How do i change the base position of something attached with fit-to?

raxatic211

so i have this armpit hair asset for G8M that i like, but i don't like where the creator positioned them by default. it looks unnatural and odd, like it begins more up towards the arm itself. i can't figure out how to re-position them.

since it's set to fit-to, the translate/rotate parameters don't do anything, and if i deselect fit-to, then obviously it just floats off into nowhere and i have to reposition it every time i move the model which is tedious.

i can move the base position by selecting the asset's hip bone (or lower bones) instead, but the repositioning then becomes completely wacky, maybe because it's two assets in one.

the asset obviously doesn't come with any custom parameters to change the base position.

 

what do i do?

Richard Haseltine

That is tricky without completely redoing the figure rigging. You could perhaps use dForms (or Mesh Grabber) but that would have to be done after posing, and so wouldn't be suitable for animation.

hansolocambo

Assets that come with sliders to change position, shape, scale, etc. are assets with extra custom morphs made by the content creator. Sure is a shame not spending a few extra hours creating some of those before selling a product.

What you can do, for any asset that you want to modify is :

- Load a G8, Base resolution, default position. Load the asset you want to modify.

- Export the Genesis as obj.

- Export the asset, base resolution, as obj.

- Import all that in Blender. And now you can freely move, rotate, resize, reshape, etc. do anything to the asset as long as you DON'T of course modify its geometry (vertices order) in any way.

- When your modifications are done, export the asset as obj.

- Import it back in Daz with Morph Loader Pro. And create your own custom morph for that asset. That you can save to re-use on any scene, or that you can use for the current scene only.

Using Shape Keys in Blender (or layers in Zbrush, similar workflow) you can even create multiple morphs for a single asset (moving a bracelet from left to right, changing the default position of hairs for better dForce simulation, shortening clothes, etc. etc.). And with morph loader pro create your own sliders.

 

It takes a while to get used to that workflow. But it's ultra necessary to take some time to master it as it widdens considerable the range of things one can do with Daz. And this way at least, you're not limited by what the content creator had the courage to implement in his bundle ;)

Richard Haseltine

Morphs can do only so much, the big limitation here, I would suspect, is that they cannot edit the weight maps and I suspect that would be needed.

hansolocambo

Richard Haseltine said:

Morphs can do only so much [...]

You're right. This makes me think that I actually forgot to mention : when using Zbrush rather than Blender, morph loader pro ain't needed as there's no more export/import of obj, all goes through GoZ. Which is really cool as it speeds up a lot the workflow. When you import back to Daz the modified geometry, you can create a morph sure, but you can also : update the existing geometry. And that's great.

If a bracelet for example is on the left, too small and too low on the arm. One can edit that in ZBrush, move it to the right, scale it up or move it up the arm, then GoZ it back to Daz ticking the "update existing geometry" option. And now you have a new bracelet with a base default geometry updated.

Still don't know how to do that with Blender that fast (morph loader pro does not give that great option to update geometry as far as I know). It's feasible but necessitates a lot of extra steps.

GoZ for ZBrush <-> Daz is damn useful.

But sure, all that needs a bit of research into the "behind the scenes" of Daz. Without a third party app it's a bit hard to fix items in Daz. Mesh Grabber indeed with a big ass brush would help.

raxatic211

Richard Haseltine said:

Morphs can do only so much, the big limitation here, I would suspect, is that they cannot edit the weight maps and I suspect that would be needed.

 

hansolocambo said:

Assets that come with sliders to change position, shape, scale, etc. are assets with extra custom morphs made by the content creator. Sure is a shame not spending a few extra hours creating some of those before selling a product.

What you can do, for any asset that you want to modify is :

- Load a G8, Base resolution, default position. Load the asset you want to modify.

- Export the Genesis as obj.

- Export the asset, base resolution, as obj.

- Import all that in Blender. And now you can freely move, rotate, resize, reshape, etc. do anything to the asset as long as you DON'T of course modify its geometry (vertices order) in any way.

