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Gen 2 puzzel

starboardstarboard Posts: 452
in Carrara Discussion

I have  used M4, V4 up until now. I have bought a  G2 dress for Gen female for a period scene.  I have it loaded ok and after much trial and error have the dress "fit to" Genisis 2. The arms work fine, the dress moves with the Gen figure arms. However the  Gen legs seem to have no connection to the dress at all and poke through.  Is this normal and do you have to move the lower dress manually to fit the leg movement ? I can understand that you would have to tweak the dress to fit the movement..but I am puzzeled that there is no movement of the lower dress at all.

Thanks for any help

Starboardtack

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Comments

  • chickenmanchickenman Posts: 1,202

    I have seen this when posing characters but have been lucky in that the part of the leg showing through was not required and could just hide the visibliity of it.

    Not sure how to fix it.

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 11,658

    That is normal. A good number of skirts don't follow the leg's movement, they will have special skirt bones that you can use to adjust the skirt's position. 

    And yes you will need to do that manually but you'll usually get better results than when the skirt is rigged to only follow the legs, which often leads to distortion when the figure is posed and doesn't give you the option of adjusting independantly the back and the front of the dress for example.

  • starboardstarboard Posts: 452

    Thanks Leana,

    I was begining to suspect this as the movement of the fabric is so complex. Enough morphs are provided so that it should be ok. I have played around with the skirt morphs and I can see that there is a skill set needed to handle it well.. At least I know that its the right way to do it - and not wasting time,  Thanks for the help.

    Starboardtack

     

     

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050

    In some cases, and let me emphasize, some cases, I have had good results parenting a target helper to the figure's thigh or shin, slightly offset from the geometry of the figure, and then having the bone(s) in the dress/skirt track the target helper. When the left goes forward, the left bone in the skirt tracks the target helper parented to the left leg.

    I'll have to dig around to see if I can find a sample animation...

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 2015

    Couldn't find any video clips, as it was edited together and then archived, but I did find the figure I did this with most recently.

    It's an A4 with a free dress by evilinnocence. I parented a Target Helper Object (THO) to the thighs, and positioned them slightly forward of the A4 mesh. I then had the right and left mover bones in the dress track the appropriate THO. The THOs are offset from the figure's mesh to avoid collisions, as the tracking is hot point to hot point. Some playing around with THO positions will be needed to get the best results.

    I also used THOs for the hands, but those are unrelated, so ignore them.

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  • starboardstarboard Posts: 452

    Evil,

    Thanks for jumping in. I have never heard of  a "Target helper object"  but I think I follow the reasoning. It seems like you are using an intermediate object between the leg bones and the dress bones.  Its another level of complexity that I cannot handle at present as I am just trying to get work out.  I am familar with manually moving the morphs and have a level of comfort with this, tedious as it might be. When I get more skilled with Carrara I will revisit. Right now simple is all I can handle.

    I was just back re-reading one of your old posts, on using the spline tool and the Arrange/Combine as Compound for cutting holes in spline objects.... That tip has been not just useful, but invaluable.  Thanks

    Starboardtack

    Starboardtack

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 2015

    When you do get the time, Target Helper Objects can be very useful. Not just for the method above, but also to use point at modifiers on cameras and eyes and things. The uses may seem complicated, but once you understand what they can be used for, it can greatly simplify an animation.

    Target Helper Objects are just simple, little wireframe cross hairs that do not show up in renders, you can customize their size and color in the Target Helper's effects tab. To add one to a scene, use the Insert menu, or look for the little bulls eye icon and drag it into your scene or Instances tray.

    When used with IK tracking on a figure, they are great for locking feet to the ground, which can help get a more natural looking pose, as you can push and pull the rest of the rig, including the hip bone. You can even use them to automate a character riding a bike.

    Target helper used to lock foot to ground, and the rest of the figure animation is done by grabbing the hands, torso, etc, and moving them, which generated keyframes.

    Automated bike ride, by locking the feet to THOs parented to the pedals, and locking the hands to the handle bars. The torso and head movements were done the traditional way.

    This video uses THOs parented to the coat stand to keep the girl's hand positioned on it. I could then animate the rest of her without worrying that her hand would come out of position if I moved her hip or turned her torso. Her feet were also locked to the floor by having her feet track THOs on the floor- well, actually at ankle level, since tracking tracks the the hot points, and the feet joint hot points are at the ankles, just as the hand joint hot points are at the wrists. I also have her eyes tracking a THO some distance away (so they don't look crossed), this give the eyes the appearance of focusing on the cat off screen.

    Post edited by evilproducer on
  • starboardstarboard Posts: 452

    Evil,

    That "Target Helper Objects" is very, very  powerful. It is evilly clever. I could really have used that a few months ago.  I will definitely be going into this in depth. I did not know that I really needed it till you pointed it out.  I like how the foot stays on the pedal...I  would be using dozens  of keyframes and even then it would not look right.  That poor cat ..geez that is some basement. Some wonderful humor and trickery. I enjoyed it thoroughly.  Really good work.

    And thanks for all the time you spent on the explanation. Your directions and examples are fully sufficient so that I should be able to figure it out as soon as I get through my present work deluge. I can see how you can attach , say a foot to the ground as your example shows.  I have used parenting, but this seems another dimension.  

    Once again,  and again, thanks for yoiur help and tutoring.

    Starboardtack

     

     

     

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    If you need any help, just ask. BTW, other software would call them null objects, or just nulls. You could use any object in Carrara as target helper, but then you would need to remember to make it invisible, which would be a pain if you needed to manipulate it to aid in an animation. Much easier to use something you don't need to worry about accidentally rendering.
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