How to? Custom Star Wars morphs for M4 and V4
LennyElf
Posts: 23
Hi folks!
I'm here today to ask some major questions about using morphs (specially creature creator) to get to a specific result. Or, if you guy have better ideas, I'm tottaly open to that!
I'm a big Star Wars fan and, latelly, I've been doing many habbies related: Playing X-Wing, Imperial Assault and RPG based in the old system of D20 saga. And it's about the last one this topic.
My group is very unorthodox: A zabrak (your's truly, a bothan, a gungam and a kel'dor. Needless to say that I want to do images of them, and already accomplished my zabrak, wich is the easiest of all of them, since most zabraks are human-like and have only addition of the horns and the tribal-clan tattoos. I did, also, a preview (as a try) of the bothan, using M4 creature creator and mixing morphs of the goat, panther and dog, but I'm not actually happy eith it, I wanted a more elongated face, as the images of bothans that can be found at google. Last, I truly need a way to reproduce properly a gungam and a kel'dor, and trough looking in galleries at other sites, culdn't find any gungans (Jar Jar made a great favor in making we hate them) but I actually find some images with kel'dors. My questions truly are:
- Any tips to elongate more the face of a bothan, and taking away that cat-ish feel of the morph in M4?
- Any morphs or props of a gungam head? (Just need the head)
- There is a head of a kel'dor, anyone know were can I find it? (I asked for the authors, but got no response at all)
Thanks in advance, if needed I can post the images of my creations here for you guys to give your toughts and tips, and also, post the exemples noted above.
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Comments
What version of Poser do you have?
Poser's Morph Tool is pretty powerful. In P11 Pro, it's exceptional, easily the best iteration of it in Poser. You can do a great deal with the Morph Tool and, in combination with stock morphs for the figure, there are few humanoid morphs you couldn't pull off.
A "gungan" would be fairly easy to do with the Morph Tool and some good reference images. I'd recommend making the long ears a separate piece, possibly a conforming head piece or, at the least, some parentable ears with some morphs for movement.
I looked up a kel'dor. To do it right, you could pretty easily morph the head of M4/V4 to fit the fleshy part and then you'd probably need a few prop pieces for the mechanical bits. For the big ear bits, you may be able to get away with just using the existing geometry for M4/V4 ears, since they're pretty dense.
The Morph Tool is integrated with Poser for projects just like this. If you follow the existing topoloy, you can even make these extreme morphs work fairly well with the existing expression sets. Check expressions on the figure regularly to see what changes you may need to make as you work. Create at least two "working files" and alternate saving over them so you have a backup to a previous version in case you make a design change that is too complex to "back out" of. Create a new morph each time you're working on a new part of the face, that way if it doesn't turn out right, you can simply delete it and you won't lose the hard work you've already put in. (ie: Head/skull morph, ears, eyes/cheeks, bridge of nose, nose/mouth, lower face, neck, etc.. Then, once done, combine them all into one full body morph.)
PS - I really don't know if anyone has done a gungan morph. I'm reasonably sure nobody has done a kel'dor, but I'm not a fan of the more recent SW films, so wouldn't be looking for those morphs, anyway.
Your tips are impressive, Morkonan! But my version of poser is Poser Pro 2012 (yes, I'm a dinossaur). Also a have a very onl machine, I only use morph tool to adjust clothing, since the computer almost gasps with poser. I used magnets to change the morph and elongate it more, but the other two are truly kiling me. I'm almost giving up, to be honest...
About the morphs, I found a 3D file (freebie) of Jar Jar, maybe I can chop his head off and franksntein something with M4...
Do you have some good references images?
<sigh>
I'm NOT promising I'll do it.. That's because everytime in the past couple of years I've promised to undertake a freebie for someone, something tragic happens and I get pulled away from it/forget. (someone dies, lightning strikes, personal life explosion, etc..) I'm not kidding - I've been cursed every time I promise to do a freebie in the past two years. (I used to do a few of those, back in the day.)
