Problem exporting/re-importing my morphs [mostly solved]

enbismain

Let's say, I have a character that's used for a bunch of illustrations of my fiction piece.

It was initially created with a bunch of dials, default and not. But due to plot reasons I need to modify it a bit as obj. Aside from those modifications, I need the custom morph of it to look the same, not just similar.

So I export it as obj, following manuals, then make a fresh genesis figure and use morph loader pro on it - and it works just fine. No errors about polygons not matching, the character looks exactly the same. At first, at least... But then I save it as morph asset, moving to Actor/People/Real World directory, close DAZ and open saved scene again. And here's where it goes all wrong...

After DAZ reboot the applied morph is nothing like before. This poor fellow looks like he was bitten by bees!

I thought it was somehow set to 200% while displayed as 100%, but setting it to 50% doesn't fix it - only makes him shorter and a little less creepy.

And that's not the only problem: if I try to apply any pose, his fingers would stretch like... uh, just look at this nightmare fuel yourself.

At least this part I've found a workaround... sort of. Edit-Figure-Rigging-Adjust rigging to shape. It works, but only within one save of a scene - if I try to use same morph in another file, I have to fix rigging again for same morph. Exporting to obj again after rigging and reimporting doesn't seem to solve the problem either: if I try to use morph loader again, I get the exact creepy deformed version even without reload. 

Ok, full reset of the genesis figure - not just manual untoggling all used toggles - before applying the shape seems to fix this. But what if I need more modifiers on top of that shape? Or if I need to use it partially on another character to create, let's say, this guy's father who looks a bit like him? Also I can't find my morph among other morphs in shaping tab - it only sticks to parametrs, no matter where I place it.

Yeah, those problems can be worked around one way or another. After all, I could just write down all 150+ dials and copypast it manually to a new toon... probably it'd even be faster than solving this issue. But I have a slight suspesion that I'm doing something wrong to begin with. Probably something simple, maybe not. And I would prefer to know exactly what goes wrong in case I need to do this for other characters.

I mean... come on, I don't get to fix rigging before posing on any other character's shape. I can find them where I expect to find them (usually). And I don't have to reset figures before applying morphs made by folks less newbie and dumb than me... 

Is there something you think might give me a clue how to fix it? Thanks.

Richard Haseltine

It is, copyright issues aside, a bad idea to export a morphed figure as OBJ and then import that as a new morph. I'm not sure why it is blowing up on reload, but the loss of the original joint adjustments is one result, another is that all the corrective morphs that apply when a morph is applied and joint bend, to improve the final look, or which tweak things like eyes closing to work with the new shape are also lost.

Daz Studio does oofer a way to tweak without these issues - it starts off as you did above, by exportting the obj and adjusting the result. However, when you bring that back in to create a new morph you have all of the original morphss till applied and in the import dialogue you enable Reverse Deformations - that will subtract the existing shape, leaving just the adjustments you made, which can then be applied on top to get the look you want withourt losing the existing joint adjustments and correction morphs.

enbismain

Richard Haseltine said:

It is, copyright issues aside, a bad idea to export a morphed figure as OBJ and then import that as a new morph. I'm not sure why it is blowing up on reload, but the loss of the original joint adjustments is one result, another is that all the corrective morphs that apply when a morph is applied and joint bend, to improve the final look, or which tweak things like eyes closing to work with the new shape are also lost.

Daz Studio does oofer a way to tweak without these issues - it starts off as you did above, by exportting the obj and adjusting the result. However, when you bring that back in to create a new morph you have all of the original morphss till applied and in the import dialogue you enable Reverse Deformations - that will subtract the existing shape, leaving just the adjustments you made, which can then be applied on top to get the look you want withourt losing the existing joint adjustments and correction morphs.

Thanks for reply! I'll try to experiment with Reverse Deformations. I actually tried it a bit, but had no idea what exactly it does - now it makes more sense :)

As for copyright issue - well, obviously, I don't plan to sell or share my characters as 3D assets. I only need them for the intended purpose of DAZ - which is to make characters the way I need them to be and to render a few images of them for my book. Problem is, without additional tinkering of the models it's hard to illustrate specific scenes. Like, I don't expect to find assets of the exact kind of wounds or very specific deformations from fantasy battles. I tried to find a way to avoid exporting figures elsewhere to modify them manually, but more often than not there's no solution that matches my needs while being cheap enough for me.

How else can I modify existing diled-up shapes without exporting them to, let's say, Blender, and then importing it back to DAZ? I'm not much of a 3D sculptor, but I can at least try.

Richard Haseltine

I wasn't saying not to use an external application to make adjustments - it's probably the easiest route, though you could use weight-mapped dForms or Push Modifiers to do soem things inside DS - but to make sure that you use Reverse Deformations to minimise the effect on rigging and corrective morphs, it's actually less fiddle that way than baking everythign down to a single morph and then trying to reenable the features (certainly as a general solution, rather than just tweaking for a specific pose and then discarding the modifications).

enbismain

Richard Haseltine said:

I wasn't saying not to use an external application to make adjustments - it's probably the easiest route, though you could use weight-mapped dForms or Push Modifiers to do soem things inside DS - but to make sure that you use Reverse Deformations to minimise the effect on rigging and corrective morphs, it's actually less fiddle that way than baking everythign down to a single morph and then trying to reenable the features (certainly as a general solution, rather than just tweaking for a specific pose and then discarding the modifications).

Actually, it seems like I've found the root of this problem. And it arised a whole new bunch of problems, but that's a start at least.

Long story short, I had a head morph (not of my creation even) which for some reason shared a name with another head morph *and* was set to default 100% (this combination made it extra hard to find in list of morphs). When I installed it, I didn't notice there was a difference as it coincided with 8.1 release. So I thought basic genesis 8 just got a little prettier than before xD But in fact it was applying a head morph to default Genesis 8 (and 8.1) figures whenever I created new ones or opened existing that were created after installation. Yet that toggle wasn't even displayed in currently used morphs - as it was set to default 100%. So that explains why re-opening the saved sceen caused my morphs to look like bitten by bees lol.

This also means that every G8M toon I made since that accident I have to somehow manually adjust, since they were build around a head morph that I never intended to have as starting point. Oh well, I'll figure it out somehow. Most importantly, all morphs I re-imported as obj and thought to be corrupted are in fact ok (aside from rigging issue), once that damn invizible toggle is set to zero. Anyway, thanks for help! :)