Please Tell Me about "Beautiful Bends M4"

inquire

The product is here: http://www.daz3d.com/people/beautiful-bends-m4

I've never used magnets. Will this make M4 into something of a weight-mapped M4? That is, will M4 move and bend more naturally?

Can I use the M4 ++ morphs with the Beautiful Bends? How about other morphs such as the Elite or Muscle Morphs? What happens if it's a special M4 character which has maybe some Z-Brush added shapes or morphs?

One big set of questions: I sometimes, either in DAZStudio or in Poser, turn limits off to get an extreme pose such as one that a wrestler or an acrobat could get into. Could I still do this? Also, sometimes I use the Morph Brush in Poser to smooth out or change the mesh if it bulges or creases or looks odd in an extreme pose. Could I still do this? And also, if I decide to try joint editing or weight mapping of a joint, could I still do this?

The add says: "Since the magnets are linked via ERC to joint movements, there's no need to manually adjust dials. Just load him into your scene and inject the morphs you want to use. Apply conforming clothing, pose him then render." Can I also inject the M4++ morphs, either before or after the magnets?

He comes with 25 poses, but I'm guessing I could use any of the other M4 poses. Correct? Or might this cause some problems? I'm guessing I could also apply IK, and move and turn the character to create my own poses. Correct?

It says that "This means conforming clothing will also be adjusted, following the new shape of his bends as you move body parts (feet, shin, thighs, abdomen, chest, collar, shoulders, elbows, neck and head)." OK, that sounds good. So the conforming clothing should still conform and move, even with these new magnets. Correct?

And: "Since the magnets are linked via ERC to joint movements, there's no need to manually adjust dials." Sound even better. Oh, I said that above. Well, no harm in asking again. This would be a biggie for me. No need to manually adjust the dials, then. Correct?

I'm hoping this would mean something much like a weight-mapped M4, a more naturally bending, fluid, M4. But please help me understand this. I'm not trying to criticize the product at all. It looks very promising. I just do not get it. Please help.

wowie

The old rigging is still intact and were not change at all.

What I did is simply make shape corrections to the figure so he poses better. Generally it is done via morphs, but I wanted a way to have clothing follow the shape, so I used magnets instead. Transfering JCMs to every clothing would've been too much work (and I don't use dynamic clothing). There are some limitations to the what kind of pose you can use, but I think this is also true for weight mapped figures. Just like any figure, you can apply your own poses.

You can use M4 Morphs++, but I can't guarantee 100% compatibility with every morph available out there. I've done some tests with M4 Morphs++, Hiro and Freak 4. Some FBM morphs like Heavy, Jeremy, Emaciated and Beer Belly may cause some distortions in the collars and knees, so I recommend not using more than 0.5 value for them. Another example - the base Hiro 4 have problems due to the shape of the elbows, shoulders and knees, but oddly enough, the others (Built etc) generally works OK. Freak 4 have some rather extreme shapes, so it's not compatible with BB M4.

You can turn off limits if you like, but some of the limbs limits have already been changed. Extreme poses will likely still break the mesh, but you still can use the Morph Brush tool if you like (or make adjustments thru a modeler app). I haven't tried converting any legacy rigged figures to weight mapping, but from what I've seen, the magnets will still be active when converted. If you like, you can send me some poses you'd like to see and I'll render them for you.

The magnets are embedded into the CR2. So there's no need to load them separately. You use BB M4 just like any other figure. Load, inject M4 Base morphs and Morphs++, pose and render. If you have clothing, just load it like usual, conform it to the figure, run the magnetize script (in DS there's the option to do this automatically). That's it.

wowie

Here's some viewport renders, I quickly took awhile ago. You can definitely see there's quite a bit difference in the collars and elbows.

wowie

Two more with Joequick's M4 Mach bodysuit. At default, there's some pokethrough after magnetizing. So I dialed up the suit's Bulk morph to 0.1 to make that disappear..

wowie

From M4's included poses - M4 009. First is default M4, below BB M4. You can see differences on the thighs/knees as well. The bodysuit is still set at Bulk 0.1 and still conforms to the figure.

wowie

Pose 005. I remove the skin textures so the changes stand out a bit.

inquire

OK, well thank you very much for the explanations and for the image renders.