Seeking help to create an object with morphs

rafflone_07524b8160

Hello!

Firstly thank you for taking time to look at my thread.

I'm seeking direction for creating objects with morphs or editing objects by adding morphs such as accessories or props. 

Is this possible?
Which program would be best to do this in? I have access to zbrush and blender.
What is the best or know work flow for doing this?

If this isn't possible can I make an object with moving parts?

- Thank you

Inkubo

If I understand your message correctly, it seems like you want to add new items, not morphs. (A morph just reshapes an existing mesh; it doesn't add accessories or props.)

Assuming I do understand, then you're looking to create stuff in Blender or ZBrush, import it into DAZ Studio, and possibly rig it. I can't tell you which program is better (because I've never used ZBrush) but if you do go with Blender, I can recommend a tutorial:  I bought V3Digitimes' Easy Modeling and Morphing with Blender, and I am tremendously happy with it. There is a video presentation I've never watched plus the same content in a PDF file so you can find what you're looking for quickly or work through the book at your own pace. I followed her instructions for creating import and export presets, and now I'm creating tons of stuff for DAZ Studio in Blender.

I'm not into rigging yet, and in fact I could use a good tutorial myself. I need to rig a spinner, which works like a fan or the wheel of an automobile. My first attempt failed, and I've had other things to concentrate on since then. Perhaps someone can give us both good advice on tutorials for rigging.

rafflone_07524b8160

Well to be more clear on my ambitions I'm intrested in making a morphable mask that covers the whole face of the character. So an object with morphs is ideal.

Or, a face mask with moving parts, so I suppose that would be a rigged figure.

Inkubo

I see. I think that tutorial I mentioned would be ideal, because it will show you how to export a figure for reference, create your mask, import the new object into DS, and finally make morphs for it. A big part of getting it to look right will be UV mapping, which V3Digitimes' tutorial also shows, but I don't remember how in-depth that part was.

If you want to add actual moving parts (I'm envisioning a set of jeweler's lenses or a high-tech sniper headset), those parts will probably need to be rigged with help from other tutorials.

SixDs

I believe the best way to look at morphs versus rigging is to look at real world analogies. For example, a door is a hard-bodied object in the real world that moves in a very prescribed way, rotating on hinges. The door simply changes its relative position without changing its shape. So rigging would be the way to go there. Another hard-bodied item would be a human skeleton, that moves by hinging or swiveling on fixed joints, so rigging is used there as well. Of course, in the latter instance, the rigid skeleton is surrounded by soft-bodied flesh and muscle, so Joint Controlled Morphs (JCMs) or weight mapping are often used in conjunction with rigging to emulate how the flesh responds to joint movement. Regular morphs would be used to reflect movement of soft-bodied objects in response to the environment. The choice between rigging versus morphs often comes down to what you are most confortable with, but as a rule of thumb morphing lends itself to soft bodies and rigging lends itself to hard bodies.

Now, for how either is done, that is another matter. Rigging from scratch in DAZ Studio can be a bit daunting and I can attest to this from having tried it myself. I would suggest that legacy rigging is what you are after, rather than weight-mapped rigging which is a little more complicated, if you are creating mostly inanimate stuff.

A good place to start would be to read through the documentation available here on the DAZ site:

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/creating_content/rigging/tutorials/basic_rigging_preparation/start , and

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/creating_content/rigging/tutorials/adding_bones_for_rigging/start

If you don't want to weight map your object, you should be able to simply leapfrog that part.

Insofar as morphs are concerned, you would first create your object, such as the mask, in Zbrush, then import it into DAZ Studio prior to creating your morphs. You would probably want to import an object of your base figure that you intended the mask to fit into Zbrush as well so that it would be fit properly when you first create it. Once you have your original imported into DAZ studio, then you could export it back to Zbrush again to create whatever morphs you wanted and import it once again back into DAZ Studio, only this time as a morph of the original. Thus you now have your original with a morph that can be applied. If you wished the mask to morph with the character that you were applying it to, that is a little different and would involve transferring morphs or rigging from the character to the object, which is done in DAZ Studio. For the latter, you might read over TheSchell's tutorial in the following thread over at Dreamslayers:

http://www.dreamslayerartworks.com/vB3/showthread.php?8640-Step-by-Step-Daz-Studio-4.5-Conforming-Items-Tutorial