mcjParent - script - simple parenting and animations where you pick and leave objects (updated!)

mCasual · March 2013

Download and manual ----> https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts3/mcjparent

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Introduction
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This script for DS1, 2, 3, 4 will let you do animations tasks like picking and leaving an object

a hand picking a sword for example or a robotic arm picking an egg

It can also let you do simple parenting.

In fact initially i wrote this script because my Daz Studio 3 regularly loses the ability to parent

one node to another after an hour of work on a scene.

So instead of saving my scene, closing DS3, restarting DS3 and re-loading the scene, i use this script

mCasual · March 2013

Sneak Preview of the robotic arm prop which will be free on my web site soon ( say tomorrow maybe? )

Richard Haseltine · March 2013

Casual said:
In fact initially i wrote this script because my Daz Studio 3 regularly loses the ability to parent
one node to another after an hour of work on a scene.

Is that by drag-and-drop only, or is it also by the Change Parent dialogue? Drag-and-drop in DS3 could be killed by renaming a node, or anything else that involved an active rename field in a pane - I can't recall if it was ever fixed in 3, it isn't an issue in 4.

mCasual · March 2013

Richard Haseltine said:
Casual said:
In fact initially i wrote this script because my Daz Studio 3 regularly loses the ability to parent
one node to another after an hour of work on a scene.

Is that by drag-and-drop only, or is it also by the Change Parent dialogue? Drag-and-drop in DS3 could be killed by renaming a node, or anything else that involved an active rename field in a pane - I can't recall if it was ever fixed in 3, it isn't an issue in 4.

by drag and drop mainly ( cant recall exactly if i tried through the menus )

i tend to use DS3 often, because DS4 is more crash prone on my Win7/AMD ( possibly an interaction with Window's Magnifier )
also because i try to maintain DS3 compatibility for the scripts.

(in other news, i should soon update mcjWarp to DS4.5 ... then maybe implement OSCeleton/Kinect )

creativemodelsbe · June 2013

Can i also parent figures hands with this?
like parent genesis (1) to hand from genesis (2) and control genesis(2) hand with genesis (1) hand?

that can be script animators like

mCasual · June 2013

creativemodelsbe said:
Can i also parent figures hands with this?
like parent genesis (1) to hand from genesis (2) and control genesis(2) hand with genesis (1) hand?
that can be script animators like

it's just to parent an object to a figure, or an object to another object

parenting body parts to body parts would possibly break the skeleton
--
i wrote scripts for hands and feet animation

https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts2/mcjholdo
https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjautolimb
https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjmaketarget
https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjkeeporient

unfortunately mcjAutoLimb, the more powerful tool of the lot works only with pre-Genesis figures
( Aiko Hiro Victoria Michael 3 and 4 etc ... )

this summer i plan to upgrade and improve mcjAutoLimb

mCasual · June 2015

i'll post an mcjParent version that includes a "parent in place" option

but since i cant miss an occasion to waste time . . .

Fig 1 - We have Amy Bun making her nose hard to catch and Amy PixieTail which will catch it

Fig 2 - at frame 0, i set the nose catch pose, i used mcjAutoLimb2014 of course ! and mcjHands
notice the target node which was used to bring Amy PixieTail's index where it is

now comes the problem, we parent the target node to Amy Bun's head using mcjParent (2013)
but first i delete all keyframes on the terget node ( because i think it would solve the issue ! )

Fig 3 ok, i select the null node, followed by Amy Bun's head, i launch mcjParent and i parent
.... and the target node didn't move

so that's not a problematic situation

Fig 4, ok i got it ! the problem is, if the target-node is parented to Miss PixieTail's index, and i re-parent it to the head, it jumps

Now i'll add the "parent in place" option to the script

ok done, it's a bit odd because i was using a daz script parenting function which was supposed to "parent in place"

so what i did is, i note the world position of the node being re-parented before the parenting
and i re-position it following the parenting

var pos = srcnode.getWSPos();
if( destnode.getNodeParent() == srcnode )
{
srcnode.removeNodeChild( destnode );
}
destnode.addNodeChild( srcnode, true );
srcnode.setWSPos( pos );

In Fig 5 we'll see if Amy PixieTail succeeds in her mission ...