ERC heavy Deformer loading with wieght maps.

Dimorphic

I've been working with self made deformers that have ERC "remotes" for years. They dramatically speed up creating custom morphs and allow quick tweaks to hair, clothing, simulated squish, etc. Basically, it's a null ERCd to a left and right deformer so that they move as a unit allowing simultaneous movement. As long as the null is at 0,0,0 to the base figure, you can move the figure around at they work just fine. I have three problems. 1 loading deformers through the deformers function strips out my ERCs. So I have gone to a scene subset, which does not apply deformers. Customers will not want to have to select a figure, go to the deform menus, apply the deformations, then find the remote again. They will get lost. How can I get the deformers to automatically deform a figure if that figure was selected, and warn that a figure was not selected if there wasn't one?. Am I going to have to write a script that creates the remote and makes the ERCs on the fly? If this was poser I would just cut and paste the remote into the deformer file because poser isnt too picky. DAZ seems much more strict on file structure. 2. less critical, the deformer set loads as "ReNameMe" and that's seven manual renames each time you load a set. I use dozens at a time. Is there a renaming script example somewhere? I should be able to figure it out on my own, I just thought there might be an example somewhere I haven't found yet. 3. Kind of a summary of the other two: While generic magnets for large body parts are easy for customers to use, small ones in tight spaces are far more difficult and require weight maps. The only thing I can think of is saving a dev figure with all the magnets and props attached. This could be up to 100 extra items per figure. I would rather let the customer decide what the want rather than give them a firehose. Again my only thought is to load the deformers and have a script create everything on the fly.

Dimorphic

Middle question already answered by richard, disregard renaming script.

Richard Haseltine

Unfortunately the docs for DzDFormModifer are not currently up in the documentation centre, as work is being done on these areas (see the change log). I do have a script or two that I wrote ages ago, when there was a problem with soem products that loaded multiple dForms (mainly soem of Nerd's environment and effects tools0 but how applicable those would now be is another matter.

Syrus_Dante

I work with deformers quiet often and found that you can save them as DFormer Presets to the library that can then also be applied to other items. The DFormer presets can also include animated DFormer properties.

I just checked it and yes it is also possible to save the DForm Influence WeightMaps along with the preset for a specific item and its geometry.

Parented items like the nulls or other objects can be saved as WearAble Presets. DFormers added with the DFormer presets gets autorenamed by adding (2) to prevent conflicts and are automaticly influencing the item that was selected. You can check if a DFormer has influence on an item by looking into the Parameters pane and see if there is at least one DForm property for any DFormer under the DForms group. You can even rename the properties there to control the influence individualy.

I had no luck with the "remote" ERCs like they can be done in Posers dependencies editor in DazStudio. I once parented a prop to a genesis figures head, let it point at a null and linked the prop rotations to the head-neck pose controls. It actualy worked. I mean the ERC-Freeze list showed up with those properties of other items to link them to the controler. They worked until I closed DazStudio and I don't know of any way to get them saved.

DazStudio seems to allow these "remote" ERCs only on conforming items fitted to a figure. Then you can have a property in the conformer figure that remote controls a property set to Auto Follow with the same name in the conforming figure. This dosn't have to be a shape morph that gets autogenerated if it dosn't exist already but could also be a controler for various other shapes and settings.

Dimorphic

I have thought about creating a conforming figure as the remote. I think in the end I'm going to solve the problem with stratagy instead of technology. I'm just going to put out A set of Universal Dynamic Deformers that cam be attached to any single mesh figure with a video tutorial as a merchant resource. People who buy merchant resources understand things arn not going to be one click, and this will be for those willing to press two more buttons to get their own creativity saved. I will then make some figures with the deformers, remotes, and and wieght maps baked in, this will be easy for the default user, but will only work on a specific figure (one for each generation, male and female) this will be much faster for the average user and work like morphs, only in all directions instead of 1 delta. This will be a lot more like my old kits.