Creating morph dials for character distribution

infinitetofu

I've found some tutorials on this, but the information is either outdated or missing something. I need to create dials (full body;head;body) for my character.

Here is my method:

I load up my character with her shape preset. I set resolution to base, sub to 0.

I export the morph as obj

I zero my character out. Load the morph, dial up the morph to 100. Adjust joint rigging.

I open edit mode, create new property for the morph. I choose the actor/people/real world path

I go to actor/people/real world and find my morph. Dial it up to 100. Nothing happens. Fine, I ERC Freeze.

I close edit mode. I zero out the character. I save the morph as an asset. I save it to where I keep all my character stuff, in My Library.

I copy and paste the data folder from My Library to My Daz 3D Library.

I open up Daz, load G3F, find my morph, dial it up and nothing happens.

 

Can anybody tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Richard Haseltine

You seem to be mixing two methods. What morphs are you using to create the shape - only products which are sold as Merchant resources sets may be used to spawn new shapes via loading a new OBJ, and even then there may be additional restrictions on what you can do.

infinitetofu

I'm just using Daz shapes (from the 7 series, head and body) and a merchant resource I've used before. So what is the correct method? This is the only thing holding up my product and I'm pulling my hair out over it!

Richard Haseltine

infinitetofu said:

I'm just using Daz shapes (from the 7 series, head and body) and a merchant resource I've used before. So what is the correct method? This is the only thing holding up my product and I'm pulling my hair out over it!

The Daz shapes are not merchant resources so you can't use the bake to a single morph method (and wouldn't want to as many of the Daz shapes use correction morphs that should be applied as other morphs or transforms are turned up, which would be lost in baking).

Either save a Shaping preset to apply your shape or, if you really want a single slider, set the shape, create a new property as in your steps above, set the new property to 1 (or 100%), right-click on the nwe property and select ERC Freeze. Save the new property. Copy the created folder and files - e.g. \Data\Daz 3D\Genesis 3\Female\Morphs\Author\Product (where Author and product are the values from the Morph Asset save options dialogue). Either preset or control property will give something you can share and which people with the morph sets used can then apply to get the shape you made.

infinitetofu

Hi Richard, thanks! I tried the method you outlined above and it didn't seem to work. Here's what I did: I saved a character preset of my shape, went into edit mode, created a new property and put it in the appropriate category, dialed the property up all the way and did ERC freeze. I dialed the property back down to zero and saved the morph asset. I actually have DAZ loaded onto my E drive and I work off of My Library for this character, but that's in my C drive, so I have to save it there and then copy and paste into my E drive or My Daz 3d library. Anyway, when I went to My daz 3d library to check the dial, it was there, but it didn't do anything to g3f. Under currently used, it's dialed up to 1.0, but again, no change in the shape.

Also, how the heck do you get that icon next to the dial? I know what dimensions, it has to be (147x185), but does the background have to be white or transparent and does the file need to be loaded from a specific location?

Richard Haseltine

Did you have the shape set when you ddi the ERC Freeze? the operation is tying all of the changed parameters to the one you select as controller so the changes have to be in effect for itt o do anything.

You can set the cotnent directory to be used at the top of the options dialogue when saving the morph asset - though ti will function if it is in a different content directory from the rest of the figure (I always advise putting all your files - textures, new assets, and user fiels - in an otherwise empty content directory so that you can quickly bundle them up for distribution without having to search them out among the other files and rebuild the folder tree.

barbult

That's a smart tip about the empty directory, Richard.

infinitetofu

Yeah, I had the shape set. I loaded the shape, created the property and then went right to the created property and did the ERC freeze. Maybe I shouldn't have dialed it back down to zero after ERC freeze and before I saved it as an asset? Maybe I didn't even select the shape. Do I right click on G3F (with shape applied) in parameters tab and then create new property?

Richard Haseltine

Yes, right-click with the Genesis 3 Female figure selected, create new property, right-click, ERC Freeze, make sure the shaping morphs are listed at the bottom of the pane and the new property is selected at the top, make sure the slider iss etting the morph on and off, zero the new morph, save as morph asset, make sure you have the new morph (only) selected in the options dialogue.

infinitetofu

Richard, thanks for your help. I got help from a very generous vendor at Rendo who walked me through it all and it turned out that the data on my shape was corrupted. I found this out when I redialed everything on a fresh g3f and the shapes didn't match up. It was the height dial, incidentally. Everything is hunky dory now!

Richard Haseltine

Glad to hear it.