[Released] Magic - Smart Actions for Posing [Commercial]
Fairyteller
Posts: 19
Magic - Smart Actions for Posing has been Unleashed! Here's a 2 minutes trailer because a video is more effective to explain what it does and whether you want it.
This product contains two smart scripts that provide a very effective tool for posing. It was designed to help you create/alter a pose using temporary Targets that you can quickly and easily add and remove once you're satisfied with the result.
- When you use Magic - Pointer on a bone, it will create a Point At Target for it and automatically position the target as best as it can
- When you use it on a bone that already has a target, it will switch the selection to the target.
- When you use it on a target, it will remove the target, and the bone will keep its rotation. This is called "baking the target back"
- When you use it on a multiple selection of bones, it will create a target for each bone, and put them all in a properly positioned Target Group so you can move and rotate all the bones together
- When you use it on a multiple selection of targets, it will bake all the selected targets and groups back to their respective bones.
This might sound complex, but it is very easy and intuitive to use and combine with other posing methods. It is also the single greatest method to pose tentacles, ropes, tails and hair pieces with a lot of bones.
Magic - Twister is frankly a nightmare to explain :D but it's also very useful once you get what it does. It is designed to overcome a limitation of the "Point At" property, for bones for which you'd rather primarily use Twist rotation than Side-to-Side rotation. For instance the Head or Neck, you generally want to twist left or right rather than tilt. Without Magic Twister you have to follow a 5 minutes complex procedure involving the joint editor tool, the property hierarchy, ERC controllers etc. (from 1:53 to 6:50 in this official Daz3d tutorial)
Or you can use Magic - Twister to do all of this in an instant, then use Magic - Pointer on the newly created Controller. And when you're done, you just use Magic Pointer on the target to bake it back to the Twist Controller, and Magic Twister to bake the controller back to the head. And of course, it works with multiple selection.
The product includes an extensive pdf tutorial, but I'll be happy to answer your questions here!
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Comments
This looks really good, could you please add the pdf tutorial here so I can have a look at before I make the final decision to buy?
Sure, here it is.
Edit: thanks to Zicon's alert eye, you can download the pdf in the Readme section here http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/90827/start
I had the pleasure of testing this, and I'm so happy to see it's finally out! This really is magic, I don't even know how lived without it.
Doing a sitting pose? Make a pointer for the leg bones, and pull them into place in one operation.
Need to give the torso a little bend to make a pose more natural? Make a pointer for the spine bones, and just drag it in the direction you want. Oops, went to far and now the figure is all wonky? Don't worry, just delete that pointer and just those bits are reset!
Got a thumb that just refuses to go where you need it to? Make a pointer for the thumb bones and just drag it into place!
And that's just a tiny bit of how amazing it is for regular human figures. If you're trying to pose a long vine, this is an absolute lifesaver for getting that vine into place, and have a natural-looking curve along the way!
But the best part is that it's so fast. Seriously unbelievably fast. Fairyteller has explained some of how this all works behind the scene to me, but it all sounded like nonsense to cover up the goat sacrifices to me. All I can say is that it was totally worth every goat!
The full PDF manual is available in the readme!
I just gave this a try - so far I like it - It feels much more natural to pose. Also no more constantly pinning bones!!! Only the selected bones move. Period. I still need to dig deeper into the capabilities but I like it so far - posing is not my strong suit so I need every tool and this one seems really good so far.
@Zicon: thank you so much for the nice feedback!
@bohemian3: thank you for giving it a try, I hope you have a great time with it!
Just got this today and gave it a cursory try. So far I'm really liking it. Makes posing a bit more intuitive and natural. I can tell this is going to be a go-to tool for me from now on. One of those tools that is like "Why didn't they have this before?!" Nice job @Fairyteller. Thanks for the awesome tool!
This is a fantastic tool, and was an instabuy when I saw that it works on just about anything (tails just got much easier to wrangle). I really appreciate the clear and straightforward instructions, too!
Apologies if I missed this in the documentation anywhere, but is it okay to use this to create poses for distribution?
@joshrother: Thank you! I'm trying my best :)
You're right, I should probably update the product description to reflect that. And the documentation should make it more clear. I'm not 100% sure it falls under the Merchant Resource license since it's a tool rather than a raw resource.
Yes, it is okay to use it to create poses for distribution, for free or for commercial use, it's always been the intent from day one, but you have to make sure to remove all traces of Magic from your figures and scenes before you share/distribute the things you create with it. Just remember to bake all the targets and twist controllers back to the figure before you save the pose, or it simply won't work properly! And don't redistribute the product itself, of course.
I'll try to clarify this with the proper wording and instructions for distribution in a future update.
Couple of questions as I bought this yesterday and sorry to sound critical.
1 Why has it disappeared from the store?
2 I have only used this on GF8 arm and upper neck and it just locks them and only twists, even the bend parameter is locked and using the universal tool it does the same, just twists it and does not allow any movement at all, while the upper neck just stays locked ?
