Frozen Figures
KatLady
Posts: 38
Has anyone else had the problem of getting part way through a project and suddenly having the DAZ figures freeze in spite of trying to change parameters or manually move them? This has happened to me on two projects now. For example, the parameter dials to create an expression for Victoria stop working and she remains unchanged no matter what the settings are. Am I doing something wrong, or is this a bug?
Comments
More information is needed. what version of Carrara? What version of Victoria? What morph packages do you have applied? What OS? Etc. etc.
greetings cat lady, check that you haven't accidently made an animation with them, err I can't remember exactly but sometimes if you have made, is at an nla c;lip, ?? then you can't move the figures unless you edit the clip
been a long time, so this is from memory, don't know whaty the cure is but it is a pita
that is the most likely -
other choices? somehow you have conformed one figure to another?
other choice -s ome figures come in with all constraints on, so you can't move them at all, but this is probably not the case here
but check the constraints as a last resort
I get this periodically.
Usually when moving a scene from one computer to another, so moving from version to version could be related.
I make it a point to save multiple copies of any scene I spend over an hour on, just in case of a corrupt save or other mishaps. Going back to earlier saves can be a life saver when stuff like this happens!
I'm using the current beta version on a powerful Windows 7 PC. This latest time was Victoria 3. I originally made the character in Poser with the V3 and International Beauties morphs, then imported it into Carrara with the limits turned off. I re-loaded the V3 head and expression morphs because I decided to edit the character. Everything worked properly while I changed her head and face. Later, when I had set up the scene and wanted to change her expression, the model wouldn't respond. I could change the morph settings to anything but the figure remained unchanged. For example, I was unable to open her mouth. Originally, I was only making a still picture and not an animation, so I don't think the animation settings had anything to do with it.
Maybe not. Could you move the arms and legs and otherwise pose the figure, but not change the morphs, or was everything disabled including moving the rig?
Sometimes I used to get strange behavior when using characters that I set up the morphs on outside of Carrara, and then brought the character into Carrara. So I tried setting up the character completely within Carrara - Bring in the actual base figure, inject all the appropriate morphs, then set the morph dials - all within Carrara, which fixed the issue. The thing is, I didn't want to go into notepad and write down all of the morph settings and dial them all by hand over again. So, since I was using Poser to make the character, I saved a Face file - selecting all of my specific morph dials used within the face pose file - within Poser. Then I loaded the base figure into Carrara and simply applied the Face pose file after applying all of the necessary INJ morphs. If you miss one or more INJ before applying the Face pose, you'll notice something wrong. Go through and make sure all INJs are injected - when you get to the one you've missed, you'll be able to tell - as it will suddenly look correct! :)
This was before I tried saving the character info in Carrara as an NLA Master Pose file. That works for most situations where I've wanted to apply my character settings onto a fresh version of the Base figure - like after updating the base figure. Like after an update to the Victoria 4 figure. The update doesn't carry over into characters I've already saved to Carrara, so I'd do this:
Open my character in Carrara
Open NLA tab and select: Create Master Pose
In the dialog, scroll down and make certain that any type of morph box is checked
Select 'model' and Go into the Texture room
Drag the Multicolored ball in the upper right of the screen into a suitable location in the shaders tab on the browser, to save ALL shader domain textures in a single file
Load in the new Base Figure that I want to use for my new character
With the new figure selected open the NLA tab
Select "Load Data from Clip" and choose the Master Pose just made
Select 'model' and go to the texture room and apply the Shader set made previously
Done.
It may sound like a lot to do - but the process is sound - and is a great way to make "Carrara" versions of your characters onto a fresh, Base Figure - which is good to do now and again - especially after an important figure base update.
Hi Katlady, I don't do animations but quite often I accidentally drag the timeline thing and make a keyframe and don't discover it for a while. So though I am doing stills I am telling Carrara I am doing an animation.
This has given me locked figures in the past.
Just a thought.
Rogue Pilot found a reason behind such things happening with V4 while certain INJ were applied, Aiko 4 being one of them, if I recall somewhat correctly. Turned out that it had something to do with having to go into DS and activating the Powerloader once for all morphs. Again... foggy on actual details, but that how I came up with the method given above for retaining my character through the change-over process - and it worked like a dream.
Thanks to all of you for your suggestions, now I know some things to look out for. I could pose the V3 figure using Carrara's tools, plus dragging and dropping a pose on it. Only the morph dials stopped working. The same thing happened earlier using V4. I haven't learned to use the NLA technique yet, but hope to soon. And I definitely need to start saving multiple versions, I keep forgetting. The file is now an animation which has been edited a couple of times to render portions of it, and to make changes. Never did any of this before, and poor Victoria has strange gliding movements and really long hang times.