Digital Art Zone

Hi, I created in LightWave3D a morph for the Shelby Cobra, and succesfully loaded it in DAZ using Morph Loader Pro.

But the movements of the morph’s slider are not recorded on the timeline!

Is it a bug? I’m using Daz 4.5

I’m not a animator but I’ll take a guess, did you set a keyframe for the un-morphed start and then another keyframe for the full morph?
Just a shot in the dark, I’m probably 100% off in my guess.

Yes, I did it:(

if the morph works, try memorizing the unmorphed shape and restoring it at the begining after doing the morphed shape further along the timeline.
funny thing in DS4, using only one morph, it tends to get “stuck” I run into this fattening up my figures along the timeline to expand Optitex dynamic cloth.

Tried this too, nothing to do:(

The morph is “stuck” at the last used value, no matter what you register: full figure or just the item:(

Do this, load your un morph injected figure and use it untill the morph starts. Turn that figure off and use the moprh injected figure from that point on

P.S. I’m not a Animator but I know this, it is always better to RENDER to FRAMES than to Render to a full animation. If anything goes wrong you just need to fix the bad frames and not the FULL animation. Most FREE Animation software will load the Frames and build a smooth animation file from them.

Hi MCMXC…

I’m sorry your having problems… but I have had no issues using morphs loaded from MLP on either the DS or Animate2 timelines on props or figures using 4.5

These are a my steps:

Load morph through MLP and test in parameters.

Set keyframe on timeline for un-morphed figure

Move ahead to frame where I want the max effect of the morph, dial up morph and set keyframe.

Move ahead to frame where I want to remove the effect of the morph, dial back to zero and set keyframe.

Finish off sequence and play back, render when satisfied.

The morph is “stuck” at the last used value, no matter what you register: full figure or just the item:(

Not sure what you mean by “stuck” ?

nicci…

> Do this, load your un morph injected figure and use it untill the morph starts. Turn that figure off and use the moprh injected figure from that point on

Yes, this may works for my situation, but… what if in the future I want to create something like a transformer?:(

> Not sure what you mean by “stuck” ?

Let’s make an example…

Imagine that I make a morph who transforms a car in a robot.

So, I go to frame 0 and register there the unmorphed car, with the morph slider set to 0%. I go on frame 50, apply the morph moving the slider to 100% and the car becames a robot, and I register the morph value on the timeline.

Now, if I came back to frame zero… there’s the morphed robot, and not the unmorphed car! The morph slider is still on 100% and not on 0% anymore! So, If I put back the slider to 0%, when I go to frame 50, it’s still at 0% and no more on 100%! If I put it again on 100%, again will be 100% too at frame 0…

That’s what I mean when I say that “morph slider is stuck at the last position used”:(

How did you zero the slider in frame 0? Alt-clicking clears animation data, or did in DS3 certainly. Try this:

Select the car
Go to frame 0
Click the Add keyframe button on the timeline (the key with a + in it)
Go to frame 50
Set the morph to 100%

Does that work? I suspect you don’t have a keyframe set at 0, so when you change the value at 50 it applies to the whole range.

Richard Haseltine - 02 September 2012 12:19 PM

How did you zero the slider in frame 0? Alt-clicking clears animation data, or did in DS3 certainly. Try this:

Select the car
Go to frame 0
Click the Add keyframe button on the timeline (the key with a + in it)
Go to frame 50
Set the morph to 100%

Does that work? I suspect you don’t have a keyframe set at 0, so when you change the value at 50 it applies to the whole range.

I set the keyframe at 0. Anyway I tried again with this… and nothing, nothing works at all:/

[EDIT]

Wait… something happened…

I tried to create a simple cube in Lightwave, then I made a “twisted” version of it… I created the morph with MLP, and this time the record on timeline is working!!!! I really don’t know why it’s not working with the Shelby…

Looks like the problem is in the export/import!

I mean… if I import in DAZ Studio an object and its morphed version, both made in Lightwave, the MLP morph slider is in “%” and the record on the Timeline works.

If I take a model of DAZ, I export it in OBJ, I load it in Lightwave and create a morphed version, I export it in OBJ, I use MLP in DAZ to create the morph, then the morph will work BUT the morph slider will not be in “%” and the changes will not be recorded on the Timeline!

Any ideas of what is going wrong?:(

EDIT: Your post just beat me. It must be the morph file.

I just tested a character morph using Genesis and the DS timeline. Started with the basic gene key framed at 0 with no morph then moved to frame 30 and set Mr Hyde to 100% and key framed it. Worked like a charm. I then opened Animate Lite and added a walk sequence to the animate timeline. That still worked, gene started as a normal genesis and ended as Mr. Hyde. I then Baked the Animate to the DS timeline and it stayed the same.

I can not understand what is happening to you. I can not get the results your seeing. I did try. Sorry but I have no ideas as to what is wrong.

The difference between percent and value (0-1) is just presentation, it shouldn’t matter for anything else (and you can change it by clicking the little gear on the slider and going to the settings). As I understand it, a morph n a figure isn’t recording but a morph on a single node object is - is that right?

Maybe you could try this. Create your morph form in LW and save. Then load it into HEXAGON and save again. Then use the DS Hex Bridge to import the morph. That might fix the issue, I have not tried this but it might fix the morph.

> As I understand it, a morph n a figure isn’t recording but a morph on a single node object is - is that right?

I tried now with a simple chair prop: I exported it in Lightwave, I exported back the morphed prop in DAZ and… yes, it worked! Works only with objects with a single node!

> Then load it into HEXAGON and save again

...the fact is that… I’m using Lightwave not only because it’s my favourite modeler, but mostly because I have no other choice: as I wrote in another post, since I bought this new PC Hexagon refuses to work! Crashes while loading, and many “Uninstall/Install Again” tries didn’t fix it:(

I’m sorry but I never saw that other post. I did not know Hexagon would not run. With the news you can not use Hex I would like to ask what System you are on, PC or Mac, and what OS you are using, Win7 or Lion??. It would also help if we knew what the bit format is 32bit or 64bit. I may not be much help, and I’m only reading this one thread and trying to help with this issue. I think more information might give us and idea what is causing the problem you are having.