New hair prop is very confusing

edited December 1969 in Carrara Discussion

Ok, I've been using Carrara 8 x64 for a while. I've gotten some good results with it too. I've learned alot by trial and error but I'm am stuck with a new hair prop. Dynamic Desire hair is not positionable at all. The fit sits back too far and it is position locked for some reason. It's making me crazy because I have everything the way I want it but I need to make it sit just a little further down and forward. I have never seen anything like it.
It locks in place on the head and that is it. Is there any way to unlock it so I can position it? I tried just dropping it in the scene and it does not show up anywhere. It only shows up when it is attached to the figure ( in the tree ) it disappears otherwise. If I open it ( it's a CAR file ) it isn't visible either.
Help would be appreciated greatly.:cheese:

Comments

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921
    edited July 2013

    Hya, it's probably conformed to the figure which is why it is locked in place,
    If that's the case you might find adjustment morphs to make it fit your figure
    via select the hair then look over on the right hand side for any morphs you can find

    if the hair is not conformed and you cant' see it anywhere

    select the head of your figure eg m4, then shift click on the hair in your instances list
    then hit ctrl k and use the window that pops up to align the hair with the head in the xyz axii
    this will alighn the hot point of the hair figure with the head and make it easier to find

    if you still can't f ind it go to the top view because it is probably sitting right above y our eg M4 figure
    if you still can't fine it change the way the opengl or whatever is in your scene view - eg just change it to wireframe view
    you might only be able to see it when you render - as another example

    lastly if this doesn't work you can grab the model of the hair and remove the bones and position the resulting mesh around the head
    more about that later...

    also some hair figures come in with the alpha channel set wrongly, but if you can see it sometimes this isn't the case

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 1969

    I believe you have to drag and drop the desire hair onto the 'model' of your v4 over in the shader tree. I'll double check this as soon as possible to make sure. Also you'll probably want to add the daz hair cap to your V4's head too, otherwise carrara hair can look a little thin on the top of the head.

  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 1969

    Yup just double-checked and you have to add it to the 'model' of the v4 in the shader tree. Loaded in the right place.

    Also this is not prop hair, this is carrara hair, so don't look for morphs to move it. You can go to the modelling room though and use the 'brush' feature to brush it into a position you want. Also like most carrara hair it can be very light-sensitive. I tend to lower the highlights in the texture room significantly when using carrara hair.

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 37,712
    edited July 2013

    another thing you can do which I have done with my V4 Carrara hairs like PhilW stuff that use the model so I can use Genesis
    is create a V4 mesh haircap head
    you convert V4 to other modeler in the vertex room under editor and back breaking the rigging
    then detach the model from the figure tree
    go into vertex room again and in selection select first the head and then face under shading domain selection
    invert the selection
    delete
    keep all the shading domains etc, this important, do not go to global and remove any or change the uv mapping
    exit
    drag default shader to multicoloured ball at top of shader tree
    in shading room turn opacity down

    this invisible head prop can be saved and all hairs can be loaded
    it is helpful to press caps lock and move the pivot point to the centre
    alternatively line it up with your new figure and select it and hip and go to animation attach skeleton

    you can in vertex room delete extra mesh like the ears and face but be careful not to remove any growth area mesh

    Post edited by WendyLuvsCatz on
  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,921
    edited December 1969

    sorry I missed the part where it said

    Dynamic
    Desire hair
  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,969
    edited July 2013

    this invisible head prop can be saved and all hairs can be loaded
    it is helpful to press caps lock and move the pivot point to the centre
    alternatively line it up with your new figure and select it and hip and go to animation attach skeleton

    you can in vertex room delete extra mesh like the ears and face but be careful not to remove any growth area mesh

    Wendy, that is SO HELPFUL thanks a million. I will try that myself!

    I have a pesky hair problem...I bought Vayne Braid and cannot get it to show in my DAZ content folder at all. It came as a zip that I had to install manually and it just isn't there in Carrara. So I opened it in DAZ and then exported it as dae. Once in C-beta it looked OK but was so small. So back to DAZ and enlarged it a lot, then re-exported it. I must not be setting my export settings correctly? But didn't see one for scaling.

