Retro Apartment Poses for Genesis 8 - problems, solutions ? Solved...
nowefg
Posts: 557
The new Petipet product, Retro Apartment Poses for Genesis 8, has a number of real problems.
First, it's not for Genesis 8, as the Promo Title says, but for Genesis 8.1.
That distinction is very important, because the Retro Apartment Props 2 set, which I've been eagerly awaiting, is used by this pose set, but only works with G8.1, not with G8.. So none of the pose/prop hierarchical poses, (I'm guessing that's what they are,) will function properly with any but G8.1. Any particular ethical reason it isn't called "Retro Apartment Poses for Genesis 8.1"?
The promo does say that required figures are G8.1, which I don't use. And I would have bought both sets anyway, to see what I can do to make them work for me. Given how nice both the poses and props are, I think it's worthwhile to create my own pose/wearable-prop combos for G8 from the freestanding G8.1 pose versions & their props. But to say that will be time consuming is a big understatement.
I also tried the in-place poses for Retro Apartment, and so far nada. A G8 figure, (which in every case I've tested will take a G8.1 pose just fine,) will move to the location, but not pose at all. It remains in A-pose, but tilts slightly off the Y axis.
I don't know how much of this can be dealt with by me. That is, I don't know how to make a hierarchical pose for G8.1 work with a G8 figure, but perhaps there is some way? It's never made sense, money wise, to create limitations like that, when the widest possible applicability will always generate the most sales. Common sense. A bit more work for the content creator up front, but in a volume-sales situation, it always pays off long term to reach the greatest possible customer/user base.That said, the in-built limitations on use with G8.1 is a fact.
Another issue though has to do with Pose names, which include the full designations of the G8.1 "characters" used to create the poses. Doesn't sound too problematic, except the Pose names are so long...
"RDR Pose 03 G8.1 Female Jacqueline Making Coffe" (sic), is a good example.
Looking at the load icon in Content Library, it's a best guess situation, because the whole Pose name can't fit in the little icon text area. Just short sighted. I can change the names myself, but what was the point of using such way-unnecessarily long names in the first place? And why create poses for exclusive "characters," instead of base figures? In other words, "G8.1F" takes up a lot less space than "G8.1 Female Jacqueline." The various mispellings, "coffe" for "coffee," "tost" for "toast," indicate simple sloppy workmanship; not unheard of, but a little pre-market attention could have easily fixed them before the product was shovelled at us paying customers.
That said... well I think that says it. The poses in this set are quite good, and if I don't mind rebulding the product so it works as Daz 3D's promotional TITLE suggests, i.e., "Retro Apartment Poses for Genesis 8," and, most importantly, if I can find the hours I'll need to do the rebuild, (pose/prop combos are so tedious,) I suppose I'll have a nice pose set. I'm not sure if it wouldn't be quicker, (certainly would have been cheaper,) to come up with my own scratch-built poses for Retro Apartment in the first place, but working from the free-standing pose versions, I can turn this set into what Daz sez it is, but isn't.
If anyone does know about hierarchical pose interchanges between G8.1 and G8, it would be great to hear about it.
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Comments
I tried four characrters with the poses.
Genesis8 Base Female and Jacqueline 8.1
As far as I can tell the poses are not hierarchical in any way and thus should all work with G8, G81 and specific characters. When not using Jacqueline 8.1 you need to tweak the pose.
The poses from the Content Library ► Freestanding Poses are for the character itself. The ones I tested are working for both characters:
The poses in Content Library ► Poses for Props are for the needed props. Example for the pose RLR Pose 02 G8.1 Female Jacqueline Reading:
I also tested some poses with the Base G8 Male and Michael 8.1 Here it is basically the same as with the female poses.
The naming is not perfect, but when you wait till the tip shows up you get a nice large preview and I was able to read the full text of the pose, too.
I hope this helps.
Plaement poses, to adress one issue, shouldn't do anyhting but move the figure (by its figure node) to the set location. Are you sure the hip is zeroed when you apply them, there is no reason they would tilt Genesis 8 and not Genesis 8.1.
As for teh hierarchical poses, what are you doing that makes the 8.1 figure unusable? Theer should be very few (mainly script-based) things that are not compatible with 8.1. You could also apply the pose to 8.1, copy the pose, and apply it to 8.
Thank you both, markusmatern and Richard, for your helpful responses.
Following your instructions, everything works for G8F & M. I was misunderstanding how to work with the product. A big sigh of relief, as this set, now with the aplliances and dining props, is something I've been wanting to work with since it came out.
On the tilt issue, starting from a stock G8F or M, the hip node is wherever it normally loads in A-pose with all translations zero, but whatever this tilt is I'm seeing, the poses, now that I know how to apply them, don't seem to show any unwarranted tilting... I'll keep an eye on it.
I do still have a problem with where the floor of the apartment is when the environment loads, relative to where the normal CTRL D floor always is. It wouldn't be the first time I've been confused by something like this, but if I use heeled shoes with a foot pose on my figure, the feet will, per usual, dip below the floor. But when I use CTRL D to raise the figure to what I understand as zero, the figure sinks into the apartment floor even further, past its knees.
