I should have mentioned what my aim is (or perhaps in 'asset-speak' - I should have 'stated my mission goal'... ).

"I just want a quick and easy way to populate all my empty virtual bookshelves with a visually interesting library"

 

Doing individual morphs for each book (as mentioned in edits to theOP) would be heading off in totally the wrong direction. I'm not interested in fine-tuning the size of any book.I just want a random-looking collection of different sized books. So a couple of morphs for predefined randomish booksizes should fit the bill there. I also like the idea of being able to add a small gap between books. Adjusting the thickness of books and adding gaps between them allows the bookrow's length (or width depending on your preferred terminology) to be adjusted in an interesting manner.

Here's where I'm up to so far:

I think that looks quite visually interesting and flexible- not bad for a 328 vertex / 246 face row of books with a single 2048x2048 JPG texture.

 (note: the morph dials in the screenshot are Poser ones because I'm initially doing this as a Poser prop)

 

I had been worried about the titles on the spines being stretched too much when I made a book thicker. But I was forgetting that these books are mainly to provide background clutter and visual interest. Being able to read the titles isn't important.

I'm now looking at putting six rows of books in the prop, with morphs to cope with different shelf separations, and with poses to fit the prop to the shelves in various things I own ("err sorry, what was that? Oh... 'assets'. Okay,if you must.)

And I'm beginning to get bored with this already*. Maybe I should release what I've got so far ?

 

Edit: maybe another morph, 'A4 Size', could be useful ? Everybody knows A4 size** - its, errr... [quick Google]... 21cm × 29.7cm (note to self: 1 PNU = 103.2" or 262.128021cm).  The base mesh at the moment is roughly standardish paperback size - 17½cm × 10½cm × 1cm (it's a thin paperback), but I'm wondering whether some arbitrary base size and a 'Standardish Paperback Size' morph would be better. You see the sort of quagmire of insignificant irrelevances (irrelevancies?) I get entrenched in ? And entrenching in a quagmire is really no joke !

 

*I think maybe I'm a manic-apathetic...

**except people who don't

It sounds like you are using an earlier gen version of the freak, pz2 are poser files, this most likely would be in the poser content folders. Also it is likely that the version could be a morph which is using the base maps for genesis version that your version of Freak belongs to. Body suit is a naming convention for earlier gen base maps and I have seen it used with M4.

  

Thanks, CGHipster. Yes, I did get the Freak model a while ago. The UV maps don't seem to be in the old Poser/Efrontier runtime either. Even with newer models like Ceratosaurus, the "Browse to File Location" takes me to C:\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library\Runtime\Libraries\Materials\DAZ Dinosaurs\Ceratosaurus where there are no UVs. With a separate Windows search, I find the UVs in C:\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library\Runtime\Textures\Animals\CeratosaurusDR .  Even with the DAZ model SYSerpConstrictor that I purchased this year, I can't seem to find the UV from within the Surfaces tab. I have to find it with a completely different Windows search.  The Freak UV's location remains a mystery.

Sorry if I'm repeating what someone else has saidd but I was so anxious to join this conversation I jumped all the way to the end WHY ARE THERE SO FEW HISPANIC MALE CHARACTERS I use the Awan character too much, and I have some morph packages that have some options but I just remember do many more choices with g2m, g2 and m4. Also, this maY be that I focus on more "real life" renders but some more typical looking guys, somewhere be between the huge muscle guys and the cartoons.

It sounds like you are using an earlier gen version of the freak, pz2 are poser files, this most likely would be in the poser content folders. Also it is likely that the version could be a morph which is using the base maps for genesis version that your version of Freak belongs to. Body suit is a naming convention for earlier gen base maps and I have seen it used with M4.

Thanks for referring me to your tutorial. I was doing most of what you describe. I didn't have the people folder selected. Do I need to do that? Also, I kind of thought that since I said get values from figure in scene that it was selected the morphs that were needed to create the figure. But I guess that it is just setting the values.

I also just checked and I don't see a people folder but I do see an actor folder.

So if I load a character into my scene, and want to transfer that character from G2M to G3M, I get a screen that looks like this after I say get values from figure in scene ...

(Well, I wanted the picture to show here, but it shows as an attachment. Plus I didn't realize that you had to save the the response before the attachment showed, so I attached it 4 times and now I don't see a way to delete the duplicates.)

In any case, the only morph that appears to be set is Dusty 1, except for the one that says Disable all -1, so if I check the line that says Dusty and transfer the morph, then I should end up with a character morph for G3M that will convert him into Dusty, right? (I thought I did that but the slider didn't change anything. But maybe I didn't something wrong, so I will try it again.)

Also, why are some of the types checked in yellow, but some are not. They all seem to have a value of zero, so I'm not sure what the check mark means.

I couldn't find an example of one that I thought looked grayed out.

 

Brandon mixed with several Marcius characters plus dial spun to make him less blocky.

Wow, that morph looks great! First one I've seen that I liked... Unfortunately I don't own any Marcius characters. Yet.