BUT... I'll take a look at custom sculpts for existing M4 or V4 (Can't promise a morph will be equally useable on both, but it's possible) as well as the custom bits/conformables needed to pull it off. (Ears/etc) "I'll take a look" - Hear that, Displeased Freebie Gods? I'm not promising anything! Srsly... And, given my penchant for failing to produce a freebie, I can't promise you, either. Sorry. :( (But, I can promise I'll muck about with it a bit.)
What is needed is a good profile pic, front pic, a good isometric pic and reasonable "detail" pics for the characters/races in question. Like, for the gungan, the ears are weird and there are very few pictures available that show what the back of the thing's head is supposed to look like where the ears join. /noidea I don't own any of the "prequel" movies, on purpose, so I'm limited to what's online that I can scoop up. Not being a big prequel fan and only a comfortable-port fan of Star Wars in general, I don't know where the "where to go" places are on the net. :)
To be honest, I look for the references at google too. Just typing "gungan" will give you a wide array of images, to the keldor I usually look for with "keldor star wars" to avoid any searches that lead to He-Man. I truly hope that, if you start doing this freebie, the avenging gods of chaos may let you end it. To be fair, I face a similar challenge: I neve end the collection of images I propose myself to do. I started many projects like that: The tarot, Planet Y (from Ayreon, google it if you like prog metal ^_^), the signs of the zodiac, Mucha Muses... To be fair, I only accomplished one: Four seasons! So I truly understand you, and while I struggle to find ways of creating the morphs or to find them, I wish you the best of luck in your own path of creation. And, as proper to this post, may the force be with you.
I spent an hour or so fiddling with the toughest of the morphs - The Gungan. It's not so much that the geometry isn't there to do it, it's that the resulting morph is going to have issues. It will need some rigging changes, which means a custom CR2. (I don't know how to inject customized rigging changes.) And, the UV map is going to be horribly stretched in some places, particularly between the top lip and bottom of the nose. There's enough geometry around the mouth to stretch it out, but it may as well be remapped, as well, so it can be textured better. The eyeballs can be used, with CR2 adjustments, but some stalks will need to be made and the original eye "holes" moved to the top of the head so the stalks can come out of them. The ears can provide some geometry and can be combined into the mesh fairly well, but it'll need separate ears. Facial morphs will likely produce weird results, but that's not too bad considering it's not human, anyway. The biggest problem is the mouth - It can open/close, but even something as simply as smiling will cause weird changes because of how the verts are stretched.
IOW - It's "doable", but the end result is probably not worth the amount of effort it would take. It's probably better to just do a whole new head rather than a morph. The Gungan head is like a crocodile's, which is a fair distance away from being "human."
If you can point me to where you found the Gungan head study object, I can see if I can rig it so you can get some movements out of it and such, maybe even some simple expressions and the like. (If you'd like, that is. If not, then that's fine, too.)
I started on the toughest, first. The other's aren't so difficult and should be fairly easy to get a "decent" result from. No promises, since whenever I promise something, yada yada yada.. But, I'll keep tinkering with it.
May the Swartz be with you! Up the Universe! So long and thanks for all the fish! ;)
I'm in my inlaws house this weekend, but as soon as I come back home, I will send you a proper link of a obj of Jar Jar himself that I found in a site of free models. Maybe that will help you. Thanks again for the collab!
Thanks. Some proper reference pics would make it easier to figure out if this is really "doable" with the Gungan morph. I found some decent reference pics in product reviews for Star Wars figures. But... they're plastic minifigs, so they don't have much detail, anyway. But, then again, making it easier to see the proportions has increased my confidence that at least a "doable" Gungan morph is possible. I was making the mouth a bit too deep, previously. It only goes that deep when a Gungan smiles. Really weird, since it doesn't make much anatomical sense in a supposedly "realistic" character.
I am being traumatized, though, by hearing memorable Jar-Jar lines in my head everytime I look at this darn thing. :)
If the Gungan ends up being a no-go, I can probably do the other two. They're not as extreme and won't require a lot of separate bits that could be difficult. (The Gungan does require "eye stalks", separately, and conforming/poseable ears in order to be "worth having." The Bothan probably requires facial hair and I suck at creating polygon hair transmaps. :) )
Not promising anything! But, I am fiddling with 'em. Fiddled for another hour or so with the Gungan when I found better refs.
