Help isolating morphs
Doc
Posts: 46
Hi guys.
I'm still quite new to Daz/Hexagon and was wondering if I could get some advice.
For the Genesis 1 there's a morph that transforms the model into a child.
It also changes the dimensions of the head/face quite drastically and is causing some of my characters to look kinda unrecognizable.
Is it possible for me to use Daz or Hexagon to split it into two morphs?
One that works on the body but leaves the head unaffected, and then one that works on the head but not the rest of the body?
The idea is that I wanna be able to shrink to the child size but then only apply as much of the head shape as I need independently of the body.
Thanks.
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deleted dupe.
Can someone atleast tell me if, in your opinion, this is even possible?
.
Yes, you can take any figure and send it to Hexagon with the bridge tool, then change the scale of a body part and send it back again. You are not allowed to remove or add to the figure (mesh wise).
I have seen a video by Medhue were he explains how to moph a head in DAZ Studio -
Hope you find the above helpful - John
Hmm. Im not too sure that's what I'm trying to do.
As an example, that Lycan morph in the video was on the whole body. What I'm trying to do in the case of that morph would be to separate the morphs into independant head and body morphs, so I could control the percentage of morph applied to each of them separately.
Is that possible?
Not the sort of thing I go in for myself but it looks like you can do what you want, it will just take time.
You can do the same thing using the DAZ Studio to Hexagon bridge but it depends how powerful your computer is, the hard part will be to get the neck looking natural.
It doesn't look like the Genesis Basic Child has a separate head morph. Neither does Zev0's "Growing Up" (although his childs' heads do bear some resemblance to their adult selves). There are dials to change the size of the head in both instances, but not the shape. Unfortunately I don't think there's a way to remedy this short of making a custom morph yourself. Any breakup of the mesh will play havoc with the vertex order and destroy the possibility of using it as a morph. You may have to somehow use two separate figures in the scene with respective body parts hidden, or do it in postwork.
There are also some adult and other morphs where there is no separation between head and body, which has always seemed to me an oversight, and I wish that such a separation would become standard, or at least expected.
That video is a good tutorial on how to use the D-Form Tool to create addon morphs, but is definitely not what is needed to separate head/body morphs.
Yes, you can do this in Hexagon, but it would require many hours of work. Personally, I would (and do regularly) perform this surgery in Blender (only a few minutes work). I know... Blender is not for everyone, but for this kind of MT work it is a far better solution than what Hexagon can provide.
Hexagon way:
1. Load Genesis into scene, set Sub-D to Base/0 (by itself - singular - no other items/meshes in viewport), and slide the full body morph dial all the way to 1.000/100%.
2. Send mesh to Hex via DS-Hex bridge. This is the base to work from.
3. Back in DS, clear the full body morph on Genesis, and then send Genesis again to Hex (bridge is already open, and link established). You will create your separated MT's on this mesh.
4. Peform a one-to-one vertex shrinkwrap of the unmorphed Genesis, to the morphed Genesis using scale, translation, and snap-to-vertex (many hours of nauseating fun) until only the head is morphed, making sure to never alter any geometry (splice, cut, weld, add, subtract, divide, etc.) - only vertex displacement allowed.
5. Send morphed Genesis back to DS via bridge (which will activate Morph Loader Pro to create morph target - provided Genesis at root level is selected, and naming is identical in both programs [you didn't change it in Hex]). Name your head morph, and location appropiately to your needs/wants/usage.
6. Test your newly created head only morph. If working correctly, onto step 7 (you can also close Hex - no longer needed).
7, Save your new morph; Save As Morph Asset.
8. Clear all morphs, then dial back in the FBM.
9. Negative dial in the head only morph (head morph -100%). This will return the head to Genesis' default state while leaving the body morphed.
10. Export Genesis in this state as OBJ. Name it something appropiate like "whatever-body-only". (use DS OBJ default export at DS size - you can disable materials - not needed)
11. Clear morphs on Genesis, and then load back in OBJ just exported with Morph Loader Pro. Name/location, etc....
12. Test morph. If working go to step 13.
13. Save body morph; Save As Morph Asset. And... Finished.
Long, and convoluted. I wouldn't recommend it, but it can be done (if anyone can post a better way via Hex, please do - I would like to know as well).
If you are interested in what is required, and work-flow to accomplish in Blender, please let me know, and I will do a write up.
Hello doc,
Seems you have a duplicate thread here from the Hexagon one. I guess because no one was answering for an entire month in that other thread, but I gave you a detailed answer there (regarding Hex).
Short answer; Yes, it can be done (easily in some software), and I agree with Cayman above. I think all PA's should strive to include separate head/body morphs along with FBM/Shapes in all their character products. It's a shame that it is not standard, but a lot of PA's just might not know how to create the separations from their initial sculpts.
Please don't start multiple threads on the same question.
Hi, and thanks very much for your answers. Especially that very detailed one DaremoK. I'll try the Hexagon way (I need to spend some time in there to get familiar anyway, and this is a good reason). If I find it's overly tedious I'll get in touch for the Blender way.
Thanks again everyone, this has been very helpful.
Good luck with your morphing endeavour, doc. It is an advanced work-flow in Hexagon which you will need a lot of patience for.
One-to-one vertex snapping isn't for the faint of heart, because you have to displace each and every vertex on your MT mesh to the corresponding, coincident (occupying exact 3D space) vertices on the morphed base mesh. It is a great vertex snapping exercise, though...
You will also have to do the eyes, and all the internal mouth structures, as these are part of the morphs. I would hide the face polygons, and start with them first. Also, you will probably need to make a smooth transition on the neck leading from head to body.
A few things to help you out; 1) Scale the head slightly bigger than the morphed head (so you can push the verts onto the MT mesh). 2) Usage of "soft (vertex) selection", and selecting areas to make adjustments before you start your snapping. 3) You can also use the sculpting tools to manipulate the head mesh closer into place as well.
Here is example of easier way in Blender. Created four MT's to make body/head separation morphs (needed to create both a neck heighten/translate Y axis, and a smooth/fix morph for the main finished head morph). Image one shows the default child FBM (It's large do to working from the raw DSF, and the child morph employs scaling in DS), and image two shows the head separation MT at 50%, along with the neck fix morphs:
***EDIT: For this particular morph, you might be able to get away with straight scaling/translations without the need of vertex snapping, but I don't know, haven't tried. However, your scaling/translation will have to be spot on...
Goddamit, I hate my browser. Having to go to such detail is crazy. Eyes, inner mouth etc. I might have to think of a way around it somehow.