- When your modifications are done, export the asset as obj.

- Import it back in Daz with Morph Loader Pro. And create your own custom morph for that asset. That you can save to re-use on any scene, or that you can use for the current scene only.

Using Shape Keys in Blender (or layers in Zbrush, similar workflow) you can even create multiple morphs for a single asset (moving a bracelet from left to right, changing the default position of hairs for better dForce simulation, shortening clothes, etc. etc.). And with morph loader pro create your own sliders.

 

It takes a while to get used to that workflow. But it's ultra necessary to take some time to master it as it widdens considerable the range of things one can do with Daz. And this way at least, you're not limited by what the content creator had the courage to implement in his bundle ;)

 

the asset does come with morphs (im guessing that's what the shaping parameters are?) to change hair density, direction, length, etc, but just none to change the actual base positioning.

so what is it that actually determines an asset's base position on fit-to? is it "weight maps"? if i understood this, i think i would be better able to potentially modify the positioning itself. right now what hansolocambo is proposing looks a little daunting, i'm still pretty new to 3D. very appreciative of the write-up and the help so far though, i would definitely like to try and learn.

i'm honestly a little surprised one has to go way off-grid and under the hood to be able to just change something as simple as an asset's position. seems like something that should be either built-in or available as a third party tool or addon for Daz.

thanks a lot so far! if anyone else has a solution or idea, i'm learning as i go. some of the language might need to be broken down to newbie level though, most of these terms i've never even heard of haha.

Daventaki

Maybe im missing something here but you could not fit to instead add it into the scene make sure it its not fit to the character, position where you want, then parent it to the character.  Yes its kinda a pain to have to manually position it but once it is parented it should follow the character.

Pendraia

hansolocambo said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Morphs can do only so much [...]

You're right. This makes me think that I actually forgot to mention : when using Zbrush rather than Blender, morph loader pro ain't needed as there's no more export/import of obj, all goes through GoZ. Which is really cool as it speeds up a lot the workflow. When you import back to Daz the modified geometry, you can create a morph sure, but you can also : update the existing geometry. And that's great.

If a bracelet for example is on the left, too small and too low on the arm. One can edit that in ZBrush, move it to the right, scale it up or move it up the arm, then GoZ it back to Daz ticking the "update existing geometry" option. And now you have a new bracelet with a base default geometry updated.

Still don't know how to do that with Blender that fast (morph loader pro does not give that great option to update geometry as far as I know). It's feasible but necessitates a lot of extra 

I find I can do most of what I want with morphs. I convert a lot of items from one figure to another which is similar to this issue as they basically want to reposition it. I'd use a morph. If they have zbrush it would be very easy to do as it would be a few tweaks with the scale to and the move brush. 

hansolocambo

Daventaki said:

Maybe im missing something here but you could not fit to instead add it into the scene make sure it its not fit to the character, position where you want, then parent it to the character.  Yes its kinda a pain to have to manually position it but once it is parented it should follow the character.

If the content creator does not provide props, unrigged, and loaded at X,Y,Z 0,0,0.0 Then loading the asset without selecting a G8 first will still load the asset with a bones hierarchy and moving it around freely won't be possible.

Easiest solution : export the asset as obj. Load it back in Daz. Resetting its position beforehand to 0,0,0, scale and rotation in a third 3D app is the clean way, although not mandatory. And now you get a real prop that can be move around freely, positionned and parented.

If the object is not resetted in a 3D app, then its axis may be wrong. For Daz users only who don't know anything else, then a very useful script will help a lot ! positionning the axis properly :

Move Origin by DeltaX15

i'm honestly a little surprised one has to go way off-grid and under the hood to be able to just change something as simple as

There's not 1 way to reach an aim in 3D. But always dozens. With so many tools available nobody can think like everyone else. I used many 3D apps so I have workflows in mind that look for efficiency juggling with all tools from all 3D apps I know. But it's not an obligation. You'll get advices and opinions from different minds on forums and you'll choose the one that seems reachable for you. It's impossible to help properly as we don't know everybody' skill level in 3D. We (everyone here) just provide ideas, ways we'd do if we were doing what you try to do.

