How to run a drape animation on a dynamic V4 sash prop?
joea64_bdfaa5ca94
Posts: 298
Chohole suggested I come back over here and ask as to how to run drape animations on dynamic props in Daz Studio. I'm trying to get a shoulder sash that will work with V4, and it was recommended to me that I use the free Miss Digital Creations item from MostDigitalCreations (http://www.most-digital-creations.com/free_poser_poses_textures_morphs_props_7.htm). My attempt to use the prop didn't work out very well, as I recounted in this post: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/371169/ . Since this item is a dynamic prop, I apparently need to learn how to use drape animations on it to get it to conform properly to the V4 figure. So - how do I do that?
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I'm afraid that's Poser dynamic only -- DS and Poser have different, incompatible dynamic cloth implementations.
Ah, sorry, I hadn't realised it was a poser prop. I do apologise.
Well, that's all right - the wording on the item page seemed to imply that it would work in Daz too. Back to square one, then - I'm going to keep my request for someone to work up a V4 shoulder sash open over in Freebie Requests. I've been trying to get a decent V4 sash since February now. :( Can't do a decent V4 royalty render, at least not dressed up the way I want, without a good shoulder sash that conforms properly.
Well, that's all right - the wording on the item page seemed to imply that it would work in Daz too. Back to square one, then - I'm going to keep my request for someone to work up a V4 shoulder sash open over in Freebie Requests. I've been trying to get a decent V4 sash since February now. :( Can't do a decent V4 royalty render, at least not dressed up the way I want, without a good shoulder sash that conforms properly.
Some of my products have sashes. If it doesn't comforms to the character you can always place around the area of the mesh you want it to collide and add the groups to the "collide with" list.
http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-supersuit-set-4-hero-accessories
http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-supersuit-set-3-the-mystics
http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-tunic-and-sashes
Some of my products have sashes. If it doesn't comforms to the character you can always place around the area of the mesh you want it to collide and add the groups to the "collide with" list.
http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-supersuit-set-4-hero-accessories
http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-supersuit-set-3-the-mystics
http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-tunic-and-sashes
Thank you, but I'm afraid those are the wrong kind of sashes. Those are waist sashes. I'm talking about the kind of sash that drapes from the shoulder to the hip, as seen in the promo images for Pageant Gear, http://www.daz3d.com/pageant-gear. Unless the sashes in your product can be altered so as to drape from the shoulder to the hip instead of around the waist - and I don't have that kind of skill, I don't think - I can't use them.
Check some of the Draagonstorm products and the Optitex page is also full of freebees you might be able to alter for your purpose.
okay joe, I have been playing around with the P4 sash to see what can be done with getting your dream sash. Unfortunately, I can not do this for you. The readme says we have to have prior permission to redistribute the mesh. There are many ways to do this. This is what I found worked for me.
First you will need Hexagon, a copy of the Victoria 4 object mesh and a copy of the sash obj. You can find Hex here:
http://www.daz3d.com/hexagon-2-5-download-version/ Unfortunately if you did not get is when it was free you will have to pay for it now. Sorry. (When did that happen?) I highly recommend getting it. You are going to need something like this in the future and the price is really reasonable.
Victoria 4 obj is located in the Runtime/Geometries/DAZPeople folder and is called - blMilWom_v4b.obj. The Runtime folder is located in the same directory as your DAZ content folders are located (My Content).
Open up Hex and import the sash. In the scene tab you will select all three of the objects. Go to the Vertex modeling tab and look for the symmetry tool. You can run your cursor over each of the options under the tab. Click on the symmetry tool. You will now see in the properties box Clone and Clone Off buttons. Click on clone off and move your cursor until the blue plane is in the middle of the sash object and click again. You now have a sash that goes over the right shoulder and ties on the left hip. Delete the original sash object. Save the new object as an obj.
Now open up a new scene in Hex and load in the Victoria obj Load in the sash and do the following changes in the Properties box.
With the sash selected. Click on the box to Keep ratio. In the red box on the Size row enter the value 0.171. On the position row enter the following values: Red box 0.020, green box 0.495 and blue box 0.001. This should position the sash over Victoria's body. If you want to tweek the positions you can. When you are done delete out all of Victoria leaving only the sash. Save the sash out as an obj.
Create a new scene in DAZ Studio. Bring in Victoria and convert her to triax weighting by selecting her in the scene. On the Scene tab look for the arrow and four lines. Upper right hand corner of the scene tab. Click on this box and go to Edit -> Convert figure to Weight Mapping -> Triax mapping. Click accept. Import the new sash obj file using Poser as the selection on the from line. Click on accept. Select the sash obj in the scene tab and go to the arrow and four lines box and this time go to Assets -> Transfer Utility. Once the form opens then in the source select Victoria and target select sash. Click accept.
