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Deformers impossible to use accurately

Testing6790Testing6790 Posts: 1,091
edited December 1969 in The Commons

I know it's likely just me, but I cannot, for the life of me, use a deformer in any reliable way. The outline is never even close to where the actual deformer is, so the only way for me to use it is to move it around until the colored dots show up. Far be it to me to even try rotating! The dots vanish off my object and I have to spend another 5 minutes finding them again!

Does anyone else have this obnoxious issue of the deformer being completely unrelated to the outline and incredibly difficult to manipulate?

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Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,053
    edited December 1969

    This is, as far as I can tell, a consequence of the single-skin nature of the current figures - the DForm is related to the base shape of the mesh. Fortunately there is now a workaround, instead of using the field to control the DForm select any part of it, activate the Node Weight Paint Tool, and in the Tool Settings pane select the Influence map as the active map - you can then use the Polygon group editor and the weight brush, with its gradient or sphere modes being a good substitute for the field, to edit the weighting of the DForm with far more control.

  • Testing6790Testing6790 Posts: 1,091
    edited December 1969

    Thanks! I'll check that out!

  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited December 1969

    As a big DForm user myself, that little tidbit is pure gold. Thanks for the tip Richard. Most recently I used a ton of DForms to fake a cloth drape and I suffered from the same issue that Paradigm mentions. Often times I end up moving the field far away from the actual point I want to morph before the little dots show up.

    Hopefully this new technique will make things a lot easier.

  • zawarkalzawarkal Posts: 1,018
    edited December 1969

    Richard Haseltine said:
    This is, as far as I can tell, a consequence of the single-skin nature of the current figures - the DForm is related to the base shape of the mesh. Fortunately there is now a workaround, instead of using the field to control the DForm select any part of it, activate the Node Weight Paint Tool, and in the Tool Settings pane select the Influence map as the active map - you can then use the Polygon group editor and the weight brush, with its gradient or sphere modes being a good substitute for the field, to edit the weighting of the DForm with far more control.

    I am also having problems with the DForm placement.

    I went to the documentation center and I believe I figured out that the Node Weight Paint Tool is on the Tool Menu named as Weight Map Brush

    I found and opened the Tools Settings from the Windows Panes (tabs) menu

    So with the active tool of weight map brush I see Mode: and four boxes with the first one to the left being active

    I see that the third and fourth boxes are the gradient and sphere modes

    So I selected the gradient mode and then tried to get the DForm I needed

    this is where I ran into problems
    I do not understand what you mean by use the Polygon group editor and the weight brush to edit the weighting

    Am I supposed to select the polygons that I am hoping to dform using the polygon group editor tool and if so once selected how do I dform the selection - or - something else

    Please clarify. I would like to try this.

    Thanks in advance for any help with this.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,053
    edited December 1969

    Which version of DS are you using? Help>About DAZ Studio... will tell you. The ability to paint weight maps for DForms is very new, and the fact that your tool still has the old name suggests you are using too old a version of DS to have the feature.

  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    I recently used some DFormers to create some custom morphs in G2F/M. I noticed that if the character was not at 0,0,0 then I had the problem with having to move the Dformer to strange locations away from the figure to get the red dots on the figure. If the character was at 0,0,0 though, the DFormer seemed to work correctly. It also may have been because the character not at 0,0,0 was in a group.

  • Testing6790Testing6790 Posts: 1,091
    edited December 1969

    Would you know why deformer fields don't even seem to be present for some items? For example, I tried to make a deformer on the hoodie from "Tre" and the field did not even show up. I tried scaling it up a lot, down a lot, checked visibility, all my standard stuff and nothing worked. I've noticed it on other items as well, I can't name them off the top of my head though.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,053
    edited December 1969

    Paradigm67 said:
    Would you know why deformer fields don't even seem to be present for some items? For example, I tried to make a deformer on the hoodie from "Tre" and the field did not even show up. I tried scaling it up a lot, down a lot, checked visibility, all my standard stuff and nothing worked. I've noticed it on other items as well, I can't name them off the top of my head though.

    I just tried that with the current version of DS and the field showed correctly. Which version are you using?

