How to make effective interaction

eternalstar1000

I’m sorry…

I kind of really need things dumbed down for me.

I know i sort of asked this before, but i dont think i was as specific so I can understand not getting many replies...though I am grateful for those who replied before.

But...

How can I make it so that it is convincing that people are touching or holding one another? Like I saw some of the renders people dead in that thread, and I’m all like…“how?!”

Wouldnt you have to be VERY careful while working with the pose? Because cant one model easily just phase through the other say if you wanted a guy to put a hand on the cheek of his girlfriend or something…or if you wanted them to hold hands with their fingers interwoven. How would I do something like that? Or if I wanted a guy to carry a girl. How do i get him to carry her…or get them to hug? Or just making it convincing that they are actually touching?

I mean, it wouldnt be so bad if the models were designed to where nothing could phase through them and they were treated as solid models. But the fact that things do phase through them make it difficult. Unless there is a way to get past this…i wonder?

And really, also, is there a way to lock a body part in place so that it doesnt move even if you make the model pose differently? Like if I liked the way the hand looks in one pose and wanted to keep the hand that way but use the legs of another pose. Is there a way to keep the hand in place?

Buut mostly, yeah, this is about couples or groups or more…my concern is just trying to get people to touch in a convincing way and not have to go through like…literally every finger just go get them to hold hands properly. Or how to get them to wrap an arm over the other’s shoulders.

Just things like that.

Similarly, how do you make it convincing that someone is holding something or putting their hand on something in general without it phasing through the item? Like how do you make it look like someone is actually sitting or laying down? Or holding something? Or putting their hand or body against something (like a wall) or really laying on the floor?

So many questions...

Sorry for still being such a noob about all this, I just really want to make my art convincing and I would really want to start working on group and couple stuff and just interactions in general... hopefully not just go and spend a BUNCH of money on all the pose couple packs and the works.

Thanks!

kaotkbliss

There are some body morphs out there that will help with the squishing effect of being pressed against something (iSquish comes to mind as one) but there aren't many so you just need to go joint by joint bending and rotating zoomed in as close as you can get to be sure parts of the body doesn't pass through an object. Sometimes that slight overlap will also look like the flesh is being squished a little.

As for the pose question, you can select parts of the body and do an edit->copy selected, then move to another figure or after you've moved the body, select those pieces again and do an edit -> paste pose to selected items.

BlackFeather1973

eternalstar1000 said:

And really, also, is there a way to lock a body part in place so that it doesnt move even if you make the model pose differently? Like if I liked the way the hand looks in one pose and wanted to keep the hand that way but use the legs of another pose. Is there a way to keep the hand in place?

There are many different ways to accomplish this, so let's just pick one. ;-)
So, i loaded a pose where i really like how the hand is holding the gun, but i want to use that with another pose.
1. Select the hand. In the scene-tab rightclick it -> Select -> Select Children.
2. Now we can lock the pose of the hand and fingers.
3. Load the new pose, the hand is still holding the gun like in the first pose.

The hand will stay in this pose until unlocked again (same menu as in step 2).

BlackFeather1973

Taking it a step further now...
I used the previous method to lock the hand with the gun and use this with a running pose i like, but i want to load the arms from another pose.
4. Because I only want to change the arms, I select both collar-bones. These will be the starting points for the new pose to load.
5. Hold the Control-key when loading the new pose. This will load a pop-up menu with extra options.
Set "Nodes" to "Selected", this way the new pose will only be applied to the selected collarbones instead of the whole figure.
The default for "Propagation" is "Recursive", this will apply the pose also to the children of the selected nodes (collar -> shoulder -> forearm -> hand .... etc.). If you set "Propagation" to "Selected", the pose will only be applied to the selected nodes and not to it's children.
6. Three poses combined. The right hand is still holding the gun because we locked it in step 2.

BlackFeather1973

eternalstar1000 said:

How can I make it so that it is convincing that people are touching or holding one another? Like I saw some of the renders people dead in that thread, and I’m all like…“how?!”

Wouldnt you have to be VERY careful while working with the pose? Because cant one model easily just phase through the other say if you wanted a guy to put a hand on the cheek of his girlfriend or something…or if you wanted them to hold hands with their fingers interwoven. How would I do something like that? Or if I wanted a guy to carry a girl. How do i get him to carry her…or get them to hug? Or just making it convincing that they are actually touching?

I mean, it wouldnt be so bad if the models were designed to where nothing could phase through them and they were treated as solid models. But the fact that things do phase through them make it difficult. Unless there is a way to get past this…i wonder?

i will often tweak a pose so that the figures are just touching each other, to the point where they start to 'phase through eachother'. Then i start applying smoothing modifiers and set the clothing and the figures to collide with each other. Note that an item cannot collide with more than one other item.
You can also use D-formers to achieve such an effect. They offer more control and can give very good results, but i find them difficult to use.

BlackFeather1973

The collision detection can also be used to have your figure touch a wall, sit on the floor, ...
Here i created a plane and set the figure on the right to collide with it. The figure on the left is the same pose, but no collision.
You create these planes (or other shapes) from the menu Create -> New Primitive. Make sure you give it enough divisions, or your figure will not find enough mesh to collide with (although my 200 divisions is probably way too much :) )
I will often use these planes to simulate walls and floors. You can set them invisible so they won't show up in the render.

