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Seperate head from full character morphdial?

tombraider4evertombraider4ever Posts: 659
edited October 2017 in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

I have made a character of mine into a morphdial, but I would like to have a separate dial for just the head also, is that possible and if it is how do is it done? I am a beginner at daz so a detailed description would be great! smiley 

The character was made inside Daz using different morphs.

Post edited by tombraider4ever on

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 97,322

    How did you create the new morph - ERC Freeze to create a new master control?

  • tombraider4evertombraider4ever Posts: 659

    Thanks for the reply! smiley Yes, I used ERC Freeze.

  • Syrus_DanteSyrus_Dante Posts: 983
    edited October 2017

    @ tombraider4ever

    I had done this before. Let me explain how I did splitt up the head from the body shape that is allready stored in one master controler dial.

    I think what you have now is a single controler morphdial with all the individual morphs in it. You can check what morphs get controled if you first change the parameters pane to edit mode. Next right-click your character master / controler morphdial and select "show in Property Hirarchie". If you expand the section called something like (Delta Add/Substract) you can see of what the controler morphdial is made of.

    Now for the tricky part you can go to the timeline and zero the figure in the first keyframe 0. Make shure to memorize the figure in zero shape. Next go to keyframe 1 and dial in your master / controler morphdial and go to the Property Hirarchie right-click the controler morphdial and select "ERC-Bake". This is the opposite of ERC-Freeze and will delete all subcomponents in the controler morphdial section (Delta Add/Substract) but now all the morphdial values of the current shape are saved in the keyframe 1. You can save a shape-preset to the library now just to have a backup.

    If you want to seperate the head shape from the bodyshape - I would also go to frame 2 and add a keyframe. Then go back to frame 1 open the parameters pane and zero out all morphs that are related to the head shape. You can use the properties group "currently used" to hunt down the morphs. Create a new seperate parameter to store the body shape and use ERC-Freeze on frame 1 but make shure the figure is memmorized in zero shape.

    For the head morph you still have the complete character shape with all the parameter values also stored at keyframe 2. So now go back to frame 1 and memorize the figure ther with only the body shape, then go to frame 2 and store the head shape to a new head controler also with ERC-Freeze this time it should ignore the body shape because its memorized (but at this point im not exactly shure maybe its better to zero out all body shape morphs one by one like with the head).

    After you have finished both head and body morph, you can create your character controler to combine the two into it and dont forget to save this new ones as new morph assets to the library to use it in every other scene if you load your figure. (File > Save As > Support Asset > Morph Asset)

    I hope you get the point of using ERC-Freeze and ERC-Bake this way. I came up with this workflow - it dosnt mean it is meant to do it this way but it workes for me. If someone have a more elegant way to do it please comment.

    You may also have a look here at my old post ERC-Freeze / Property Hierarchy / merge property Sub-Components

    Post edited by Syrus_Dante on
  • tombraider4evertombraider4ever Posts: 659

    Thank you so much for taking the time and help me with this! smiley You write in great detail, unfortunatly it's still to difficult for me I think, there are so many things in Daz that I don't have a clue about blush. I have the character saved as a shaping and character preset also, does that make it easier? The character is the fourth or fifth version of the same character so each time I started with the character dialed in and changed some things and saved it again. 

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 97,322

    Hmm, I was going to suggest something but when I tried it didn't work. Not sure if that was by being a bad example or if there was a flaw in my reasoning, I'll try to have a longer look tomorrow.

  • Syrus_DanteSyrus_Dante Posts: 983
    edited October 2017

    Yes if you allready have saved shaping or character presets you can skip all the ERC-Bake and fiddling around with the keyframes and memorize like I descriped.

    And yes the method I descriped is a bit complicated and I wish it could be easier - I spend some time untill I get the clue.

    So here comes the easy method step by step:

    1. open a new scene - load your base figure (maybe genesis 1-2-3-8 but dosnt matter)

    2. load your shaping or character preset file to the figure (now the shape is applied - please check if your character morphdial is still zero - otherwise you dont have a real shape preset but saved the character morphdial value and you have to use ERC-Backe first to continue)

    3. go to parameters pane property group "currently used" and find out what morphs to zero to only have the body shape.

    4. go to parameters pane right-click chage to "edit mode" - right-click "create new property" for the head / body (some settings can be changed here but nevermind the only important is Type: Shape)

    5. right-click body property ERC-Freeze - Accept

    5.2 - then repeat step 2. load your shaping or character preset again

    6. go to parameters pane property group "currently used" and find out what morphs to zero to only have the head shape.

    7. right-click head property ERC-Freeze - Accept

    8. go to parameters pane right-click "create new property" for the character master controler

    9. set the new head / body properties to fully applied (value 1 or 100%)

    10. go to parameters pane right-click the character master controler ERC-Freeze

    11. File > Save As > Support Asset > Morph Asset - enter some product name - select all of the new properties (it should be the master controler and head / body controler) - hit Accept and voila done wink

    12. and for your original character morphdial - if you didnt use Save Morph Asset on that it is only stored within the scene file and wouldnt show up withe a new scene as it has never existed - otherwise I fear you have to search and delete the file with the filebrowser from the daz library data folder

    Post edited by Syrus_Dante on
  • tombraider4evertombraider4ever Posts: 659

    Thanks for the reply! smiley I will make another attempt using your tutorial.

  • tombraider4evertombraider4ever Posts: 659

    I found an erlier version of my Lara mod that wasn't saved on the character morphdial value that I only had to make some smaller changes to to update it :)  

    I just tried your tutorial and it worked, Thank you so much for helping me! heart Now I can blend my Lara character's head only or body only with other characters! smileylaugh

     

    The downside is that I made several more character morphs based on the original morphdial so I will have to do them again to have the head separte, but I'm glad I have the orignal  Lara morph separated, it's the most important one to me :)

  • Syrus_DanteSyrus_Dante Posts: 983

    Cool, I'm glad I could help.

    So is it a Lara Croft character you've created - based on the older or the newer videogames or maybe more like Angelina Jolie? I would love to see some screenshot or render.

     

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