Under tool settings select Joint Editor as your active tool. Under the Scene tab select Victoria and the sash. In the view window, the window where you can see Victoria and the sash click right and select Edit -> Transfer Rigging (Figure Space). Selecting only the sash click on the Tool Settings (Joint Editor) and confirm that all of the position values are greyed out.
Remove Victoria from you scene. Select under File -> Save As -> SupportAsset -> Figure/Prop Assets. Give your new sash a name and a place where you will be able to get to it. I just used the default settings when the form comes up. Hit accept.
You now have a conforming sash, with bow, that goes from the right shoulder to the left hip. This sash will work with the un-weighted Victoria. The picture below has the sash fitted to an un weighted Victoria.
So I was not able to get the sash just perfect as you can see in the picture so with d-forms I can push and pull the sash to fine tune the sash. If you want directions on how to use d-formers then we can talk about that after you have tried the conversion.
Hope this helps you with your dilemma! Oh and I have other ideas if you can't get this one to work out for you.
can the M4 prince sash be used conformed to V4 with collision enabled maybe?
if you are in Platinum club only 1.99 http://www.daz3d.com/fairytale-prince-for-m4-and-h4
not on my computer or would try.
Thanks, Dollygirl. By good luck, I do have Hexagon 2.5 downloaded and installed. I'll read the directions over and try the procedure you outlined later today or this weekend. It reads out as rather complicated at first glance, so I may have to go through the procedure a couple of times to get it right.
I agree. It is simple when you get through after the first time. Just take each sentence one at a time. Don't hesitate to ask questions. If you have installed the user manual for Hex then on page 79 of the pdf manual is a section discussing the symmetry tool with a small video clip that shows you how to use the tool. I also used the following tutorial from Sharecg to help with the rigging.
http://www.sharecg.com/v/61954/browse/3/PDF-Tutorial/DS4-TutorialRigging-High-Heels-for-Genesis-rev1
I agree. It is simple when you get through after the first time. Just take each sentence one at a time. Don't hesitate to ask questions. If you have installed the user manual for Hex then on page 79 of the pdf manual is a section discussing the symmetry tool with a small video clip that shows you how to use the tool. I also used the following tutorial from Sharecg to help with the rigging.
http://www.sharecg.com/v/61954/browse/3/PDF-Tutorial/DS4-TutorialRigging-High-Heels-for-Genesis-rev1
I'm in the process of creating the new sash object in Hexagon now. So far, so good, I successfully flipped the sash and am now fitting the new object onto the base V4 figure in Hex. I noticed something, though; when I entered the position value as 0.001 as per your instructions, the abdomen portion of the sash got hidden in Victoria's abdomen. When I reverted to the original value of 0.008, the sash fitted more properly. I don't know how to rotate in Hexagon so I can't get a look at the back.
EDIT: I found the tool to get the various views. The problem is that at 0.001 blue in Position, the abdomen portion of the sash is partially hidden in Vicky's stomach, while the back shoulder portion of the sash looks right. When I set it to 0.008, it's reversed. Tweaking to see if I can get a balance on both sides.
EDIT 2: I decided to boost the size a bit, to 0.179, and tweaked the positions to 0.020 red, 0.490 green. 0.004 blue. This appears to produce the result I want where the sash comes out right on both sides. I'm going to go to the Daz phase now and see what happens.
I'm in the process of creating the new sash object in Hexagon now. So far, so good, I successfully flipped the sash and am now fitting the new object onto the base V4 figure in Hex. I noticed something, though; when I entered the position value as 0.001 as per your instructions, the abdomen portion of the sash got hidden in Victoria's abdomen. When I reverted to the original value of 0.008, the sash fitted more properly. I don't know how to rotate in Hexagon so I can't get a look at the back.
If you look down at the bottom of the Hex main window there is a small blue arrow below that are four icons by themselves. The second icon is the rotate scene icon. Left click on the icon and drag the mouse. Good glad it is working for you. I consider my numbers as there abouts. I like that you are tweeking!
I've completed the process of importing the sash into Daz (when I completed the process you outlined, it saved as a .duf file; is that how it's supposed to be?) and am now trying to get it to fit on a V4 figure dressed in a gown - that's what I want the sash for, you see; it's supposed to be an accessory for formal V4 gowns to replicate the sashes that many queens, princesses and such wear on formal occasions. I'm using the free The Belle Epoch gown for my testbed. I'm having problems with pokethrough and getting the sash to come out right on front and back; I'll take some test renders in a few minutes so you can see where I'm at so far.
EDIT: I'm an idiot. I forgot to fit the sash to Victoria. :P I'm going to reload the test figure and sash and start over from there.
Okay. I think now we are ready for the next step. When you get your renders done I will show you how to fix such things.
