looking to do smooth weight mapping on a prop
it seems that it's not possible to use smooth weight mapping with a prop consisting of parented nodes .... by this i mean that the parts will stick together as they move, rather than breaking apart. .... but when i tried to get smooth weight mapping working on the prop, the pieces still move individually.
i wonder if the people are just using figures for this because most of the things that need smooth weight mapping are living figures with bones. if it's possible to do it with a prop, please let me know, since otherwise i'm going to have to spend hours converting each node into a bone, and then do the same thing over and over again for each new prop. i've tried before to simplify the process of converting a prop into a figure but it was such a tedious task that the last time i tried, i had to abandon it altogether and just stick with the prop.
i appreciate any help you can give.
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You'll have to convert your "prop consisting of parented nodes" to a figure with hierarchical bones.
First export your "prop consisting of parented nodes" as a .obj file and reimport it.
Select the imported file and go to Edit/Object/Rigging/Convert Prop To Figure. Choose General Weight Mapping.
Save your figure: Save As / Support Asset / Figure/Prop Assets.(A "Figure/Prop Assets Save Options" Window will open).
Give your figure an Asset Directory, Product Name, Item Name, Content Type in the Figure/Prop Assets Save Options Window.
Accept
Now your figure is ready for rigging and weight mapping.
Google for Tutorials about Daz Studio Rigging and Daz Studio Weight Mapping to learn more.
I wish you a good luck and a nice day!
so there's no way to do it with props? OK. i went ahead and transferred it to a figure since that seemed like the only way, but weight mapping doesn't seem to work properly with it, so i wonder if it's possible, even with a figure, that weight mapping won't work if it comes from separately parented nodes. i mean that the program still sees them as unbounded. if i need to start with a single mesh and then divide it into face groups within DAZ in order to get the weight mapping function to see them as connected, then my project is unviable and i'll have to just put it aside. i don't know this because i couldn't find a tutorial that started with parented nodes the way mine is, but i can't rule it out either .... could someone tell me please if it is possible to use weight mapping on a figure whose bones originate from separate meshes in a prop, rather than a single indivisible mesh? thank you
Do you want smoothing across 2 items that do not share any geometry? Then I can't see how that should be able to happen.
As long as it is a single triAx or Genral Weighting figure you can assign weight to joint modifiers, regardless of whether parts are welded together or not. Please findf some more details about the steps you are following when you try to rig the figure.
yes, it's an airplane model that i've downloaded from NASA and separated into pieces in Blender. I think it would be too difficult to import as a single mesh and then assign face groups within DAZ, and in particular I want to be able to make modifications of it, adding more segments for example, which is much easier to do with a parented set of nodes and difficult or impossible to do with a single mesh. (if there is a way i dont know how).
my idea was to paint the main mesh for each joint with 100%, the next joint with 80%, and the next with 60%, and so far i havent gone fruther than that. but when i do that the meshes still move as separate pieces.
if it's not possible to have pieces stick together when a weight map cross from one mesh to another, my project is not possible.
for example i get something like this:
Forget your "Parented nodes" and create hiercharchical child bones for each of the previous "parented nodes" from "parented nodes" Surfaces.
yes i've done that. the node view of it looks like an ordinary human figure now. but it still seems that each bone is associated with its original mesh and that they wont stick together when bent like an elastic figure would. i'm hoping it's possible to get this to work without needing to import the figure as a single undivided mesh from Blender because it would be much more difficult for me to subdivide the faces within DAZ, and also because i'd have to do it over and over again with each new airplane if i pursue this project and have multiple plane figures, whereas if I can keep it in Blender i can add and subtract pieces one by one.
Keep on trying to edit your figure(s) in Joint Editor Tool AND Weight Map Brush Tool until you get the best results.
Airplanes are all different and will need their own settings.
