Creating Morphs to change or move body parts

NotAnArtist

Hi all! I've hit a wall with 2 seemingly simple procedures.

There's a tutorial called "Creating a Single Morph Target or Prop", which says to export a character from Daz to Hexagon, make mesh changes without adding or removing any polygons or vertices, and then send it back to DAZ, where you get a "Create Morph" dialog. In that dialog, you set a Group Path, give it a Morph Name, and let it add your changes as a new morph for your character.

I've tried this with the simplest character I have, a Millenium Kid base, to which I stretched the nose into a Pinochio shape. Every time I send it back to DAZ, no matter what Group Path I give it, the resulting morph causes HUGE distortions in the character's legs.

The character has only one mesh/form, and I do not allow its name to change.

I tested this again many times from scratch, making random simple alterations over various parts of the body each time. Weirdly, every attempt resulted in the same exact leg distortions. The desired morphs did show up, too, though.

I have not tried this with a more complex model - Genesis for example. It's too huge and I have enough problems with Hexagon crashing with even simple props. If the problem here is that "morph targets" only work with Genesis, can someone guide me to a tutorial on how to do the same thing with earlier people and animal models?
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As for creating morphs for smiles, open mouths, etc, I'm stumped. (Until today, I had thought this was done via rigging!). I modeled a simple human head in Hexagon, and would like to animate it in DAZ. Can someone suggest what terminology I can use to search for tutorials on this? Or, possibly some guidance here?

Many thanks!!!

JimmyC_2009

I have not tried this with a more complex model - Genesis for example. It’s too huge and I have enough problems with Hexagon crashing with even simple props. If the problem here is that “morph targets” only work with Genesis, can someone guide me to a tutorial on how to do the same thing with earlier people and animal models?

You have the wrong idea about Genesis, it is not huge, quite the opposite, and it comes in at around 19,000 polys (base), compared to Gen 3 Maddie which is over 70,000 polys. All of the previous Gen 3 and Gen 4 figures were around 70,000 polys, so Genesis is significantly lower poly.

My advice would be to try Genesis first. If you are still having problems with older figures, please start another thread in the DAZ Studio Discussion forum.

NotAnArtist

That's good news about Genesis being potentially easier to deal with in Hexagon. Hexagon is my center of attention, but I'm itching to get busy with DAZ.

I don't think you're saying, though, that the older figures are not alterable. Pinochio kids who can't tell the truth are just an example of my ideas for animated short stories based on real life events. I prefer, though, the look of young human characters based on older figures. Attractiveness makes a huge difference in "selling" a product.

OK, it's just my opinion, but I don't feel that newer characters look all that universally attractive (except for some of the adult women, but I'm not aiming for "sexy" stories).

I am determined to understand what's going wrong with my attempts to make very small, simple changes to older figures. I have acquired many different people and creatures into which I've invested so much time and money (relative to my income and busy personal schedules), that I really must find answers to these questions.

Thanks for your response. I'll do a bit more experimentation first, and then post an updated question. I'll ask about morphing mouth and eye movements again, too.

Best regards to you all.