  • Testing6790Testing6790 Posts: 1,091
    edited December 1969

    I'll let you know when I get home!

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,854
    edited February 2014

    HeraldOfFire said:
    As a big DForm user myself, that little tidbit is pure gold. Thanks for the tip Richard. Most recently I used a ton of DForms to fake a cloth drape and I suffered from the same issue that Paradigm mentions. Often times I end up moving the field far away from the actual point I want to morph before the little dots show up.

    Hopefully this new technique will make things a lot easier.


    ...indeed. a new use for one of my favourite tools.

    Can this be saved as a spawned morph though?

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • zawarkalzawarkal Posts: 1,018
    edited December 1969

    Richard Haseltine said:
    Which version of DS are you using? Help>About DAZ Studio... will tell you. The ability to paint weight maps for DForms is very new, and the fact that your tool still has the old name suggests you are using too old a version of DS to have the feature.

    I am using 4.6.1.33 64-bit

    I have downloaded the latest version, but have not yet installed it.

    Could you also please provide a direct link to the Help Daz Studio article which discusses the ability to paint weight maps for DForms? My searches don't always turn up exactly what I really need to find as I do not always know exactly for what I really need to be searching.

    I too am interested in the answer to KyotoKid's question about whether or not we can still spawn morphs using the workaround feature. And is there a document showing the steps to perform the overall process?

  • srieschsriesch Posts: 4,243
    edited February 2014

    Sorry, don't have the answer to Kyoto Kid's question, but:

    Paradigm67 said:
    Would you know why deformer fields don't even seem to be present for some items? For example, I tried to make a deformer on the hoodie from "Tre" and the field did not even show up. I tried scaling it up a lot, down a lot, checked visibility, all my standard stuff and nothing worked. I've noticed it on other items as well, I can't name them off the top of my head though.

    I just found out (but haven't had a chance to test thouroughly) that the deformer might not work as expected under certain circumstances. From http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/37570/#552289 , see Gone's post, which was:
    I’m betting that the character has been posed and moved away from the 0,0,0 position before you applied the Dformer. My experience with all versions of DS4 is that the field doesn’t line up properly if the Dformer is applied to a posed/repositioned character. There are a couple of ways to make it line up, but the least aggravating is to apply the Dformer to an unposed character. Then you can move and pose the character and the Dformer will follow correctly. This applies to all hair, clothes, and props that are fitted to the character as well. If you know you are going to use a Dformer, save yourself grief and apply it before you move the actor.
    Post edited by sriesch on
  • Testing6790Testing6790 Posts: 1,091
    edited February 2014

    Richard Haseltine said:
    Paradigm67 said:
    Would you know why deformer fields don't even seem to be present for some items? For example, I tried to make a deformer on the hoodie from "Tre" and the field did not even show up. I tried scaling it up a lot, down a lot, checked visibility, all my standard stuff and nothing worked. I've noticed it on other items as well, I can't name them off the top of my head though.

    I just tried that with the current version of DS and the field showed correctly. Which version are you using?

    4.6.1.33 x64!

    Post edited by Testing6790 on
  • OridionOridion Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    I have the same confusion as Zawarkal. I added a DForm to a figure, selected the Node Weight Map Brush tool, added the influence map, and selected the the Sphere. But how do I position said sphere?

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,053
    edited December 1969

    Paradigm67 said:
    Richard Haseltine said:
    Paradigm67 said:
    Would you know why deformer fields don't even seem to be present for some items? For example, I tried to make a deformer on the hoodie from "Tre" and the field did not even show up. I tried scaling it up a lot, down a lot, checked visibility, all my standard stuff and nothing worked. I've noticed it on other items as well, I can't name them off the top of my head though.

    I just tried that with the current version of DS and the field showed correctly. Which version are you using?

    4.6.1.33 x64!

    That's not a venerable version, but it is older than current. It may be worth at least trying the current build to see if it helps - if you used DIM to install make a back up of the zips for the older version before downloading the new, in case for some reason you absolutely must roll back, but it should be safe.

    I have the same confusion as Zawarkal. I added a DForm to a figure, selected the Node Weight Map Brush tool, added the influence map, and selected the the Sphere. But how do I position said sphere?