Also, if your figure is holding a prop, you could set the prop as a collision item.

kaotkbliss

Nice tips!
I actually forgot about the setting pose to selected Items part. SO much stuff to remember with Daz. lol

FirstBastion

There are also some great interacting couples poses sets available in the store that can help as a starting point. for example:

http://www.daz3d.com/subtle-couple-poses-for-v5-m5

then using deformers you can mold the mesh surface to interact perfectly contacting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SEBV2GHJHA

kaotkbliss

Question for BlackFeather1973,
Can you have different parts of the body collide with different things (such as the leg colliding with a chair but the head colliding with a wall) or does it only work for the entire figure as 1 piece?

Also I tried having the figure collide with itself (grabbing his arm in pain) but that didn't work so I put a glove on his hand and used that for collision but if I made the glove invisible or set it's opacity to 0, it no longer worked for collision. Any ideas for this one?

Ostadan

I've only done this a little, but two small pointers: Use the multi-pane layout features so you can see what's going on from at least the top and front (and preferably a side or perspective view) as you push things around; and, have a photographic reference or two to work with.

Tramp Graphics

kaotkbliss said:

Question for BlackFeather1973,
Can you have different parts of the body collide with different things (such as the leg colliding with a chair but the head colliding with a wall) or does it only work for the entire figure as 1 piece?

Also I tried having the figure collide with itself (grabbing his arm in pain) but that didn't work so I put a glove on his hand and used that for collision but if I made the glove invisible or set it's opacity to 0, it no longer worked for collision. Any ideas for this one?

I believe the older Gen 3 and Gen 4 legacy rigged figures could collide with themselves (i.e. one body part could collide with another). However, the Tirax weight mapped Genesis and Genesis 2 figures cannot do this because each figure is a single unified mesh, not grouped smaller meshes as the Gen 4 figures were.

eternalstar1000

Oh wow! So much good stuff here! Thank you so much!
I'll make sure to try this stuff out and see how it works.

Thank you for the tips!

Another question though...

how exactly do you add collision to walls or objects? I've never see that option before...

thanks!

Tramp Graphics

eternalstar1000 said:

Oh wow! So much good stuff here! Thank you so much!
I'll make sure to try this stuff out and see how it works.

Thank you for the tips!

Another question though...

how exactly do you add collision to walls or objects? I've never see that option before...

thanks!

Please clarify, are you asking how to make a character collide with the wall or floor or make the wall or floor collide with other objects? Either way, it's simply a matter of applying a smoothing modifier to the object or figure with want to do the colliding, and set its collision to whatever you want it to collide with. Thus, if you want a figure leaning against a hard wall, you'd set collision on the figure to collide with that wall, and the mesh of the figure will compress where it hits the wall. If, on the other hand, you want the appearance of a nice "Padded cell" then you can apply a smoothing modifier to the wall, and set collision of the wall to your figure, and the wall will then compress where it hits the figure. The only thing you cannot do is have two objects set to collide with one another.

eternalstar1000

Please clarify, are you asking how to make a character collide with the wall or floor or make the wall or floor collide with other objects? Either way, it’s simply a matter of applying a smoothing modifier to the object or figure with want to do the colliding, and set its collision to whatever you want it to collide with. Thus, if you want a figure leaning against a hard wall, you’d set collision on the figure to collide with that wall, and the mesh of the figure will compress where it hits the wall. If, on the other hand, you want the appearance of a nice “Padded cell” then you can apply a smoothing modifier to the wall, and set collision of the wall to your figure, and the wall will then compress where it hits the figure. The only thing you cannot do is have two objects set to collide with one another.

Oh I'm sorry about that >.<</p>

I actually did mean collision in general.

But in all actuality, I'm such a beginner that a lot of what you said went over my head. I'm really not into the terminology used for DAZ or programs like this.
What is a "smoothing modifier"? And how do you set an object or figures "collision" to whatever I want to collide it with? (i really need things dumbed down).
And what is a "padded cell"? And how do you "compress" things?

Sorry again for not knowing this stuff...

kaotkbliss

Select the item in the scene you want to bend and adjust for collision, then go to edit -> figure -> geometry -> apply smoothing modifier
What this does is adds a new option in that items parameter to check for collisions with.
You can see where all this is at in BlackFeather's post above (post #4)

Tramp Graphics

kaotkbliss said:

Select the item in the scene you want to bend and adjust for collision, then go to edit -> figure -> geometry -> apply smoothing modifier
What this does is adds a new option in that items parameter to check for collisions with.
You can see where all this is at in BlackFeather's post above (post #4)

Yep. You can also go to your scene tap, select your figure or object, and click on the little box in the corner and go to Edit>Geometry>Add Smoothing Modifier.

As for the"Padded cell" IT's a joke. Specifically, it's the type of your they put you in when you're crazy—a room with nice padded walls so you don't hurt yourself. If you want to do a scene like that, you could do it, or make the floors padded, or make sand soft, etc.

Baloo

This thread was quite helpful! Thanks Black Feather!

eternalstar1000

Yes, all of this has been quite useful!
Thank you all so much ^_^