How to delete "helpers" on the V4 Skeleton
chris37
Posts: 17
Hello
I've spent over an hour to try to remove the "helpers" on teh Victoria 4 Skeleton. https://www.daz3d.com/v4-skeleton
The Product promo page says "Easily Hide-able Helpers to Simplify Posing"
However there is zero instructions on how to "Easily Hide" them. And not a single search on the intrnet has a solution. There are suggestions to go into the materials surfaces settings and change teh color manually to transparent but that is not the kind of solution that is suitable. I will be needing to remove the geometry entirely. There is no purpose for these weird handles because Daz3d already has probably the most comprehensive slider control and character posing controls of any character software. How can I loose these useless "helpers"
Thanks in advance
Christina
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I have it installed in Poser rather than DS, as I don't use DS. In Poser their is a purpose built mat pose to remove the helpers. You have to remember that this is quite an old product, and was built with Poser in mind. Apparently you should find files in these locations according to the read me for DS
You can find new icons for this product in the following DAZ Studio Categories:
“Anatomy:External”
“Figures:Creatures:Land”
“Materials:Anatomy”
“Materials:Feminine:V4 Skeleton”
“Materials:Feminine:Victoria 4 Skeleton”
“Poses:By Function:Fits”
“Poses:By Region:Full Body”
“Utilities:Visibility”
I suggest maybe the last one (which I underlined) is what you are looking for.
Oh and If you need the read me it is here http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/8962/start
Are you using the skeletons alone, or with Victoria 4, or have yu used AutoFit in Daz Studo to make them fit another figure?
On my copy of the M4 skeleton (which I presume is the same as V4) there are visibilty presets that can hide or reveal them with one click, but this is only at the material (surfaces) level. However, if you want that geometry "gone" each of the helpers corresponds to a bone and you can hide those in the figure hierarchy in the Scene tab so that the geometry is effectively not there (isn't sent to Iray, etc.). I don't want them either, so I hid them as above and saved the skeleton as a scene subset in that state. This will load with those "bones" still hidden.
As these helpers have child bones that are parts of the actual skeleton, actually deleting them would, I presume, play havoc with the rigging. Edit: actually, you could delete them with the geometry editor and re-save. I'm forgetting that this would not effect the functioning of the actual bone, so rigging is not affected. I haven't tried this fully, so I'm not sure if there are unintended consequences: just hiding the geometry is sufficient for my purposes anyway.
Update: I had a go at deleting all the geometry with Geo Editor. This is fairly easy as the helpers all have one surface, so in Geo Editor you can select by surface (selecting "Helpers") and get them all in one go. I then went to Edit Geometry (right-click context menu) and selected Delete Selected (note the Helpers surface is deleted with it). I converted the shader to Iray while I was at it and used some bone material presets that I have in my collection. Saved as a scene subset, started a new scene and loaded. Seems to work fine.
The only problem is that because the Helpers surface is deleted in the process the original material presets apply incorrectly. If you want those you can load the original skeleton, apply the preset to that then copy and paste to your new figure (selecting the surfaces in groups when copying, omitting the Helpers surface). You can resave those as material presets. I don't intend to use those so I didn't bother with this.
That ws why I was asking if they had been fitted to another figure, as AutoFit will remove the custom bones so that the helpers become one with the bones.
Thank you Hiro Protagonist for your excellent directions. I was able to select the surfaces in the Geometry Editor mode however I'm not sure exactly how to do the next part where you wrote "I then went to Edit Geometry (right-click context menu) and selected Delete Selected (note the Helpers surface is deleted with it)"
How exactly do I bring up this context menu? I right clicked in the viewport but I got the same pop up menu as was in teh geometry editor and there I cannot find a "Delete Selected" anywhere.
If you could give exact click by click instructions on how and where to find teh "Delete Selected" option that would be terriffic.
Thanks again in advance
Christina
Hi Again Hiro I think I found a suitable method in the same pop up menu that I was able to select the geometry i noticed a "hide selected geometry" and a "delete hidden" so I dod both and I am assuming that this has achieved the same results as you instructed.
Thanks again.
Hi Richard, Indeed I am attempting to fit the V4 skeleton to a Genesis 8 Female (Victoria 8 to be precise) By using some of the few instructions I was able to find searching various forums on the subject. The method that I am following is to first fit teh skeleton to the regular Genesis 1 figure and then fit to Genesis 8 (in may case Victoris 8 which I am hoping woudl have the same results as Genesis 8 but am not sure) the results are so so but these does seem to be substantial distortion when reshaping the character's shape. I am quite good with Zbrush so I will be attempting to bring the skeleton into Zbrush to edit and fix distortion but my first attempt to do so was not successful. so I shall keep hammering away to get it right. (Wish there was an updated anatomical character or set of character's ala Zygote's offerings. This would substantially increase Daz's value as a valuable tool for medical simulation and studies.
When you AutoFit the original bones are ignored, DS just projects the bones from the base figure into the model - as a result the helpers can no longer be switched off, and the bones cannot be posed individually. If your ZBrush skills are up to the job I'd just take the exported skeleton (hide the helprs and export as OBJ - then they will be gone), adjust it in ZBrush to fit inside the Genesis 8 figure, export the result as OBJ from ZBrush, import that into DS (making sure that you use the same preset in the options dialogue, so everything is scaled correctly) and then use Edit>Figure>Transfer Utility to rig the model (set the Source to Genesis 8 female, the target to your imported OBJ). It won't be perfect, and you may want to use the rigging tools in DS to enhance it, but it should be better than the AutoFit.
Hi, Christina. Perhaps I am using a later version of Studio than you, but the command is in the image attached. Glad you found a solution anyway, and that I was able to help.
Hi Richard, Indeed I am attempting to fit the V4 skeleton to a Genesis 8 Female (Victoria 8 to be precise) By using some of the few instructions I was able to find searching various forums on the subject. The method that I am following is to first fit teh skeleton to the regular Genesis 1 figure and then fit to Genesis 8 (in may case Victoris 8 which I am hoping woudl have the same results as Genesis 8 but am not sure) the results are so so but these does seem to be substantial distortion when reshaping the character's shape. I am quite good with Zbrush so I will be attempting to bring the skeleton into Zbrush to edit and fix distortion but my first attempt to do so was not successful. so I shall keep hammering away to get it right. (Wish there was an updated anatomical character or set of character's ala Zygote's offerings. This would substantially increase Daz's value as a valuable tool for medical simulation and studies.
Thank you once again Richard (your suggestions are the most helpful) I will give your latest suggestion a try. I'm wondering if the Midnight Skeleton for G8M might be an easier route for fitting within G8F (or Victoria 8) via autofit perhaps or one of the utilities for swapping around character UV, attripbutes, Shapes and poses? I shall experiment a bit but you seem to know right away what would work.
Thanks in advance :)
Cheers
(and happy New Year BTW)
I have the Gen 3 skeletons, would it be possible to make these fit any of the Genesis figures, it's been so long since I used them I don't know if they also have helpers.