Some interesting links/models to verify:
http://animium.com/2008/07/jar-jar-binks and http://www.scifi3d.com/list.asp?intGenreID=10&intCatID=13 (Both of them have free Jar Jar models to analys)
http://tf3dm.com/3d-model/plo-koon-77301.html (The only keldor model I have found)
About the Bothan, I manage to do a pretty good job with magnets, and my husband actually liked how it ended, so, nevermind it.
Hope it helps, I'm actually curious if you manage to finish ^_^ *motivational smile*
Thanks! Good pics would be best, though. It's not that I don't think the artists could do the figure right, it's just that I don't know that they did the figure right. :) I've got some "fair" ref pics and can go from there to get a decent representation. If I get it done, you can tell me what bits I need to redo. :)
I've got some Keldor pics that give me enough to go on. I can make assumptions about the back of their heads. If you have the Bothan covered, that's great! It means I don't have to do any hair modeling/transmap/texture making. :) (I suck at hair because my texturing skills are terrible... I never bothered actually learning "how to" Adobe CS and Photoshop, even though I've used it/them for years. :) )
I'll do what I can. No promises, though. (The Freebie Promise gods might be watching...keeping it on the down-low, for now. ;) Ssssh... High sign!)
I know, I know... Keeping it low, right?
About images, I search in google and I find a lot of comic and drawing references, not much. Many screens of the prequels too (regarding Jar Jar). You don't need to worry that much about texturing, I'm not a great texturer, but I can work my way through post-production, and I did the bothan using hair props and the Daz M4 Beard. I tought you could use the model to frankenstein it, since you are much more experienced than me in this...
I could rig/Frankenstein another model, but I thought it'd be better and more funnerer :) to do an actual M4 morph, since things like the Gungan head are so much different from the standard human head. (ie: It's a challenge.) I can do some pretty basic textures, no problem. They wouldn't necessarily be something of saleable quality, IMO, but they'd be fine for expanding on in GIMP/PS or for medium/simple renders. I'll work on the Gungan a bit more on Sat/Sun and should have something to show by then. I have yet to decide on the eyes and whether or not to use the originals as that'll require a morph that adjusts the rigging, too, and I have to read up on that. Either way, it'll be fine and if I use new eyes, I'll try to UV them so they can accept default M4 eye textures in a pinch.
If it turns out easier than I thought, I could probably cobble together a simple Gungan outfit, too. A full body morph might not be out of range, either, but it's prob best to leave that for another time.
(Still keeping it on the down-low... Words like "probably" and "maybe" seem to placate the Freebie Gods and encourage them to ignore me... ;) )
Tht's the spirit! About the body morph, I can overcome that by using the Creature pack morphs. He will be clothed anyway... A naked gungan must be a vision to be reckon with tough...
Just letting you know I didn't disappear. Here's a quick concept proof showing that it can be done. Consider it the "base" that I'm working on. There are a great many things yet to do, but it's "doable."
http://imgur.com/BSQYRIx
(Don't be alarmed! It's just a base concept. I don't see any issues, just a lot of tweaks and moving some features around. There will be some major adjustments, of course, and the finished morph won't resemble this one very much.)
Disregard the eyeballs, eyelashes, ears - The eyes/lashes will be hidden unless I can figure out custom rig injections.The eyes will have separate conforming geometry and separate eyes and rigging. The eye-holes are being relocated back and to the sides to provide the base for the separate eye-stalks. (I don't think trying to use M4's eyes is going to work out well with the rigging, but I haven't completely given up on that if I can figure out how to script in rigging adjustments with an Injection pose.) The ear geometry will be incorporated with the ear canal, but will mostly just supply some needed geometry in a couple of areas. Might be fun to tweak ear morphs to get some interesting character morphs on the sides of the head. :)
I'm trying to model around what I know of how the various expressions work. He may need some custome expression, but that's not too difficult, really. (Slight base M4 expressions should work OK. Extreme ones will wreck his face... ) This was my major concern, since I was worried about about geometry stretching in certain areas. We'll see. If anything, he'll at least be "useable" which is better than nothing. :)
The ears will be modeled separately and rigged so they can be posed and such. A few injected poses might also be available. ie: Folded down, across the sides/back of head, left-right, up-down, etc. We'll see.