Using CTRL D on the Apartment null itself has no effect, so I don't know what else to do except lower the apartment & prop sets to match the CTRL D zero of the figure. That only takes a second, does the job, and is better than having to manually realign all the figures in a given scene to match the Y translation "zero" of the apartment floor. I can save it with that new Y translation setting, but it seems screwy to have to do that in a location environment set with a fixed floor position made for Genesis 8 series figures. Any alternative ideas?
Also, how to remove the roof... there doesn't seem to be a Surfaces Tab or other parameter to hide the roof and ceiling. The set lighting is okay, but limited, and with interior sets like this one, I generally hide the roof for HDRI lighting, if the ceiling is not going to be visible in the scene. Geometry Editor's "create new surface from selected" seems the only option. Looking at the roof in wire-shaded view, I see an awful lot of triangles, while I understood that Daz Studio number-crunching works much better with quad geometry. So long as it works, I guess.
The name issue is specific to my system. I don't use the TIP feature, though I can see it being helpful at times to see a larger image of a product. But I've gotten everything renamed now, so the standard icon/thumbnails work fine. A short, succinct, function-specific name is much less confusing for me.
Thank you again for the very helpful responses.
What am
You are welcome! Glad I could give you some hints!
I think this issue only happens when you are applying a Prop pose to a figure. A prop has no bones but only the dafault movements and rotation and scaling.
Only a very small part of the appartement seems to be at Y=0: The area where the sofa is standing in the living room. The rest of the floors are all above Y=0. You can see this when looking from under the set upwards. And maybe switching on the floor display in the viewport.
When for example applying the pose RLR Pose 01 G8.1 Female Jacqueline Standing (she is standing near a mirror next to the entrance) The Y value for the figure is at 42.27 This is the correct value for a figure without shoes when the appartement set is loaded. Because from the entrance level floor there is a step down to the sofa area. The pose looks weird (floating in the air) when the appartement set is not loaded.
The roof has a separate bone called Ceiling in the Scene tab. You can just switch it off and all the obstructing geometry is invisible.
Glad you found a workaround here, too.
Again, you are welcome.
If there hadn't been a bone you could have hidden the ceiling with a section plane (Cretae>New nVidia Section plane) - by default those will let light in, though their effect is not visible in a non-Iray view.
Thanks, again, and again,
Once again, thanks for the very helpful detailed information !
With the ceiling hidden, (don't know how I missed that,) and in wire-shaded view, I can easily see the level differences in the floor. I'm wondering how to manage that in my normal use scenario. For this environment, I intended to use a large number of characters in a given scene, a dozen or more, using the Retro Apartment poses and others by choice. I can see now that the various "floor" heights will complicate this setup. Every clothed figure will have to be manually positioned relative to a given floor "Y zero."
That's something I try to avoid at all costs, because it can take so much time consuming translation fiddling and camera zooming and positioning to make sure every figure's feet are on the floor. Normally, I would just use CTRL-D, setting all the figures to the same floor zero, but that apparently won't help in the Retro Apartment environment. With a dozen or more figures in any given scene, each with its own shoe pose height, manual floor height positioing for every figure is certainly problematic. I'd much rather spend that time on X,Z positioning, posing, and other refinements like camera dof and lighting.
As you point out, it looks like the Retro Apartment's default Y zero must be the level of the sunken pit area. I can lower the whole set, to put the main floor at the CTRL-D Y zero, which will limit fiddling time to figures actually in the pit or on the steps. Another thought, though, is to drop the whole set, and then establish null points for the steps and pit floor. I haven't tried that yet, but at worst, it would give me a number, the step and pit nulls' Y translation amount, to then apply to each figure I place in those areas. Sounds like it could work, and with that arrangement saved as a preset, would save so much time and fuss.
At the risk of, again, repeating myself, thanks!
Thank you, Richard!
This is a new idea for me. How does it work? Am I turning the existing ceiling geometry, which is in the way, into a Section Plane? Or creating a "false" ceiling to use after hiding the ceiling geometry? Either option will be useful. I'll google for particulars.
I've been using this amazing program, Daz Studio, for a long time, and still don't know a tenth of the real and very useful options available to me.
You are welcome, again ;-)
There are more or less only two different heights. The pit with Y=0 and the rest of the floors with all being Y=40.4
I would approach this with CTRL-D positioning with the default set (Don't move it in Y, because the poses will not work anymore) Now when positioning a figure just press CTRL-D and it sinks into the floor, when not in the pit area. Select the Y-Property so that you can edit the Y value in the property sliders area. Now just use the builtin calculating feature of the properties and just type +40.4 behind the value that has been set by the CTRL-D operation. When confirming the value the it will have the correct value for the non pit floors.
Creation of an IRAY section plane is available in the menu: Create ► New Iray Section 'Plane Node...
It is positionined at 0,0,0 Move it in Y to about 320 Everything above will be cut off. Only works in Iray renders and Iray Preview.
Thanks for explaining, markusmatern. I haven't had a chance to try this yet but it looks great.
On the Y issue, as you say. I went the other way, lowering the full set with props to CTRL-D zero, as I'll be focusing on the upper area for now. Applying the pose, and foot pose, a CTRL-D lowers my figures to the corrrect height. It's fast and efffective. For the steps and pit, I'm trying the nulls to give me the correct Y translation number for the math, and they work quickly too.
Move it up or move it down, either way it's nice environment.