Save Dialled-in Character

marble

I've searched but not found an answer to this. 

I'm fond of playing with the morph dials to make my own character shapes. I have commercial shapes too and they appear in the parameter dials so that they can be dialled-in by percentage - I might have 30% of one and 12% of another, etc., etc. So I would like to be able to do the same with my own versions but there does not seem to be a way to do this.

What I do at the moment is save as a Character Preset but that doesn't appear in any of the parameter panels - I have to load it from a folder. I have lots of these character presets that I'd like to be able to dial-in.

Tottallou

I copied this a few months ago from somewhere on this forum & think its what you are looking for 

It worked to make a morph dial for me - Sorry I can't find the original post to give credit to the person that wrote it

Apply your saved preset

Right-click on the Parameters pane and from the menu put it in Edit mode

Right-click in the group you want to contain the new controller and select Create New Property

Most of the options should be OK, you may want to adjust limits and the path, you will certainly want to give it a name and label.

Right-click on your new property and select ERC Freeze - this should have the new property listed as the controller and the morphs used in your preset listed as the controlled properties. Assuming it looks OK click Accept.

If the controller works as desired zero it and File>Save as>Support Assets>Morph Asset.

 

marble

Oh, excellent. Thanks ... I'll try that as soon as I get a chance.

inquire

If you've applied textures, shaders, clothing, hair -- any or a combination of these, you can also save your character as a scene subset. Then, the whole thing will be ready to go when you want to  use him or her again.

marble

Yes, indeed - that's how I normally save them when I want to save the figure complete with geografts, etc.

However - this does not allow for what I described in the OP with dialling-in the character either fully or partially, as can be done with commercially available characters: a little V6, some Olympia, some Gia, for example.

Leana

If it's for your own use you could export the morphed character as obj and create a new morph from that obj with morph loader.

marble

I don't sell or distribute - it is just a hobby for me.

I'm not quite clear on the morph procedure though - are you saying just export as .obj and then re-import with Morph Loader? And this would become a new morph parameter for any G2F based figure? If so, then that answers the question but I'm confused now about the other procedure described in Tottallou's post (above) which involves creating a new property, ERC Freeze, etc. Do they both achieve the same thing?

Leana

marble said:

I don't sell or distribute - it is just a hobby for me.

I'm not quite clear on the morph procedure though - are you saying just export as .obj and then re-import with Morph Loader? And this would become a new morph parameter for any G2F based figure? If so, then that answers the question but I'm confused now about the other procedure described in Tottallou's post (above) which involves creating a new property, ERC Freeze, etc. Do they both achieve the same thing?

Export the morph figure as obj. Load a blank G2F figure, import your obj with morph loader to create the morph, then save your newly created morph as a morph asset so that it gets added to the data folder. It should then be available as part of the list of G2F morphs when you load G2F.

I think Tottallou's procedure creates a new "master dial" for your character which would set the right values to all the individual morphs you used.

What I suggest creates a new individual morph from the combined morphs, hence why I asked if it was for your own use: if you wanted to distribute it then you couldn't use that method unless the morphs were merchant resources.

marble

I see, thank you. Much more simple than I had imagined. :)

mjc1016

The master dial method is redistributable...the export method is not.

 

marble

The export/import morph does exactly what I want ... thank you all. I kept getting geometry mismatch until I remembered that I need to export with no subdivision (base).

Richard Haseltine

The main issues with exporting as OBJ and loading as a new morph are that you lose any correction morphs linked to the morphs used (such as expression fixes) and that you have to redo any rigging adjustments.

marble

Not sure I understand the implications of all that, Richard. What would you suggest as an alternative method? 

Richard Haseltine

Using a Shaping preset, or creating a master parameter for your character linked to the original morphs (rather than a sinlge new morph) will avoid both issues.

Diomede

If you model a custom clothing item to fit the character shape, will the transfer utility treat each of these methods the same?  For example, lets say that the character is some Frazetta-style hero with sixpack abs, but I want to create a loose fitting shirt.  If I model the loose fitting shirt around the dialed up muscleman, and then use the transfer utlity to convert the shirt to conformable clothing, I don't want the sixpack abs to imprint on the shirt.  Does it matter if the character creation method was export/import, master dial controller, shape preset, etc?

kitakoredaz

Diomede, if you gather all morph as one　morph not master controller  and ERC linked morph,

it may offer better effect,,  when you use transfer utility, with reverse option.

somtiems,, use "current" as item sahpe,, can not work  well  , when current shape  use many morphs ,I think.

maybe transfer utility  work better with single  morph ,or single clone shape as "Source: item shape".

But Most of case, there seems not  good merit to make clothing  for those character shape and use it for transfer utility..

 

because even though you use one morph for current character sahpe, and use TU with reverse option,

  you may need to adjust clothing for base zero shape again..  (autto reverse process  is not perfect,, and ds should auto-reverse  clothing once  for zero shape  ) , after all,, ,  you may need re-modify your clothing shape for your character sshape  too. 

 

so that,, you may better, make clothing for zero base shape first, with  loose shape..

then after you fit clothing  to the character,, All currently  used morphs for the Actor, are auto-transfered, and may keep loose fitting.  (if you make  loose fit clothing  for base figure shape,, the delta are still there)

then you make new corrective morph, for one master  dial shape..  (and you add erc  link for the correcitve morph  with one master dial )

And if you already have made (modeling)  good  shape for the current shape,, you can re-use it for corrective morph. not need to use it  for transfer uitlity. with reverse option.

Richard Haseltine

You would probably want to load your original model as a morph, otherwise you are going to get distortions from reversing the source shape from the mesh and then from the auto-generated morph.

Diomede

Thanks, Richard and kitakoredaz.  Very helpful but I'm still a little confused on a couple of points.  Pardon if I ask again in a slightly different way.

Just to make sure that I am understanding the bottom line.  Is the suggestion that I should still model the initial clothing to the base figure shape, and later add a morph to the clothing model that fits the custom character shape that I want?  Even if the custom character is the result of combining several existing morph dials?  If so, I am again asking if it matters how the character morph is generated - export/import, master dial controller, shape preset, etc?  I guess I am focusing on whether it matters if a clothing morph is designed to match a single loaded figure morph (export/import), a master controller morph, saved preset, or...  

 

My ultimate goal is to create a custom character (but morph dial based) with his own tailor-made outfit, and I'm wondering if my desire for a custom outfit should affect which method I use to make the character morph.  So if I am completely off base in my line of questioning, it s OK to point that out as well - and to make other suggestions.

Richard Haseltine

Are you planning to share the result? If not you could make a single FBM to match the character and also make blank proeprties named to match the component moprhs so DS didn't spawn its own. If you want to be able to adjust the morphs, or share the item, then I'm afraid you would need to do custom morphs for each figure moprh.

Diomede

Thanks, answers my question.

nickalaman

This might be what you're looking for, check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMYB2MDh6CQ

 

 

AlienRenders

I think you just want to do an ERC Freeze and save it as a morph asset. If you're creating a new clothing item, it should be on the base figure with no morphs. If it doesn't look exactly right when you dial in your morphs on the base figure, you can create a morph on your clothing item and do a JCM style correction dial that is linked to your original ERC Freeze dial.

Another method if you don't care about the clothing item fitting on any other figure, model the clothing item directly onto the morphed/dialed figure. When you fit the clothing item to the figure, it will likely distort. No problem. Just re-import the exact same clothing item .obj file as a morph and lock it at 100% to restore the shape.