    So now I actually have an object. I faffed with the scalp hair, eg removed the girly fringe, moved the braid around to the angle I wanted, but am looking for a way to lock it onto the Genesis model head vs just having it grouped? Is there a basic tut someplace for this? I am happy to manually more the braid's bones for positioning. The braid is visually nested into a Carrara hairstyle I made and I like the look. But your way will make it much easier when using hair that works properly in Carrara for custom styling. See image below. Any advice welcome and thanks again to all for this thread and info!

    ETA, I also turn off highlight and shine to zero. Ceramic hair just looks plain weird.

    Cheers, SileneUK

    Braid1.png
    530 x 767 - 251K
    Post edited by SileneUK on
  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 37,712
    edited December 1969

    in Daz studio find the file location from the content directory
    I often find things are in odd places and indeed show in Carrara's runtime browser, just not where you expect.
    if it is not a Poser format file but Daz native content one ie .dsa try saving as a .duf and importing that into C8.5 beta
    and yes attach skeleton works on all props and objects rather like DS4.6 transfer utility except it cannot be saved as an asset.

  • ManStanManStan Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Do it the old fashion way, drag and drop it on the head in the figure tree. You can position it in the scene from there but will follow and pose with the figure.
    Go to your account, product library, and use "hair" as your search filter and you should find this

    hcap.jpg
    600 x 421 - 48K
  • edited December 1969

    Thank you everyone for the responses... I'll be trying this when I get home from work later today. I'll let you know how it goes.

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,969
    edited July 2013

    ManStan said:
    Do it the old fashion way, drag and drop it on the head in the figure tree. You can position it in the scene from there but will follow and pose with the figure.
    Go to your account, product library, and use "hair" as your search filter and you should find this

    Hi Manstan, I have that zip file and in it is an exe file. When I execute that... where do I send it? When executing, I pointed the directory to Carrara in programme file location. The directions say:

    Notes from the artist:
    Hair Cap README Hair Cap for use in Carrara 6 Instructions ------------ Install Hair Cap to your Carrara folder and start Carrara. In Carrara content browser, you will find the items in: Content > Presets > Hair > DAZ (for the hair objects) Content > (Your Runtime) > Poses > DAZHairCap (for the fit presets)

    I can see the poses...they seemed to be in the right place, but I don't see anything in the Hair content file. Only my trusty PhilW Sidelong Hair seems to be living there. Or should I send them to the Carrara file up in Documents area which I have never used. All my Carrara content installed to the programme file when I installed Carrara. I used mostly DAZ content so it doesn't mess me up very often but these haircaps would be handy.

    Thanks... sorry to be thick on this.

    Cheers, SileneUK

    Post edited by SileneUK on
  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 37,712
    edited December 1969

    the hair caps are .car files so you should be able to just open or import them too
    your objects folder in documents is another possibility
    have you got files and folders hidden in program files by chance?

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,969
    edited July 2013

    Wendy, the zip file I got is an exe file.... it was part of the C-8 bundle when I bought the programme. I will go back and look at the C-8 content files and see if I can manually move that part over to the Beta folder which I use now, don't even look at C-8 much as the things I am working on will now not open in C-8. When I did the exe Haircaps file thingy to Beta, it only seemed to install the poses. Will let you know. Thanks! SileneUK

    ETA :

    WooHoo I found it over in C-8 under Hair, and copied to Beta, but it still won't show in Hair, so I moved it to MISC and the caps are there. Should be OK now. Whew! Thanks....I wonder what else from C-8 I can move over that I've missed? Need to do a tidy up here.

    Post edited by SileneUK on
  • ManStanManStan Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    The entire presets folder ;-)

  • edited December 1969

    Okay well I worked on this until I had to go to bed and nothing works. I haven't tried the hairpiece because I am confused by why I would need to do this for a native Carrara file that I purchased.

    To avoid confusion here is the problem in a nutshell:

    1. The dynamic desire hair does not show up unless it is conformed to the figure. When conformed it is not editable in any way. I can do nothing with it at all. The fit needs adjusting and nothing I do works.

    2. The file when opened by itself does not show in any view. A set of manipulator arrows shows in the center of the screen but nothing is there.

    3. The piece does not display in the modeling room unless it is conformed.

    If I could get it to display then I can fix the issue. There is no alpha channel for the hair object. Changing shaders does not help there.

    Help! Please... surely other people have invisible objects that have been made visible? Thank you in advance.

    I'll be out of town for the next 5 days so I'll check back and see what everybody has.

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