Some rigging adjustements for the neck might be necessary to keep the lower face from being deformed too much with certain movements. Shouldn't be too much of an issue. Also, instead of trying to model the slightly longer neck and then adjust the rigging, it's simpler to just have the user increase the y axis a few points so Poser's rigging can auto-adjust.
There will be textures and a high-resolution bump map for some of the extra details that I can't put into the geometry, due to lack of same. If I'm feeling up to it, I'll do a hi-res sculpted details normal map. But, only if it's worth it and the base model turns out well and gives decent results with standard morphs. (No use polishing a... thing. ;) )
Sorry for the delay in getting back. Had some things to deal with. Will update when able and there's something significant to show.
PS - What version of Poser are you using? I want to be able to be sure you can use the finished product without any issues.
Wow, that's amazing!!! I'm using poser pro 2012 (dinossaur girl)
I can test in PP2012, no problem. That will also let me try out a few things, too.
Update!
(Sorry, I've been out of town for awhile. May have to go out of town next week, so working a bit on the project this week, as I have time.)
OK, imported morphs to check for any unsightly deformations during Expression Poses for the mouth, just to check to see if I had any major issues. And, as you can see, I did not!
1) Default M4
http://imgur.com/G0ysirP
(Just checking the topology of the basic mouth/lips before moving with the other major areas. I'd hate to do it and then figure out I had to redo major steps.)
2) M4 Expression Smile=1
http://imgur.com/xgQSdm4
Was planning on bulking up cheeks, anyway, so it'll be smoother in that area.
3) M4 Expression Open Smile=1, Mouth Open=1
http://imgur.com/O4mdVzJ
Nice, basically smooth combo expression. Sorry, he's had his teeth and gums pulled, for the moment. He'll have 'em back once he's proved he's not dangerous... ;)
4) Now it's time for the tough stuffs... How will he fair with the dreaded Lip Pucker=1 combined with Lip Pucker Wide=1????
http://imgur.com/CfIhJCx
Booyah! Some slight crowding on the centerline, which I'll fix, and the rest looks as good as a weird alien with ducklips is gonna get. :D
IOW - It appears that most expressions for M4's mouth and lower face will work fairly well, considering the new topology. The finished morph will have a bit more work done on the mouth to get the "crocodile corners/cheeks" impression correct, but there's no significant geometry crowding/ripping/weirdness going on with what I have so far. So, this is truly "doable" with decent results for existing M4 morphs. That means you can load expressions and get the basic mouth expressions, which are going to be Gunganguy's most emotive bits, to work pretty well. Head and neck rotations look very good, too, so there won't be much weirdness there, either. As before, everything on the z-axis past the nose is going to change, with eyestalks and floppy bunny ears being conforming items. (Haven't decided on if I'll use M4's eyes, but it's also a possibility, since loaded expressions should work fine and it'd be nice to use the eye expressions some of them come with. I'll see how it goes.
PS - Gungan mouths sometimes, due to the animators, pull back towards the skull more during some expressions. I'll inlcude a few "fix" morphs to give more gungan-like movement of that area towards the rear. Gungans have a huge, much larger, range of facial structural range than... any realistic species should have.. In reality, for primates, there's a reason for this - If primate facial structrues varied so widely in "real-life" primates, we'd have difficulty in determining an individual's facial expressions, which is critical social input for us. I guess gungans might use their ears or something a bit more to communicate emotions... Or Lucas was droping acid when he approved the character designs. :)
Lastly - Thanks for the project idea! It's tough, abdnormal, crazy-morphing, but that's why I signed on, so it's all good!
Hi Mork (can I call you Mork?)
I've been away too, dealing with househould issues and a new fitness schedule, mhy time is shrinking as we speak. Loved the imaging exemples, you are very good with 3D modeling! Thankyou to embracing this lonely project!