I need a morph for a Pathfinder style goblin.  While I've got enough morph backs to get the basic stature and spindly limbs, the signature piece - the head - is giving me trouble.  They're incredibly large and roughly football shaped, typically the same width as the shoulders, and often the same width as the hips.  A very toothy mouth makes up much of the space.

Can anyone point me to something roughly like that?  I've come close with mixing various morphs, but I'd like better options.

I posted this in the original scripts thread but it has not been active for a while so I thought that this might be a problem that is common to scripts so I posted here as well. I have an issue now that I did not get before when using the SG Copy Pose Animated Script. While attempting to transfer from Victoria 6 to Victoria 7 or from V4 to G3, or V5 to V7. I get the following message .

general\dzscript.cpp(658): Unhandled errorwhile executing script. QscriptEngine::popContext()doesn't match with push Context()

then, the script stops after converting about 200 frames and then  V7 (G3 when used with v4 to G3) is suddenly placed to the side of V6 and has all the upper body muscularity morphs applied. I have used this script before many times to convert from V6 to V7 with animations exceeding 6000 plus frames and it worked fine. The only difference I can think of that I have now is that I istalled muscularity morphs for G8 recently. Any help would be appreciated.

Kwan

Sometimes I worry about createing variations with morphs or scaling cause what if it prevents somebody else from making a morph ? any who here is my scaled and morphed  American Bulldog from Bully

 

I hope this thread is still active, because I have an issue now that I did not get before. While attempting to transfer from Victoria 6 to Victoria 7 I get the following message .

general\dzscript.cpp(658): Unhandled errorwhile executing script. QscriptEngine::popContext()doesn't match with push Context()

then, the script stops after converting about 200 frames and then  V7 is suddenly placed to the side of V6 and has all muscularity morphs applied. I have used this script before many times to convert from V6 to V7 with animations exceeding 6000 plus frames and it worked fine. The only difference I can think of that I have now is that I istalled muscularity morphs for G8 recently. Any help would be appreciated.

Phoenix beat me to it. And boy does that guy look good in those overalls! 

Thanks.  I wish there was a morph to unclasp one of the straps so it dangled behind the figure and the bib bent in front. 

*** Thu 19 Sep 2024: "Vintage01 texture map for the 64-book mapping" now uploaded. See this post on page 3 ***

*** Thu 19 Sep 2024: "Multi-figure bookstacks for Poser" now uploaded. See this post on page 2 of this thread ***

Sat 10 Aug 2019: DS4 native version of the 64 book row/stack thingy... See this post on page 2 of this thread 

Mon 14 Jan 2019: "More Of The Cheapskates Books" now uploaded. See this post on page 2 of this thread.

Mon 7 Jan 2019: TEST prop (PP2) of a single 86 face closed book with a few morphs uploaded to this post

Sun 30 Dec 2018: 41 more dubious pulp fiction titles and 41 dubious classics now available as textures for the original 41-book prop

Mon 29 Oct 2018: ​3DCheapskate's Six-Bookrows Prop is now uploaded at ShareCG. Also see this post on page 2 of this thread.

Mon 10 Sep 2018: New texture for the first bookrow prop (25 Aug) now with 41 different books - in this post

Sun 9 Sep 2018: illkirch has uploaded a couple of 'Rows of books' props to ShareCG here http://www.sharecg.com/v/92122/browse/11/Poser/Rows-of-books

Wed 5 Sep 2018: mCasual's script is done ! See this post

Mon 27 Aug 2018: With luck mCasual will be posting a script for creating random blocks of books and a morphing book prop as mentioned in this post below.

Mon 27 Aug 2018: Two morph targets to make the bookrow a more realistic stack of books uploaded to this post below.You need to download the two TXT files attached to that post, rename them as OBJ files, and then in Poser/DS apply them to your prop as a morph target.

Sat 25 Aug 2018 : The first book row prop is available - see the third post on this thread for details. (N.B. If you do a texture set for this prop you're very welcome to post details, pictures and links to this thread. I'll then add the links up here too)

 

---

 

Still to do:

• A 'Lean' morph - it would be nice to have some gaps in the bookrow with adjacent books leaning over
• Rotation morphs - if  the bookrow is used as abook stack it looks odd with the bottom side allperfectly aligned) Done
• Single prop with 6 rows of books, for filling a complete set of shelves in one go Done 29 Oct 2018
• Individual book props (in progress)
• Geometry-swapping multi-bookrow figure to easily change one row of books for, say, a stack of atlases.

Note: There's a lot more details regarding the development of this project in this thread over on the Smith Micro Poser forum (until that forum disappearsof course), as it started as a Poser project.

 

---

 

(Original post starts here)

I'm currently playing with a rather simple freebie for populating bookshelves. Six vertices, two faces ! (That's the very,very simplest variant- there are others with more polys, but my goal here is low poly)

It's not quite ready yet, but I've done a first 2048x2048 texture JPG for testing. Yes, the books are duplicated - I said it's a test!

Since I tend to lose stuff that's on my PC I'm posting the JPG here for starters.

