[Tutorial] Create Pose Controls To Move Extra Bones
SickleYield
Posts: 7,640
Why am I pestering you with this? Because it's an awesome native feature of DS4.5 that Poser lacks (the add-ons that make ERC controls possible are expensive external programs), and that we should all be using! Between the figure setup and how easy that makes it to create big bone chains and this, we could really have massive sleeves and trains, chain weapons, creature tails, and anything else your heart desires in the realm of big strings of bones. Some of you obviously know how to use it already, of course. But if you don't, please learn. It's so tremendously freeing to be able to do this with 4.5 Pro (and so much easier than trying to setup EasyPose figures used to be!).
I went over this in the Clothing thread, but in case people missed that:
A pose control is made by posing the figure, then setting up an ERC control for just that pose, thus resulting in a dial that lets that pose be dialed in to any degree. It is an incredibly powerful posing and animation tool.
I just checked it with my loincloth (which has a lot of extra bones) and a double-ended chain blade proof of concept, and here’s a workflow that seems functional:
1. Load the figure. Pose it in the position that you want to have as a pose control.
2. Load Property Editor again and right-click in the right panel. We’re still going to ERC Freeze.
3. Choose the clothing piece as your figure and ALSO as the Node.
4. For the Property, choose Create New.
5. For the Path, type Pose Controls. For the Name, create a name (MoveRightFolds, etc.) which should automatically copy to the Label. I’m not sure if having spaces will break the Name but it won’t the Label.
6. Leave everything else alone. Click Create. (N.B. With my weapon WIP I found I needed to uncheck the two options other than Create Controller.)
7. It will go back to the ERC Freeze options showing your new property. Click Accept.
Now you have a new pose control. The chain weapons in this pic were posed in about two minutes even though each has 79 bones (an anchor and two 39-bone chains).
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Thank you.
Not quite there yet myself, but "one of these days" lol ...
Which is way cool and will help me do tentacle monsters and octopuses, but it doesn't help the toe and foot problem I posted about last night. Is there a way to resculpt a base figure if there are no bones in that spot to start with? The genesis foot has only minimal controls for the toes (they only move as a bunch), and only in one joint. See my previous post for examples of why you might want to change the foot sbape, but not geograft a new one on.
Your problem is most solvable by using custom morphs, which is not related to this (Pose Control is a bone rigging feature). I tried to point this out in that thread.
Thanks for the tutorial, Sickleyield. Nice to have a step-by-step quick reference, they're pretty easy to make but the property editor always gets me confused.
Btw, that's some bad-ass chain blade you're working on. I bet my Naoki would look darn cool yielding that :coolsmirk:
She wants it.
Thank you. :-) These will work with any figure that can be used in DS4.5, but I'm definitely doing the presets for Genesis.
Right now I'm thinking this POC project will go up at Rendo, and I will plan a couple of lavish weapons packs for DAZ (one more Western and one more Eastern/martial arts oriented). At last people will get the cat o' nine tails they've been wanting. That's not going to be as quick as this, though. Nine chains of 40+ bones, oy!
I'm all In. I so need to learn this stuff and get off my Duff. How about adding the Boning mini tut to this same thread with a example of a chain or rope? Please!
I didn't do that because it depends on using vertex group assignment in the modeling software, and not everyone uses the same one. You have to create all of the face groups as vertex groups for the rest of the process to work, and it's actually the longest step. I duplicated one side to get the other side's groups in Blender. They are named Center, ChainR.01, ChainL.01, and on down. Don't even try to do this with less than 10 groups unless it's a really short object, or you will NOT get smooth bending.
Once this was done, I exported the geometry from Blender and created a Figure Setup tab in DAZ Studio 4.5 (Window--Panes (Tabs)). Bone tool looks like a bone with a bandaid across it. Weight Map brush looks like a tiny paintbrush across a barbell.
Click "Add Geometry" in the left pane of the Figure Setup tab and choose your exported geometry.
Drag it over to the right pane to have it generate your bones.
Drag the bones onto each other to form the bone chain (02 onto 01, etc.). This goes faster than you'd think, usually just a couple of minutes.