Wish you my best!
hmm, OK, i'm still hoping to hear a distinct yes or no answer though ... is it possible at all to get the meshes to stick together, or do i need to import the figure as a single mesh to begin with? because i can see how it makes sense this way .... since it seems even if i set the weight to 60% at the edges of both the main mesh and the adjacent mesh they're being "pulled" by their own meshes and not by the unit as a whole.
for example, if i set the 4th joint to 100% weight, and the 3rd and 5th joints to 80% weight, they still break apart at the discontinuity .... it would be nice if there was a way to get them to stick together ... to have DAZ believe that's a single indivisible mesh under the hood instead of always keeping the pieces separate. the only other way i could think of to do this is to have the vertices at the boundaries of the faces set to 90%, or some other intermediate value, but this doesnt seem possible to do with the Weight Map Editor ... the brush tool doesn't give me the fine control i'd need to make sure the adjacent vertices are exactly equal in weight ... i can only at best "get close". and that means the meshes will still break apart at the seams.
The weights need tio match if you want them to move as a unit, that is what they are (they control the percentage to which the mapped joint affects the vertex). Remember that for each vertex the total weights (for each axis if using triAx) must add up to 100% (unless you turen normalisation off, which can have weird results whgen posing). You can select vertices and see their weights in the Tool Settings pane.
If you want to add units one option might be to make the units, and the tail, parentable figures - you could then use these techniques to link back to master controllers on the root figure.
Well, as for your case, the answer is definitely No... you have to need a single mesh for setting up as a Figure + bones + weight mapping.
If you find the node weight brush tool in DS not perform really well for you, you can do the weight mapping in Blender with the exported figure (with Diffeo or FBX), then copy weight maps from imported source to target in DS.
if i'm reading this conversation right, people here disagree about whether or not DAZ can extend weight mappings across a figure that derives from a series of parented meshes. that suggests it's not a common task, and that even if i can get it to work, it may not work very well. however, importing a figure as a single mesh and then creating face groups inside DAZ is too difficult and time-consuming for me, so if that's what i need to do, i'll have to just abandon this project. perhaps a professional would do the entire project within Blender .... face groups, weight maps, and bones .... but i find Blender very frustrating to use, as so many actions that in DAZ are controlled by dials (and thus can be retuned or undone separately at any time) are permanent in Blender, and thus cannot be undone without undoing everything else that came after it, nor is there any record of how much a specific node was turned, etc to guide me towards fine-tuning it.
regarding the idea of getting the vertices at the borders of each mesh to match exactly so that they'll stick together .... again, if I'm reading you right .... that's occurred to me to, but I don't see any way to get it exactly right, since the Paintbrush tool just "guesses", and being close to correct is of no use to me, and while there is a Fill Selected .... option which allows explicit values, it seems to only work in certain contexts, which suggests there may be some sort of "of course you don't mean that" function built into it which prevents me from directly setting the weight map values of the vertices. It could be something that I'm missing. But it also seems that it's something that most people don't do, so again, I may have run out of people to ask for help. I'll have to consider whether this fun project is worth the effort or not. Thank you all.
Do you have a link to the model, assuming it is licensed for general use? Someone may be able to have a quick go to show how it might be done.
it seems that the meshes stick together when i use a D-Former, and if D-Formers use weight maps, maybe it's possible to get the meshes to stick together with weight maps one way or another. i could end up doing this flexible airplane project entirely using D-Formers, which i'd hoped to avoid because i will not only need dozens of them, but dozens of them re-made for each plane, since i can't expect that copying them will work if there are planes of different lengths, widths, etc.
although one difference between D-Formers and what Im used to is that D-Formers seem not to propagate their bends to the child nodes, so maybe it's not the same thing after all.
but, yes, a D-Former applied to the midsection of the plane allowed me to produce this, without even the slightest rip or tear at the mesh boundaries:
i picked the "DC-8 AFRC AIR 0824" model from this page:
https://airbornescience.nasa.gov/content/3D_Models_Gallery
They come as a fully textured model but without separate meshes for the wings, tail, or segments in the middle (because most people dont want to draw animal-like flexible airplanes).
I dont expect others to spend hours getting this to work for me, so only if it's really really that ridiculously point-and-clicl simple and i'm misisng something obvious would i expect anyone to take this model and produce a weight mapped version for me (with or without separate nodes). in which case i would love that.
edit: adding also that the formats given on the page require importing and exporting through Blender, unless there's a plugin for DAZ that takes care of that
i didnt see your post until after i'd already written my 11:00EST post above.
Why do you want the wings and tail seperate. For wings it is only the flaps you would want to move. I don't know what the moving parts of a tail is called.
And even if you want it to make weird bends, I would suggest rigging it as a whole.