3 It needs a remove nodes button script.
Hey, thanks for giving it a try. Sorry you're having a hard time with it! I'll try to help.
1. You're having me worried for a minute :S it is still there for me. https://www.daz3d.com/magic--smart-actions-for-posing maybe you have checked the "hide items I own" box?
2. For Genesis 8 rigs, make sure you don't use it on "Twist" bones, only on "Bend" bones. The Magic - Pointer script is based on the Point At feature of Daz Studio and that doesn't work well with twist rotations.
3. What kind of "remove nodes" button do you need? At the moment you can either select multiple targets and groups and press "delete" (this will delete the targets and cancel the pose), or select multiple targets and groups and press "Magic Pointer" (this will confirm and bake the pose, and also delete the targets). Do you feel you need a "cancel everything" button, a "bake everything" button?
Thanks for the quick reply, you are correct, my hide items was activated sorry for that.
When I first used it, it placed a node on GF8's arm, so I imagined it would have loads of nodes attached to GF8 and would be a nightmare to delete, but yes, deleting the Magic Points is easy.
It is hard to select the arm twist node unless you go into the scene tab and select it that way, so no idea how that got selected unless I had attached the Twist button, which I can now see is for the head.
You have given me a better understanding of it now and I feel a lot better about purchasing this tool, opposed to the many other tool scripts I have bought and are so difficult to use and time consuming they are not worth using.
Cheers @rhye_7b205b2b74, I'm happy to help, don't hesitate to ask if you have any other question.
Thanks Fairyteller! You just answered a question I asked another Artist Vendor, who never bothered to got back to me. Must of checked that box and not realized it.
I was tettering on the edge of purchasing your product and trying to learn, the recommended, something else new. [Long covid is cruel on preexisting conditions] I have a good feeling about you and think you will do your best to help, if I need it, even on the days my brain goes on vacation without me.
Perfect, thank you so much for the clarification! I'm not sure if I'll end up using it that way, but it's something I can see becoming a major part of my posing workflow, so it's good to know. :D
Yeah ! Let's do art!
Hi, i have it and test it actually. If i chose hand forearm shoulder and Collar, all only bend, and than click the Magic Button, Pose the arm and click again to bake, it will switch to another position between the first and the final position. My Charakter is Imoen with youth morph and the Charakter is not at the null point (400 x Translation). I can not make a correct animation at the moment :-(
Thanks for the report. I'm sorry to say there is a bug in my code that can affect some Genesis 8 figures. If the bone changes position after baking, then that means there is a limit that the Pointing system fails to take into account, but the Baking system respects it.
While you wait for me to publish a fix, there is a way to work around that: Select the Hip of your figure, then using the universal tool, click on the little figure in the top left corner of the viewport and select "Limits On (Rotation)". Now the Pointing system will properly respect the limits of the figure. This might impact your pose, but at least Magic will work as intended.
Alternatively you can try to tell the Baking system to ignore the limits for a particular bone. This is not what I would recommend, but it is possible. In this case the problem is probably a hidden property of the Left/Right Forearm Bend bone. Select the bone, in the Parameters/Pose panel select the hamburger menu and preferences/show hidden properties. Then in the Parameters/Pose panel, in General/Transforms/Rotation there should be a new grayed out parameter called "Z Rotate". Click the little lock to "unlock" it. Now your arm should keep the pose you crafted, even though this is not how I would do it, it can still help you hopefully get the effect you wanted.
I hope this helps you solve this issue, my apologies for the bug, I will try to publish a fix soon.
Hi Fairyteller,
I'm having problems with Magic - Smart Actions For Posing; I tried using one of my Genesis 3 characters and whenever I select a bone, or some bones, and click on Magic - Pointer my Daz Studio Pro Public Build (Beta 4.21.1.48) freezes over.
Same thing when I try Genesis 8 and 8.1.
I get a lot of warnings like...
2023-07-16 16:40:53.357 [WARNING] :: ..\..\..\..\..\src\sdksource\fileinput\dzassetdaz.cpp(8088): Animation property not found: name://@selection#SCLArmsLength:?value/value
And...
2023-07-16 16:40:50.431 [WARNING] :: ..\..\..\..\..\src\sdksource\fileinput\dzassetdaz.cpp(746): Formula target property not found:
File: /data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 3/Female/Morphs/Zev0/Bend Control/Smoother Victoria 6 R.dsf
It seems like the script can't find the morphs or their properties.
I have some morphs in the regular installation folder and the rest in another drive; my library is massive and I don't have enough room in my system drive for all my assets.
Is that what is causing troubles?
Is the script looking for the morphs and values inside the default installation folder?
Can I point the script to look for morphs and values in a custom library folder?
Your product looks amazing but I can't use it at all.
Halp!
Hey,
First, let's get this out of the way: Magic - Smart Actions For Posing is not creating, altering or looking for any morph or any external file. All it does is alter basic rotations for the selected nodes, bones and props. If a figure has a morph or hard drive lookup problem that causes major performance issues when posing its bones, then the problem is with the figure and morphs, and there's not a whole lot that I can do to fix it, sadly.