    There should be handles - arrows like the pose or universal tools at the centre of the sphere, and boxes on its surface for scaling. The controls aren't as nice as the posing controls, but they are usable.

  • OridionOridion Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Richard Haseltine said:

    There should be handles - arrows like the pose or universal tools at the centre of the sphere, and boxes on its surface for scaling. The controls aren't as nice as the posing controls, but they are usable.

    Thanks! That worked!

    Is there a way to mirror a D-Form weight map? For example, I paint the D-Form weight map on one side of Genesis, and I want to mirror that on another D-Form. Essentially, I would have two D-Formers that I can spawn into morphs. Is this possible?

  • zawarkalzawarkal Posts: 1,018
    edited December 1969

    Zawarkal said:
    Richard Haseltine said:
    Which version of DS are you using? Help>About DAZ Studio... will tell you. The ability to paint weight maps for DForms is very new, and the fact that your tool still has the old name suggests you are using too old a version of DS to have the feature.

    I am using 4.6.1.33 64-bit

    I have downloaded the latest version, but have not yet installed it.

    Could you also please provide a direct link to the Help Daz Studio article which discusses the ability to paint weight maps for DForms? My searches don't always turn up exactly what I really need to find as I do not always know exactly for what I really need to be searching.

    I too am interested in the answer to KyotoKid's question about whether or not we can still spawn morphs using the workaround feature. And is there a document showing the steps to perform the overall process?

    Richard, you may have missed this???

    Could you also please provide a direct link to the Help Daz Studio article which discusses the ability to paint weight maps for DForms? My searches don't always turn up exactly what I really need to find as I do not always know exactly for what I really need to be searching.

    I too am interested in the answer to KyotoKid's question about whether or not we can still spawn morphs using the workaround feature. And is there a document showing the steps to perform the overall process?

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,053
    edited December 1969

    I don't know that there is a page on the new feature as such. Yes, Spawn Morph will work as usual with both the field and with a weight-map.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,053
    edited December 1969

    Oridion said:
    Richard Haseltine said:

    There should be handles - arrows like the pose or universal tools at the centre of the sphere, and boxes on its surface for scaling. The controls aren't as nice as the posing controls, but they are usable.

    Thanks! That worked!

    Is there a way to mirror a D-Form weight map? For example, I paint the D-Form weight map on one side of Genesis, and I want to mirror that on another D-Form. Essentially, I would have two D-Formers that I can spawn into morphs. Is this possible?

    I'm not immediately seeing a way to do that, no - it might be possible to trick the system, you can certainly copy and paste maps so transferring them to a bone with a symmetrical partner and then using the Weight Map Symmetry command might work but when I just tried DS crashed, which isn't encouraging.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,854
    edited December 1969

    Richard Haseltine said:
    I don't know that there is a page on the new feature as such. Yes, Spawn Morph will work as usual with both the field and with a weight-map.

    ...excellent, thank you.
  • FistyFisty Posts: 3,416
    edited December 1969

    #1 trick for using d-formers - have your figure in zero pose. Don't have to mess around with any of that complicated extra stuff, little dots are right where you expect them to be inside the circle.

  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    Fisty said:
    #1 trick for using d-formers - have your figure in zero pose. Don't have to mess around with any of that complicated extra stuff, little dots are right where you expect them to be inside the circle.

    This was my experience also using 4.6.1. I have not tried it with 4.6.2 yet.

  • OridionOridion Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Richard Haseltine said:
    Oridion said:
    Richard Haseltine said:

    There should be handles - arrows like the pose or universal tools at the centre of the sphere, and boxes on its surface for scaling. The controls aren't as nice as the posing controls, but they are usable.

    Thanks! That worked!

    Is there a way to mirror a D-Form weight map? For example, I paint the D-Form weight map on one side of Genesis, and I want to mirror that on another D-Form. Essentially, I would have two D-Formers that I can spawn into morphs. Is this possible?

    I'm not immediately seeing a way to do that, no - it might be possible to trick the system, you can certainly copy and paste maps so transferring them to a bone with a symmetrical partner and then using the Weight Map Symmetry command might work but when I just tried DS crashed, which isn't encouraging.