This being said "i'm honestly a little surprised one has to go way off-grid" : don't be surprised. Daz is a great tool for human meshes in 1 click. But it's not an all-in-one 3D solution. It's not a 3D modeling tool. Each and every asset you buy on the store has NOT been made with Daz. Daz becomes at the very end a "let's put it all together and render" solution, very efficient at it. But Daz is just, like any other 3D app, one step in a worflow.

So it should be obvious, not surprising, that to adapt those assets, it's sometimes necesarry, to go "off-grid" to a real 3D modeling app and make some changes.

Sven Dullah

Well luckily you don't need zBrush or Blender etc to fix something like re-positioning armpit hair. The key is re-rigging. 

First memorize the Genesis figure shape.

With the armpit hair fitted to your character, zero the character. Re-position the hair using dFormers or/and hidden morphs. When done, convert the hair to prop, which will delete the rigging. Use transfer utility to re-rig and re-fit to your character. Finally reset your Genesis figure to your preferred shape.

raxatic211

hansolocambo said:

Daventaki said:

Maybe im missing something here but you could not fit to instead add it into the scene make sure it its not fit to the character, position where you want, then parent it to the character.  Yes its kinda a pain to have to manually position it but once it is parented it should follow the character.

If the content creator does not provide props, unrigged, and loaded at X,Y,Z 0,0,0.0 Then loading the asset without selecting a G8 first will still load the asset with a bones hierarchy and moving it around freely won't be possible.

Easiest solution : export the asset as obj. Load it back in Daz. Resetting its position beforehand to 0,0,0, scale and rotation in a third 3D app is the clean way, although not mandatory. And now you get a real prop that can be move around freely, positionned and parented.

If the object is not resetted in a 3D app, then its axis may be wrong. For Daz users only who don't know anything else, then a very useful script will help a lot ! positionning the axis properly :

Move Origin by DeltaX15

i'm honestly a little surprised one has to go way off-grid and under the hood to be able to just change something as simple as

There's not 1 way to reach an aim in 3D. But always dozens. With so many tools available nobody can think like everyone else. I used many 3D apps so I have workflows in mind that look for efficiency juggling with all tools from all 3D apps I know. But it's not an obligation. You'll get advices and opinions from different minds on forums and you'll choose the one that seems reachable for you. It's impossible to help properly as we don't know everybody' skill level in 3D. We (everyone here) just provide ideas, ways we'd do if we were doing what you try to do.

This being said "i'm honestly a little surprised one has to go way off-grid" : don't be surprised. Daz is a great tool for human meshes in 1 click. But it's not an all-in-one 3D solution. It's not a 3D modeling tool. Each and every asset you buy on the store has NOT been made with Daz. Daz becomes at the very end a "let's put it all together and render" solution, very efficient at it. But Daz is just, like any other 3D app, one step in a worflow.

So it should be obvious, not surprising, that to adapt those assets, it's sometimes necesarry, to go "off-grid" to a real 3D modeling app and make some changes.

of course. i more meant to say that since a lot of the appeal of daz is about placing and fitting things, i found it surprising that it lacks the ability to move the base positions of fitted objects inherently. just an off-hand observation, nothing more  i'm very happy with daz so far and having fun.

still looking into the different routes based on the answers here so far, thanks again

 

Sven Dullah said:

Well luckily you don't need zBrush or Blender etc to fix something like re-positioning armpit hair. The key is re-rigging. 

First memorize the Genesis figure shape.

With the armpit hair fitted to your character, zero the character. Re-position the hair using dFormers or/and hidden morphs. When done, convert the hair to prop, which will delete the rigging. Use transfer utility to re-rig and re-fit to your character. Finally reset your Genesis figure to your preferred shape.

will look into this, thanks!