I have a few questions to help diagnose if the issue comes from the Magic - Pointer script:
Can you confirm that Magic-Pointer is not causing problems on plain Genesis or Genesis 9 figures? Or any animal figure, if you have any?
Do you still see the warning/morph errors in the log if you just load a Genesis 8 figure into a scene?
What if you manually change the value of the "Bend" slider for the problematic bone of a Genesis 8 figure ?
What if you manually (without Magic) set a Point At target for this bone (create a Null, then select the bone and in the Parameters pane, in the "General/Constraints" category, set the "Point At" property to the Null you created)?
What if you then translate the Null to a different position?
I'm asking because these are all the elementary actions that the Magic-Pointer script does, and it does a lot of them. Each of these, individually should be instant. If they take a long time, like half a second or something, and raise a warning in the log each time, then yeah Magic probably won't be good for Genesis 8 until you fix your morph errors :(
Hi again,
Thanks for your reply.
- I checked with a basic Genesis 3 female character and Magic - Pointer worked as intended!
- Then, I tried other figures, custom G3, G8, and G8.1 Magic - Pointer worked.
- I still get all the warnings, even when I load a basic Genesis character, same with custom characters. But now, it doesn't freeze my Daz Studio.
- I tried using a sphere primitive as a point target and it worked; a chain of bones pointing at the sphere don't follow IK motion; just the parent bone moves the rest.
- I think I have some morph conflicts or duplicates; fixing conflicts is something I should to learn more about... I have seen poses and morphs with (2)... like (2): Smile.
More info:
After testing a base G3 female character, I tried one of my custom Genesis 3 female characters and it worked!
Ok, then I tried a custom Genesis 8 female character and, again, all went well.
After that I tried a custom Genesis 8.1 female character and everything worked as expected.
I'm not sure what freezed my Daz Studio or what were all those warnings really about but I'm guessing that using a base character helped somehow.
I will be repeating the process on my other two computers; I hope it also works there. :B
That's good to hear, I hope it keeps working!
Being able to select multiple bones and move at once in sync is game changer(tm). Thanks!
Just bought and tried this in last hour. Used IK all the time before.
rewritten:
Been working with this more.
Issue reported before was for a single bone. This product seems more for multi-bones. So deleted for now.
Still figuring out ins - outs.
for now thought would add:
quicker ik-chains setup for say pelvis movement would be a most welcome addition!
if you want to add more to this ;)
After the last update. There's a serious problem with the product. For some reason, Right Shoulder and Right Collar reset their positions after applying Magic Pointer to bake to transforms on Genesis 8.1. Same goes for Left and Right Foot.
I bought this on release, but I hadn't had the pleasure of playing with it until today... and I LOVE it! I had a feeling I would, but I didn't expect it to be so easy to use on top of that! So I highly recommend it!
That said, so far I haven't encountered any problems, but I have used it sporadically to tweak poses rather than to create a whole pose from scratch.
I can't reproduce it for some reason. It feels to me like it's working as intended but maybe there's something I'm not seeing.
If we take the Right Shoulder for example, do you know of a set of rotation values that is problematic/lost?
Have also noticed that bone/mesh positions will change. Often enough to be an issue.
In screenshots (links below) (hopefully works and still there - anon upload to imgur as DAZ forums still n/a)
This time seems a waist twist. Sometimes shin to foot bones. Haven't had time yet to test more.
Using G8.
Here are 2 just made renders. G8F all in coppery metal shader to meet nudity guidelines.
Second image has Magic Pointer applied to abdo lower & upper, chest lower & upper, neck lower. Nothing else done. Just magic pointer added.
Also tried new magic pointers to include collar L&R, and then also pectoral L&R to above selection.
Each time it shifted.
In images see how waist twists. For those wondering, best is DL both in image editor and and click back and forth to see movement.
https://imgur.com/FDqlnk5
https://imgur.com/9ELWmBx
Here's the problem in question in detail. I hope this helps.
https://imgur.com/a/GdlNjGp
I can confirm this just happened to me. All the other bones in the arm baked properly, but the Right Shoulder would rest the pose when I try to bake it as well.
For this specific issue, as I wrote in the documentation, twisting rotation values cannot be easily controlled with Magic Pointer since it relies on the Point At system of the engine for performance and ease of use. It's a known limitation of the tool and sadly there's not much I can do about it right now. The system picks a global rotation that aligns the "bone origin to bone end point" vector with the "bone origin to target origin" vector and forces that global rotation to the bone. We cannot expect the twist rotation to keep its value except maybe by changing the twist rotation limits, which is a destructive modification of the rig and does not play well with animation at all.
So sadly I cannot help with this particular problem. My advice would be to use Magic Pointer to quickly draft a directional gesture, bake it, then use other methods to fine tune the bone twisting. Magic Twister can help here, but similarly it does have its own limits (essentially it lets you control the Twist instead of the Side-to-side / Front-to-back rotation but the principle is the same).