I'm going to go ahead and show you some renders of the testbed figure with the sash (properly fitted to V4 this time!) before I do any tweaking so that you can show me where to go from here. Front, rear and left/right side views. As you can see the main areas needing adjustment are at the right shoulder/collar and down on the left hip/lower left abdomen. The gown used for the test figure is the free Belle Epoch gown; I intend to eventually use the sash with many other formal modern and historical gowns, but Belle Epoch will do very well for a test bed since you can get it quickly from ShareCG if needed to run your own tests.
P.S. I have to run out quickly to do an errand but I'll be back within half an hour so I'll pick up from whatever you show me.
Back. I've tried fiddling around with the sash to see what adjustments I can make before you show me your own way to do it, but I've noticed something odd; when I fit the sash to V4, the "scale" morph seems to disappear from the Parameters menu. Maybe I ought to do the adjustments before I fit the sash to Victoria?
EDIT: I've tried unfitting the sash, but the "scale" morphs won't come back. I'm afraid I might have made some kind of mistake somewherei in either the Hexagon process or the DS sequence. Should I start over? I'm sure I followed all the directions the first time but I wonder if I missed something somewhere, because I really don't think the scale morphs are supposed to vanish once you fit the sash to V4.
That is normal because scale is now driven by V4 instead of the sash. When you say fit what you are telling DAZ is that all of the translation options of the sash are to be relative to V4. Since DAZ knows this it does not allow you to use the translation tools to reposition the sash. That is why I had you do your tweeking in Hex to get the sash as close as possible to the correct position.
Give me a bit to get organized I have to install Jan's dress then I will be ready to help you with the next steps.
Hi I see you've got good help for the Sash and you learned something
You're not far. From there you can try to add a smoothing modifier to the Sash in the scene Tab (Display pane option -> Edit -> Apply smoothing modifier)
Then in parameter Tab -> Mesh smoothing -> collision with (select the gown) and adjust collision iteration and smoothing iteration until satisfied (5 and 5 should be enough)
That is normal because scale is now driven by V4 instead of the sash. When you say fit what you are telling DAZ is that all of the translation options of the sash are to be relative to V4. Since DAZ knows this it does not allow you to use the translation tools to reposition the sash. That is why I had you do your tweeking in Hex to get the sash as close as possible to the correct position.
Give me a bit to get organized I have to install Jan's dress then I will be ready to help you with the next steps.
OK, I'll just load the sash fresh then and wait on you. I wonder if I might have to go back to Hexagon anyway and tweak the sash to make it a bit larger so that it fits over the gown (and other gowns that I'll use later) better.
I've gone back into Hexagon and made another sash .obj, making it a bit larger this time so that it should fit gowns easier (I boosted the size to 0.200 and tweaked the positions a bit so that they shouldn't collide so much with a gown when loaded). Going to set it up in Daz now.
EDIT: I did the right thing by re-doing the sash to make it larger. It looks MUCH better now, though it still needs tweaking at the collar and hip areas to make it come out just right and fit it more snugly to the figure's/gown's contours. This is how the new version looks (NOT fitted to Victoria yet):
Takeo made a suggestion of turning on smoothing. This suggestion works for weighted objects so I tried it on my sash but it broke the sash into six parts when I did that. So to use his excellent suggestion we need to fix the mesh.
To do this
Open up Hex and import the obj you made for the import into DAZ.
Go to the Vertex modeling tab
In the scene box select all of the elements of the sash.
Click on the Weld icon
Save out as an obj.
Perform the same steps as before to transfer bones, align with Victoria and create your duf files.
One more thing to do. Select the sash in the scene, go to the arrow and four lines button select edit -> Apply Smoothing Modifier Select the dress you want the sash to collide with.
The default numbers for collisions and iterations worked just fine.
Looks like you are about to leave the nest. So glad I could help you. You can use d-formers to even do more fine tuning. If you want to know how just give a shout out on this thread and hopefully I will get notification and can help you with that.
I'll give it a whack tomorrow and see how it all goes. (Having had a few beers, I might end up putting the sash on Victoria's head if I attempted it now! :P ) I'll let you know how it goes, with screenshots.
I worked up the sash this morning following your directions for making it smoothing-capable. This is the result, after I put together a demonstration figure. As you can see, applying the smoothing modifier worked quite well, and there's no significant pokethrough or hidden parts. I think the main thing I still need to do here is to get the sash to fit more closely to Lady Victoria's curves. I didn't see any D-form morphs in Parameters, but maybe I need to turn them on or something?
I have a number of "base" figures that I created with various gowns (to make it easier to get started for future projects), so I think what I should do is apply the new sash to some of these different gowns as I'm going to need to fit them to each gown in turn and it'll be easier to do that for a template figure than have to re-do it every time I create such a figure.
Before I forget, thanks for handholding me through this process! :D
joe,
Looks good. I have setup this entry up so that the actions are bolded and my lecturing is not.
