Saving poses in blender 3.0 (diffeomorphic, rigify, genesis 8)
potatopealor
Posts: 59
So I'm trying to save a pose that I made on a character that I would like to use for another character. Since, I have blender 3.0, I would like to utilise the pose library so that I can eventually have a database of saved poses that I can use to apply to multiple characters through a multitude of projects. I am using daz3d imported genesis 8 character using the diffeomorphic addon which uses rigify to "rig" my characters in blender. Now, I've saved my character's pose in the pose library but when i try to apply the pose to another character (also daz3d imported genesis 8 character) it does NOT apply to the pose. However, i know the pose is saved correctly because when i "reset" the original characters pose and apply the saved pose, it applies the pose correctly. What could possibly be wrong? I mean both character have the same rig and are of the same "type" (genesis 8). the bones are all selected and saved correctly...the application of the pose has the all the bones selected...so what else could be the issue here?
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As far as I know, pose libraries as they used to be prior to 3.0 aren't shared between armatures. You can in theory copy a pose from one armature to another but they need to be pretty much identical in bone names etc. I would expect this to work in 3.0 at least for now. However things are moving towards managing saved poses as assets via the Asset Browser, which I believe should enable sharing poses between armatures. I have not yet fully grasped how this is supposed to work, partly because given the pace of development the availabe tutorials are out of date about two minutes after they are published.
Don't forget to enter the pose mode and select the armature before applying the pose!
I've managed to use a saved pose on 1 other character that but every other character it does not work...its so strange because im using diffeomorphic addon with the rigify rig conversion for each character so i wouldn't suspect that the bone names would change from one character to another considering they are all human and have no "extra" or "weird" bone added.
oh yes. ive made double sure it not that reason before coming to this forum.
Just did a little test and seems to work fine here. You must be sure to select the same bones when saving and loading poses. As a personal note I don't like too much how the pose library is managed because you have to save the whole scene with it, but the addon gets a warning symbol that's in development so hopefully things will improve.
steps:
Doesn't work for me. Character stays in A pose the whole time. I just don't get it...all the bone names are the same too...
No computer here the next weeks to cross check, but can you pose the armatures by hand? once I forgot to make the bones poseable... once i forgot to change the prefix / suffix of the bones... there are various reasons why the pose can fail. What can you see in the console window?
yes all bones can be posed using the rigify rig, its not on rest position, prefix and suffix are all the same i double checked this one. so im not sure what else is the problem besides this being a limitation of the software. the only pose that ive saved and is working on 1 other character was a pose made in blender. so im now starting to think daz imported poses cannot be saved in blender nor can it be applied to other characters in blender.
Do you mean the DAZ pose library or the BLENDER pose library?
My workflow: Bring in a DAZ character, A pose, make bones posable, convert to rigify, pose, select all bones needed for the pose, save the pose. And apply that pose to any other compatible character. This works for 100 percent.
Could you pls describe your workflow?
You never mentioned they were daz poses. Well daz poses are fk so you need to set rigify in fk mode when saving and loading poses. Or convert fk to ik if you want to save the ik version. Again be sure to select the relevant bones, it is not enough to enter pose mode and select the rig.
Just tested and works fine here.
oh so you pose in blender... yea that method works for me in terms of manually posing a character IN BLENDER but what i want to do is use a pose IN DAZ as i have a multitude of daz pose assets. what i want to do is to pose IN DAZ, then import to blender, save the pose IN BLENDER, so that i can use that pose multiple times across different characters IN BLENDER. The reason i want to do this is because i dont want to manually create a pose when i can simply get a pre-existing pose and alter it to what i want to achieve IN BLENDER when animating. my current workflow (or at least one that i am attempting):
1) in daz, create a G8F/G8M character
2) apply a preset pose from one of my pose assets
3) export character using diffeo to blender with rigify rig
4) save that pose in blender in the asset browser
5) apply saved pose (IN BLENDER) to any G8F/G8M character in blender with the same rigify rig with same bone names.
thus far i have been unsuccessful in doing step 4 and 5 as the saved pose simply doesn't re-apply to any other character except the one that it came from.