Because I modeled the chain flat I was able to just use XYZ for the rotation order on everything. So once the parenting is correct, choose Create at the bottom of the pane. DO NOT clear hierarchy or close the pane yet, in case the joint order turns out to not be what you want!
Look at the figure created in DAZ Studio's 3d window. Activate the bone tool to look at the bones. Do they all point the right way? If not, it's easier to delete this, go back to the Figure Setup tab, and change the joint order by right-clicking each bone rather than do each one in the Tool tab, but you can do it either way.
If this is a conforming figure (rather than a smartprop, like my chains) there is an extra step before you save to library, as you will see from the fact that it looks weird when conformed to Genesis. Your generated root bone's origin is probably not the same as the Genesis bone you want it to conform to. You need to go that bone in Genesis (Pelvis in the case of a tail, etc.) and copy down the exact translation values of the bone's endpoints. Select your item's root bone (it should have the same name). Change the endpoint values of your matching root bone to match the numbers.
(Aside: Using Transfer Utility is not recommended unless you really know what you're doing because you'll have to uncheck the face group setting or lose your rigging. Either way, you MUST be able to do face groups yourself in your modeling program to use this method. In fact, I wouldn't do a conformer as your first project. And if you want a relatively short chain on an otherwise complex outfit (like a full dress with just four or five bones per hanging sleeve), it's better to use Transfer Utility on the dress and create the extra bones manually in DS4.5 with Bone Tool.)
Now, with bone tool up, right-click and Memorize Figure Rigging.
Now switch to the Weight Brush. Right-click and choose "Fill Weight By Selection Sets." If all goes well, it just fills all your weight groups for you.
You can multi-select bones in Scene Tab to smooth all of the groups at once for smoother bending on an object that needs to bend organically (a chain does not, a tail does). The smoothing is used by going to Polygon Editor, right-clicking, and choosing Select All. Then go back to Weight Map Brush, right-click, and choose Smooth Selected Faces.
This way you don't have to individually rig all these groups.
Now save to library, delete from the scene, and reload your new object before you start posing it to make ERCs. You can multi-select the bones in scene tab and set, say, all of the Bend values to 45 degrees at once, so posing uniformly is quite easy (or posing small sections of bones as well). If you right-click in Scene Tab you'll see that you can select a bone and all its children, which is very useful for this.
A cat with 9 tails???!!!! [jk]
Should be very popular ;-)
Thanks Sickle this looks like it will be really useful...
I didn't do that because it depends on using vertex group assignment in the modeling software, and not everyone uses the same one. You have to create all of the face groups as vertex groups for the rest of the process to work, and it's actually the longest step. I duplicated one side to get the other side's groups in Blender. They are named Center, ChainR.01, ChainL.01, and on down. Don't even try to do this with less than 10 groups unless it's a really short object, or you will NOT get smooth bending.
>>>AND BIG SNIP For SPACE<<<</strong>The good news is I understand all this and thank you for your time. I never said I could do it fast but I understand it. This is very helpful. Thank you again.
I have to agree there Jaderail. Most enlightening SickleYield thank you for taking the time to help out and share your hard earned knowledge. Like Jaderial I also need to pull the proverbal finger out and get to grips with this. Not to make anything to sell just for me and so I know what I am talking about so I can try to help more folks.
No problem!
I don't mind if people DO use it to make things for sale, in fact I hope they will. This tech needs to be de-exoticized and just become normal to DAZ users. Slapping an EP label on a Poser product guarantees sales that may or may not be supported by its other qualities, which gives incentive to keep it a "special" "rare" feature.
It's just not that hard to do in DS4.5. It's time-consuming in the earliest steps, but if you put in the time, you get the results. And assigning weight by face groups followed by mass smoothing gets better results with rigging something long and narrow than any process available elsewhere. The Figure Setup tab is incredibly powerful for creating these massive rigs.
