Exporting figure with morph

thoromyrthoromyr Posts: 452
edited July 2013 in Carrara Discussion

I go through fits and spurts with this hobby, but despite my not reading the forums in a while I actually have been busy with Carrara -- working things up for printing. And its with respect to that that I've hit a snag. I could've sworn you could export a morphed figure as obj and the geometry would reflect the morph. But when I do it all that I get is the base figure, no morph applied. I noticed and tried the morph and skinning option in the obj export, but it made no difference.

What I'm actually after is leveraging morphs to get multiple versions of a simple object, just tweaked in different ways. Because I want it in stages, morphs makes a convenient way of achieving this. Just three morphs -- trivial to create -- gives me access to any of the 8000 variations I might want. So I'm really hoping that all I need is a poke in the right direction to make this happen.

Edited to clarify that one way or another I need the final result to be in obj or stl format as printing is the end goal. All I need is the mesh, the morph information isn't desired, just the a mesh that has been altered appropriately for the selected morph settings.

Post edited by thoromyr on

Comments

  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited December 1969

    I think you have to tell it you want to export the morphed version... :)

    When you do an OBJ export, I think there's an options panel that comes up, and there's an option to export the object including morphs. So you select the character's "Model", select OBJ export, then check the option to include morphs, and you should be okay.

  • 3DAGE3DAGE Posts: 3,311
    edited December 1969

    Hi Thoromyr :)

    OBJ as a format, cannot contain morph targets,. normally you would export a morph target as an OBJ,. ..

    The option in the OBJ export dialogue (export with morphs and skinning) will actually create an obj of the model, with it's current shape, whether that shape is made using morphs or bones,. so, in basic terms, it exports the model as it is,. rather than exporting V4 in the default T-pose.

    If you're working with a figure, and you've made morphs in carrara,. then the simplest method of saving that with the morphs is to drag it to the browser (objects)

    Until there's either CR2 export,. or more likely DUF export,. which would be capable of sending out the rigged weighted figure with it's morphs,. the only other option would be exporting the figure and all it's morph targets to a folder,. then building your figure and adding the morphs n Poser or DS (as far as i know),.... you could try FBX, and even collada, which should be able to export the rigged model, and animation, and that should also have the morphs.

    hope it helps

  • thoromyrthoromyr Posts: 452
    edited December 1969

    Hey 3dage, thanks for the response!

    I tried, but apparently I didn't make myself clear so I'll take this para by para

    3DAGE said:
    Hi Thoromyr :)

    OBJ as a format, cannot contain morph targets,. normally you would export a morph target as an OBJ,. ..

    The option in the OBJ export dialogue (export with morphs and skinning) will actually create an obj of the model, with it's current shape, whether that shape is made using morphs or bones,. so, in basic terms, it exports the model as it is,. rather than exporting V4 in the default T-pose.

    Its current shape. Well that is what I thought, but when I do that it always uses the objects base shape, not current. If it was boned perhaps it would pick up the current pose, but this is just morphs, no rigging, no poses.

    3DAGE said:
    If you're working with a figure, and you've made morphs in carrara,. then the simplest method of saving that with the morphs is to drag it to the browser (objects)

    yes, all made in Carrara and I save it as a .car file for work. But to print I need to have it as an obj or stl (when I say "print" I'm talking about printing to my desktop 3d printer). Carrara can't export stl, but it can do obj. Normally the only problem there is doesn't name the object (no lines starting with 'o' followed by the object name). The particular issue here is my attempt to save manual work by using morphs.

    Until there's either CR2 export,. or more likely DUF export,. which would be capable of sending out the rigged weighted figure with it's morphs,. the only other option would be exporting the figure and all it's morph targets to a folder,. then building your figure and adding the morphs n Poser or DS (as far as i know),.... you could try FBX, and even collada, which should be able to export the rigged model, and animation, and that should also have the morphs.

    Well, CR2 or DUF or FBX or Collada does me no good at all because the printing software only accepts OBJ and STL. In case it helps I've made my working files available 3D Print Objects and this is in relation to my pop links on thingiverse. I'm not trying to use morphs in the 3d printing software, I'm trying to get a morph-distorted mesh out of Carrara.

    If you save the morph target from the modeling room it works to reload that back into carrara (I've used that), but it isn't a full mesh (there are three morph areas).

  • 3DAGE3DAGE Posts: 3,311
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for the info,.

    I hit that problem myself,. trying to export an expanding fence,. Simple fence model with a morph to squish it.

    the answer is to add a bone,.

    The bone won't be exported since obj is just the 3D model,. but that will export the object in it's deformed state,.
    Adding the bone, adds a default skinning envelope which covers all the mesh,. AKA (weight mapping),. so Carrara should export your deformed model, in it's current state.

    :)

  • thoromyrthoromyr Posts: 452
    edited December 1969

    Ah, thanks! I knew it was going to be something simple.

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