So if you just want to use the daz poses, use the daz rig without changing the bone suffix.
Rigify bones are pretty different to daz bones. Maybe you should go either with mhx or you use the pupa blender addon https://youtu.be/DEjOq5Ei2k0
I am using normally an animation frame as a starting point, fine tune and save the resulting pose.
umm are you able to make a video? i dont understand if what im doing is enough. so im selected the rig with looks like arrows and is able to move the body parts. i always assumed the rig and the bones are the same thing since each part of the "rig" is bendable. can you do a short video of how you do it?
https://youtu.be/vKgH5zXIYmM
Cgdive - posing the rigify rig
His course is a great starting point using Rigify.
just to show you the current proicess im trying.
picture 1 - shows posed figure imported from daz, all the bones are set to FK
picture 2 - shows the bones / rig selected that i want to be involved in the pose its all of them in this case then saved on the left hand colum in asset browser
picture 3 - shows the new figure also G8M with same rig and same named bones with bones set to FK as well
picture 4 - selecting all bones involved in the pose (all of them in this case) and trying to apply, but the figure remains in A-pose as seen in the picture...
im not sure if im missing a critical component in this process...
yes thats a fantastic tutorial. ive watched all of it but alot of the stuff he does from scratch...in diffeomorphic the addon already sets us up with a usable rigify rig which im content with...the only problem i have is saving the poses that to use across all characters to make my life easier lol
yes those are both fantastic tutorials that ive also seen but it hasnt helped me in achieving what im trying to do...
From what I can see you're doing it right. The only difference is I used G8F instead of G8M, and didn't show/select the ik bones when saving/loading poses as shown in my picture above. Also I did it with a base figure without dress and accessories. What happens if you press "select" from the pose library in the asset browser ? It should select the bones, then apply should work. If select doesn't work then apply can't either.
edit. Now I notice there's a difference in your pictures that the source figure gets hair while the target doesn't. This is probably doing different bones when you merge rigs in diffeo.
Just tried with dress and hair and, to my surprise, seems to work fine too. But, in this case I didn't get any bone in the clothes layer when I merged rigs, so other cases may not be this lucky. So what I did is save the poses for the basic G8F figure, then apply the poses to Victoria 8 with dress and hair.
Again, it is essential to use/select the same fk layers, otherwise the pose can't apply to layers/bones that are not selected. But this in your pictures it seems to me you do.
edit. As a side note, diffeo allows you to load the daz poses and animations directly from the daz library, so there's no really need to save them in blender format, other than for test purposes to play with the asset browser.
Just throwing out an idea here -
If you bring a character into blender already posed, I would think blender assumes that is the rest pose. A pose preset or saved pose would be the difference between the rest pose (A pose) and the desired pose (for example, laying down).
Can you try importing a character in the A pose, then use diffeo to import/apply a pose to the character? Then save that pose as a preset.
yea thats true i guess...i just really want this to work because i want to be able to animate with the same figure instead of importing a new figure in everytime. but oh well...maybe im asking too much of blender at this time.
thats what i thought as well..but it didnt make a difference. still couldnt apply the pose to the character in A-pose
Hi, you do not have to keep re-importing a new Character for each animation as long as you are working exclusively within the same figure generation
(G8)
You can re-use body ,even facial animation, via the Action editor
and nonlinear motion clip system
Without frustraing yourself with that
horrible "asset browser" in Blender 3.
I have made at least four video tutorials
on various blender native methods for applying different motions to genesis 8 Characters
after import via Diffeomorphic.
Just for clarity. The asset browser is using the action editor, that is, it creates an action with a fake user and stores it in the scene for future use. So it should be the same as using the action editor. I can get it to work fine but @potatopealor can't for some reason. Then I agree it is a bit complex to setup and use, but stills in development yet so there's time to improve.
thanks i will check them all out! also if ur using diffeo for animations i'd love to chat more about it with you in some manner...do you have a discord?
oh the many woes of blender...following steps down to the tee gets differing results...