I'll post again as and when I make progress.

(Yes, you can use this JPG however you like)

 

Edit: Added a couple of renders of this texture applied to a 6 vertex/2 face and an 8 vertex/6 face prop

Edit2: With a few vertices and faces for each book (6v/2f for just spine and top, 8v/4f for spine+top+covers, up to 8v/6f for all six sides) there's a lot more flexibility.41 books of different sizes using about 287 vertices/123faces. Still using just the attached JPG for texture. You can probably tell that the covers aresimply UV-mapped to a small section of the spine.The intention was to grab a similar colour swatch - but of course there's sometimes text too.

Edit3: A couple of simple morphs for each book ('bigger','thicker', and 'lean') would add to the fun. 'Bigger' only affects that book. 'Thicker' and 'Lean' require all books to the right to be moved too. 'Lean' won't combine nicely with the other two.Also with 41 books in the prop, theorganisation of the morphs on the UI needs a bit of thought. Maybe a 'Gap' morph would be better than a 'Lean'? A single book prop,leaning, could then be put in the gap.

I'm expecting to do normal/bump (and maybe displacement, for micropolygon-displacement renderers 3Delight and Firefly) maps when I get around to doing hardbacks. Maybe need them for well-readpaperbacks too?

The bug is apparently present also with the Height morph of Genesis 8 Male Body Morphs set.

In the 4.11 Public Beta? If it's 4.10 then that is unsurprising, it wasn't a figure-specific issue.

for my part, the problem happened after I installed "Big girl morph" for G8F

There is one "adjust leg length" morph. It raises the pant legs by about 3-4" on the figure and flares the bottom slightly (I suspect this is to help the pants fit over shoes/hiking boot style footwear).

 

I would imagine a wider leg could be achieved by a dformer easily enough.

Laurie

Sounds good. I know it's just a matter of personal preference, but I like the pants leg just slightly tapered. Too wide and you have bellbottoms, too narrow and you get the skinny jeans look. Thanks for the replies.

So what is the Toon Dwayne morph exactly doing to the fingers and hands? It seems to totally deform them.

The most noticable thing is the fingertips are square which is wierd but sort of fitting for the boxy look of Dwayne.

I've not had morph troiubles with Brandon or Boris because I didn't change them except make the Propogating Head Scale 10% bigger. Boris does load with mismatching materials if seems and with Owen 8 & Floyd 8 dependent dsf files as dependencies (probably unneeded dependencies).

A common issue with Genesis 3 figures is that the Mouth HD and Navel morph is set on by default - so it maybe was on while creating the morph and getting part of it.

Now you load your figure in default state, dial in the morph and the shape gets doubled.

Have a look into the Parameters pane under Currently Used with Show Hidden Properties on to see what morphs made up the current character shape.

There is an rather "easy" fix for those morphs that deform the theeth or other unwanted parts that involves using the Clear Selected Deltas from Favourits action in the Geometry Editor set to Vertex Selection mode.

See this Tutorial on Youtube: Cleaning Up Morphing Mistakes by Xenic101

 

Found it last year in this thread: TUTORIAL - Creating a Genesis/G2F/G2M/G3M/G3M Full Body Morph for DAZ Studio Pro 4.6 by RKane_1

Did I say easy fix - a few months later I forgot how to use see here: Clear Selected Deltas from Favourites - can't find this function anymore in the new DS version

PS: I wonder if Save Modified Assets would updated the fixed morph files properly, because I imagine it could be tedious to save over all the fixed morphs from different artists one by one with the defaults Save Morph Asset dialouge where you have to choose artist and product name to be the same like the original to actualy overwrite the file in the library. Maybe make a backup of the files in ...\DAZStudio4_Library\data\DAZ 3D\Genesis 3\Female before trying. I usualy create a ZIP archive of that folder once in a while before editing something on the Properties.

It's better to model the clothes against the genesis base shape - this would avoid such issues.

Seems like the pants revert back to default Genesis shape after the transfer process in the third sceenshot.

I see your character in the scene is morphed to FR Mila now and you have modeled the pants onto her shape.

What you can do is check the Reverse Source Shape from Target under General Options in the Transfer Utility settings like seen in the second sceenshot.

This should generate the needed character morphs, so if you unfit the pants no morphs will be applied and they should match the genesis figure base shape - but slightly deformations can occure.

So what is the Toon Dwayne morph exactly doing to the fingers and hands? It seems to totally deform them.

When I took the base Dwayne into ZBrush the fingers are very squished at the top, the distance between the first nuckle to second knuckle is about average second to third shorter and the third to tip is rediculously squished.  Not sure if that's part of the problem.  Honestly the morph itself ... seems a bit rushed to me.  The forearms the flow of the verts is really wonky when viewed in ZBrush too.  I love seeing all the renders used to make him your own and I guess just small amounts goes a long long way to make him more pleasing to the eye.  Clothed he looks OK as you don't see allot of that stuff but boy bare chested and up close looking over the hands, it's really quite .. I don't know.... weird to me.