I don't know, maybe if I put together a tutorial for sale, with pictures, it will get more people's attention. ;)
I do understand what you said with regards to it is not difficult just time consuming...for me that isn't a problem. I also use Blender and I am starting to really enjoy using it too. It is becoming comfortable. :)
I do understand what you said with regards to it is not difficult just time consuming...for me that isn't a problem. I also use Blender and I am starting to really enjoy using it too. It is becoming comfortable. :)
ONE OF US
ONE OF US
So will this technique help me with clothing such as long sleeved medieval dresses and kimonos?
The ERC freeze for pose controls, absolutely. Any outfit with extra bones can benefit from pose controls. The second post on Figure Setup rigging probably isn't necessary for those if you can just add the bones to a Transfer Utility-generated setup.
That's assuming this feature was already there and working in DS4.0, as I seem to recall you don't work with later versions. I didn't know how to do this back when I was using 4.0, so I frankly have no idea, but Genesis was made for that originally and does have pose controls, so I would assume they're there.
Hi...
There are features of the CCT's that are new with the 4.5 series, but the ones your talking are there in 4.0
The ability to use ERC freeze to create Pose Controls is there in 4.0 and works the same way, but I don't recall if the dialog boxes look exactly the same or not... also the mass smoothing of weights is in 4.0, but.... the weight tools didn't always work right in the various versions, at least in the 32bit 4.0.... the other thing that didn't always work (for me at least) in 4.0 was the ability to just add new bones to an exsisting skeleton....
Your problem is most solvable by using custom morphs, which is not related to this (Pose Control is a bone rigging feature). I tried to point this out in that thread.
You can use this same process to create pose controls of morphs.... their just not called Pose Controls in general.... the most notable example would be Expression Controls.... several facial morph sliders are set and then ERC froze to create a slider control for an expression.... the same can be done for pose morphs... but you have to remember that morphs alone move in a linear fashion, so to create a smooth complex movement would require a stepped ERC chain of morphs.... which is why bones (with JCM's if needed) would work much better in those instances... but in the case of the toes, I agree, plain old morphs are the only real option...
Thank you SY for posting this very clear and concise tutorial for the community... These tut's, both in store and in the forums, by vendors such as yourself do carry alot of weight in attracting the attention of users to learn the features of DS... and I'd like to add that these advanced features are not just for making content for sale... they're very useful in aiding the artist in creating that extra something for their scene.... from that nifty little prop to adding that extra flare to a purchase product...
nicci... :)
Does this has anything to do with achieving something like this?:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28921
Sorry for the vague post but I'm not allowed to give any more details than that.
My instructions as-is are for controlling longer bone rigs. They have nothing to do with morphs, and I'm not an expert on the kind of morph controllers I think something like that would require (can't really tell given how vague it is).
My instructions as-is are for controlling longer bone rigs. They have nothing to do with morphs, and I'm not an expert on the kind of morph controllers I think something like that would require (can't really tell given how vague it is).
Too bad.
Sorry, I know that's not enough info at all (and probably that's why I was pointed to this thread by mistake in the first place), but moderators are not allowing me to say anything more than that.
Thanks anyway. :)
Too bad.
Sorry, I know that's not enough info at all (and probably that's why I was pointed to this thread by mistake in the first place), but moderators are not allowing me to say anything more than that.
Thanks anyway. :)
Send a PM?
Ok, for anyone else who wants to create a "progressive" morph, that is, a morph wherein you control the intermediate stages, here's how. This is in DS4.6.0.18; I am not messing with the beta's new settings yet, but I anticipate it will be similar. This is based on my experimentation, so if people find things I did wrong later, please correct me.
In effect, you are creating an animation controlled by a frozen ERC dial. If that doesn't make sense, ignore it and read on:
The key is that you create a series of morphs, not just one. The first one represents a first "stage" of the morph. I will use the example of a scarf unwrapping. You want the scarf to unwrap in a clean spiral, not to morph hideously from "wrapped" to "unwrapped" in one go.
So your first morph represents the scarf unwrapped just a little bit. You load that normally with morph loader and name it as the first in the chain, for e.g. PBMScarfUnwrap01. So far so good.
