How do I select only the wheels on my imported model?

apex

I'm trying to use surface sele tion to chose my wheels which are joined to my model that I imported in obj. Format and then the idea is to have those wheels rotate.

Richard Haseltine

In Daz Studio? You would need to turn the item into a figure, then create a bone for the wheels (or bones if there are more than one set) and assign weights. Not hard, but severals teps. Is the base model a freebie? If so please provide a link.

Petercat

I would like to do something like that with this car, to give it a different color and use it as an ordinary sedan, but it's all one piece!http://www.daz3d.com/city-ruins-vehicles

I've also got a couple of older muscle cars that are locked into one pose, but I can't remember where I got them. At least I can change the colors there!

And the only problem that I have with this one is that too many things are tied together, if I make one taillight emissive red, all marker lights become emissive red!http://www.daz3d.com/sports-car-morriss

Richard Haseltine

Petercat said:

And the only problem that I have with this one is that too many things are tied together, if I make one taillight emissive red, all marker lights become emissive red!http://www.daz3d.com/sports-car-morriss

That you can fix using the Geometry Editor tool - use the marquee mode to seelct the light you want, not worrying if you catch other parts, then in the Tool Setings pane click the - next to any surfaces (such as the bodywork) that you don't want to include. Then right-click Geometry Assignment>Create Surface From Selected and apply your emissive shader to that new surface.

apex

Richard Haseltine said:

In Daz Studio? You would need to turn the item into a figure, then create a bone for the wheels (or bones if there are more than one set) and assign weights. Not hard, but severals teps. Is the base model a freebie? If so please provide a link.

@Richard Haseltine 

Its not a freebie I imported the model in obj. format and I want to only select the wheel part of the model with the selector 

 

Richard Haseltine

1. The first thing to do is open the Tool Settings pane (if it isn't) and see if there are already Face Groups for the wheels - if there are click the + next to the group name and see what is selected.  If that is workable go to 7
2. Failing that, if there are surfaces for the wheels but not face groups select the surfaces using the + next to the surface name and go to 5
3. In the absence of useful grouping by surface or face group, you will need to select the wheels yourself to create groups - try clicking on a wheel with the mouse, then hold down ctrl(Windows)/cmd(Mac) and press the * key - that will select all connected polygons. If that lets you select a whole wheel skip to 5
4. If that still hasn't got the wheel then you are going to have to use the selection tool to manually select the wheels - it's probably going to be simplest done in segments.
5. Once you have some or all of the wheel selected right-click and select Geometry Assignment>Create Face Group from Selected and name it Wheel (or Wheel1 ot whatever). If you are having to select in bits, now select some more wheel polygons and right-click, Geometry Assignment>Assign to Face group>Name of your group
6. Repeat for each wheel that needs to move independently.
7. Edit>Object>Rigging>Convert Prop to Figure, select the General Weight Map option. Uncheck the Inherit Skeleton of Parent option and name the Root Bone - something like TruckBody for example
8. Switch to the Joint Editor tool, make sure the TruckBody is selected, right-click and select Create Child Bone, if the truck is facing front the rotation order will be xyz, otherwise zxy (the first axis is the one that runsa long the axle). Accept. repeat for the other wheels that need to spin separately.
9. For each wheel bone, use the Joint Editor tool to position the start and end points (red and green cross-hairs) on the axle, if the wheel is going to steer too then make sure the green (origin) cross-hair is at the pivot point. Right-click Align>Align Node (this will make the bone match the start/end points). In the Tool Settings pane set Selection group to the Face Group you created for the wheel.
10. Right-click, Memorize>Memorize Figure Rigging
11. Switch to the Node Weight Map Brush tool, right-click, Geometry Editing>Fill by Bone Selection Groups
12. Test your figure - if it's working (more-or-less) File>Save as>Support Assets>Figure prop Asset, change the Author and Product names, save the preset for loading the item where you want (e.g. Props>Transport).

You may well want to refine things but that should give a usable starting point.

sriesch

Another workaround might be to find separate tire props and simply add them to your model. 

There are a few out there, either stand-alone or as parts like spare tires that come with other existing vehicles. Then the original wheels can be hidden and the new ones asily rotated or turned.  The wheels might not join exactly but they would probably be close enough. 

If the original model is one piece and you don't want to take the time to make it's wheels separate surfaces in order to hide them, you might simply be able to make the extra wheels just a tiny bit larger to hide the original wheels, although that won't work if you needed to steer them.