said, the planter is not meant to be parented to anything... So the option of Smart Parent when saving Figure/Prop asset is not needed at all.
And you've already found a better solution.
Yep, for what you want on such a hard surface object, rigging it is the best way rather than morphing it, and you don't need an RFN either.
Oh. I see. So when I made my planter prop have smart parenting, that by itself converted it into a Wearable Preset. And when I subsequently put a rigid follow node on it, it rejected my attempt to save it as a wearable preset maybe because it already WAS a wearable preset? I don't understand.
No. The Smart Parenting IS needed. While the planter certainly is not meant to be parented to rigged figures, it IS meant to be parented to other copies of the planter, to make "beehive" clusters of planters. Smart parenting is meant to help the user quickly assemble such clusters.
Yes. I now have a smart-parented prop that can have it's height adjusted wherein the flower parented to it's soil bone will move up or down with the height adjustment. All is well.
Thanks for yr help, Crosswind!
So you want one prop as a parent to others of the same type? That may eb why you are having issues. I would suggest a simple primitive, turned into a single-bone figure, to act as the parent item (set Visible in render to off so that it won't show in the images) and then parent all your planters to that.
As we clarified above, the prerequisite of being able to save a Wearable Preset is that the selected item must be a Figure (skeletal, having bone(s)). At that time, the planter you made was a Prop rather than a Figure... so you got an error message.
Got it ~ If so, you have to rig the root node of the beehive ( the Parent ) as a Figure.
I also think you're overthinking things a bit. Once you've got the planter properly rigged so that plants parented to the soil plane are properly seated, that's really all you need. You can just save it as a prop/figure asset without worrying about wearable presets, scene subsets or anything else.