D-former is a tool that DAZ Studio provides to allow the artist to do small position changes to a set of polygons in the mesh. So I am going to walk you through the use of the deformer tool but this will not make the sash look the way you want. You will probably end up with multiple d-formers because of the size of the area and the fact that you want to push the mesh in from more than one direction.
Under Window -> Panes (Tabs) you will find Dform. You want to click on this.
This form gives you access to create and manipulate the d-formers you want to work with. Manipulation includes changing the distribution of intensity of the d-former, removing points of influence and spawning the morph from the set of d-formers. The second way to access a d-former is from Create -> New D-Former.
Select the object in the scene tab and add a d-former
It is just not anywhere on the list of the object but where the geometry has been assigned to it. Usually this is the top of the tree but there can be other nodes that have geometry. I am sure there are ways to know exactly where the geometry assignments have been made but I just click on what I think would be the most likely and if I am wrong I try another node. So if I wanted to make changes to the hip area then I would select the hip and see if I can create a d-former there. DAZ will tell me if I guessed wrong. If I did then I would move up the tree to the next node and try again.
Click on the Create New... button in the form or go to Create -> New D-Former. Name it anything you want. I just use the default name DAZ provides.
This adds the d-former. It is a set of elements in your scene that has Parameters associated with them. The d-former comes in three parts, the field, the base and the d-former. Named with your selected name and field and base added to the field and base elements.
To see your d-former you need to highlight the d-former field element.
I have attached a view of the sash with one d-former created and the field element highlighted. Each element of the d-former can be scaled, positioned and rotated using the Parameters tab. What you see in the picture is the scale of the d-former, that is the set of red line circles. The area of influence, that are the red, orange and yellow dots. The base, which looks like a bulls eye. The d-former which looks like half a sphere with a cylinder running through the middle of it.
As you can see from the picture that my area of influence is both the front and back of the sash. If I moved the d-former in the positive z translation the front of the sash would move away from V4's body and the back would move into V4's body. I know this because of the dots. All dots move the same relative distance. I also know that my z translation is stronger around the bow where the red and orange dots are located and that at the shoulder of the sash there would be no movement because there are no dots there.
Select D-Former_1 from Scene, go to Parameters tab and change z translate to 23.
You can d-form the mesh quite a bit. You can change what and how the mesh changes by moving in all three directions and scaling the Field. You can make little bitty changes or you can make large changes.
Create another d-former. Using the translation tools on the Parameters tab for the second d-former field move the field a little more to the left and front of the first d-former.
By adding the second deformer we can play off on the d-formers by keeping the influence similar but just a little bit different. I told you to put the second deformer a little in front and to the left. I did that because if you look at my before and after pictures you can see that my sash is further away from V4 body in the back and right side. So I want my d-formers to help me pull more away from the original position and get closer to the body. You may find on your sash/dress that the second d-former should be positioned slightly differently to get the affect you want.
Selecting one, D-Former_1 or D-Former_2, make small changes. For my example I moved the d-former in the x and z translations only. Below is listed my final positions.
Select the other D-Former and adjust. You will end up going back and forth until you get what you want.
D-former_1
x -0.92
y o
z 3.99
Field
x 1.32
y 103.92
z -11.80
D-former_2
x -5.00
y 0.00
z -1.51
Field
x 1.40
y 104.0
z 13.64
From this point you now have the object pushed and prodded into what you want it to look like. You can save the scene and DAZ will faithfully keep your work all in place. But the DForm form gives you the option to create a Morph from all of the d-forms you have created. That is the bad part you don't get to pick which d-forms go into the morph it is all of them associated with the geometry that you have been working on. So if you created 14 d-forms then all 14 will be in the morph and DAZ will create one morph that calculates the results of changing the d-formers by the percentage you choose on the morph slide bar and makes the changes. Your morph is on the element, in our case sash, that the assigned geometry is. You will see a new subheading called Morphs. DAZ creates the morph using the current settings of your d-former as the 100% mark. There are things that you can do to control how much changing you will allow when the morph is applied. I am not going to go into setting the limits and such.
Select the object.
on the Dform form check all three boxes, Create Root Control Parameter, Delete Applied D-Formers(s) and Apply Spawned Morph
Click on Spawn Morph....
Give your Morph a name and click on Accept
You now have a morph. If you want the morph to be with the sash then you will have to
remove everything but the sash from your scene and then
Go to File -> Save As -> SupportAsset -> Figure/Prop Assets...
Save the sash file
There you go joe. You have now completed your first conforming clothing article, with rigging and morphs. This method is just one of many ways to do this stuff and there are just a bunch more actions you can do to the object like uv mapping, creating material zones and such that we have not discussed but hopefully your project will not be road blocked by that. I hope I have helped and welcome to the wonderful world of 3D.