    The Weight Map Symmetry command sometimes make the red and blue gradient disappear. I'm not really sure what that command is supposed to do.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,053
    edited December 1969

    Oridion said:
    Richard Haseltine said:
    Oridion said:
    Richard Haseltine said:

    There should be handles - arrows like the pose or universal tools at the centre of the sphere, and boxes on its surface for scaling. The controls aren't as nice as the posing controls, but they are usable.

    Thanks! That worked!

    Is there a way to mirror a D-Form weight map? For example, I paint the D-Form weight map on one side of Genesis, and I want to mirror that on another D-Form. Essentially, I would have two D-Formers that I can spawn into morphs. Is this possible?

    I'm not immediately seeing a way to do that, no - it might be possible to trick the system, you can certainly copy and paste maps so transferring them to a bone with a symmetrical partner and then using the Weight Map Symmetry command might work but when I just tried DS crashed, which isn't encouraging.

    The Weight Map Symmetry command sometimes make the red and blue gradient disappear. I'm not really sure what that command is supposed to do.

    I think it's mainly intended so you can set up one side of a figure and mirror it to the other - hence my thought was to copy the weights from the DForm to an unused weight on a bone, then mirror just that and if successful copy to the map for the mirror DForm. But as I said it just led to a crash when I tried it, and I'm pretty sure it would work only on symmetrical meshes only..

  • peter_2762644peter_2762644 Posts: 53
    edited December 1969

    This is a great Feature. I studied the Node Weight Brush and Geometry Editor Tool - it is more sophisticated but very finely adjustable.

    Really great, but there is a big Disadvantage!
    The Weight Maps depends strictly to that Position, for that the Map was designed. If I turn the Position of the Figure, the Geometry becomes unpredictable (probably because the Joints has changed).

    My Question:
    Is there a way to "bind" the Map in any Way to the Joints (or whatever it is necessary :red: ) ?
    Or is there an other Variant to manipulat the Shape (without D-Formers)?
    I'd like to make only small corrections on the Figures.
    There are many more Options in the Node Weight Brush Dialog - but I'm not able to figure out how they are applicable.

    Thx Peter.


    Richard Haseltine said:
    This is, as far as I can tell, a consequence of the single-skin nature of the current figures - the DForm is related to the base shape of the mesh. Fortunately there is now a workaround, instead of using the field to control the DForm select any part of it, activate the Node Weight Paint Tool, and in the Tool Settings pane select the Influence map as the active map - you can then use the Polygon group editor and the weight brush, with its gradient or sphere modes being a good substitute for the field, to edit the weighting of the DForm with far more control.
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,053
    edited December 1969

    I'm not sure I understand - the weight map shouldn't change as the figure moves, it should be static (though if you change the pose it may cease to be appropriate - but that's unavoidable, there wouldn't be a way to automate adjustments).

  • DAZ_SpookyDAZ_Spooky Posts: 3,100
    edited June 2015

    Kyoto Kid said:
    HeraldOfFire said:
    As a big DForm user myself, that little tidbit is pure gold. Thanks for the tip Richard. Most recently I used a ton of DForms to fake a cloth drape and I suffered from the same issue that Paradigm mentions. Often times I end up moving the field far away from the actual point I want to morph before the little dots show up.

    Hopefully this new technique will make things a lot easier.


    ...indeed. a new use for one of my favourite tools.

    Can this be saved as a spawned morph though?Yes. The only difference is how the affected area is determined.

    Rats. Late to the party and caught by thread necromancy. LOL.

    Post edited by DAZ_Spooky on
  • RCDescheneRCDeschene Posts: 2,816
    edited June 2015

    No problems here, DAZ_Spooky. In fact, I thank for this! I had no idea this was a thing, to be perfectly honest. I just recently had a tussle with a DForm myself, so this zombie thread could have come at a better time! :-)

    Post edited by RCDeschene on
  • CybersoxCybersox Posts: 9,275
    edited December 1969

    Sadly, threads like this are the only way to learn anything about the more advanced features of DS. If someone were to ever produce actual documentation or decent set of tutorials on advanced DS features, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

  • StratDragonStratDragon Posts: 3,273
    edited December 1969

    a video would be priceless for this procedure.

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