Now, in your modeling software, you must create the next morph in the chain BY MODIFYING THE FIRST ONE. You can duplicate the first one for backup in the modeler first if you like. Either way, when you export it, it will be treated a little differently in Morph Loader Pro. You must turn the 01 morph to 100% BEFORE loading the second one, and when you load the second one, you must turn "reverse deformations" to YES.
This creates the second morph as a modifier of the first morph. It won't do much on its own, but it moves the first morph a little further along your desired "curve" toward your destination. Once that morph is loaded, dial it to 100% as well, so that your scarf is now unwrapped a little further.
Now when you create morph 03, continuing the progression of unwrapping, you will do the same: create it by modifying the SECOND morph, and load it with deformations reversed and BOTH the first and second morphs turned on.
And so on. You can continue this through many iterations until your scarf is completely unwrapped with all of the morphs dialed on. Each morph represents a "stage" of that unwrapping, so our final controller won't skip any of them.
And once all of those stages are complete, here's how to create the controller (next post).
Once you have your morphs set up progressively, so that 2 stacks on top of 1, etc.:
Go the Property Editor tab and right-click in the right hand pane. Click ERC Freeze.
Choose your morphed item as the figure and the node.
Click "Create new property."
Check "Create as Empty Morph." Give it a name and a group besides "morph loader' or "actor." I'll call mine CTRLScarf. Make the maximum limit the same as the number of intermediate morphs (i.e., if there are 5, the max should be 5).
Click Accept as-is.
Now you have this new empty control property to work with.
Dial in Morph 1 and set the control property to 1.
Now go to Property Editor and ERC Freeze again.
This time choose your figure as the figure and node, but for Property, choose the control property. In the window below you should see that it has the Morph 1 checked.
Click Accept.
Now if you dial your control property from 0 to 1, it should turn on your Morph 1.
Now it's time for Morph 2. This needs a bit of fiddling to make it come out just right. First go to Morph 1 and click the tiny symbol to the left of the little lock picture to temporarily disconnect Morph 1.
Dial in Morph 2.
Dial the Control Property to 2.
Go to Property Editor and ERC freeze again.
Freeze the Control Property as the property again. It should now show Morph 1 and Morph 2 in the window.
Click Accept.
Now go to Morph 1 and click the little broken symbol next to the lock to reconnect it.
Now the control property should trigger Morph 1 at a value of 1 and morph 1 and 2 at a value of 2, and in between 1 and 2 you should see a gradually increasing percentage of morph 2.
With morph 3 you don't have to "break" any connections on the others, just turn the control property to 3 and Morph 3 to 1 and freeze the ERC again. You can continue this until you've "filled" the dial. Then use File--save as--morph assets to save the morphs.
Right now I'm having a problem wherein this works in the scene, but the morphs get broken when saved to library. I'm still trying to narrow down what's causing that.
We <3 SickleYield !</p>
Thank you so much for this !!
Thanks for posting this Sickleyield! Very interesting stuff!
Thank you very much!
This is just what I needed! I'll go try it now! How exciting! XD
Thanks!
"You can multi-select the bones in scene tab and set, say, all of the Bend values to 45 degrees at once, so posing uniformly is quite easy (or posing small sections of bones as well). If you right-click in Scene Tab you'll see that you can select a bone and all its children, which is very useful for this."
Thx SY, after reading through all of this trying to find a way to pose long objects easier, this line made me try something with your ropes package, If I select a group that I want to bend, ie bones 20-50, I can highlight them all and just bend that section, or turn that section. You already have dials in place for left and right, but with being able to select exactly which bones I want to affect, I can make a very smooth turn, bend or whatever without having to select each individual piece and do it one by one. This probably seems obvious to most, but it never dawned on me to select more than one bone in a long chain, rope etc and then make a smooth bend very easily. Thanks for all your wealth of info that you share with everyone btw.
You're very welcome! There's this, too:
https://www.deviantart.com/sickleyield/journal/Mini-Tutorial-Posing-Long-Bone-Chains-367783745
lol, thats perfect, I should have read that one first. anyway, it will save me a ton of time posing long chained items now, in particular this product will now be a lot easier to use, since there is only one base preset. "mecha-tentacles-for-g3f-g8f-g3m-g8m"