Driving Morphs with Joint Angles

bwise1701

Hey Everyone,

so I've been doing a lot of scuplt fixing using Zbrush on one of my V4 models, to fix specific poses and get basic body shapes the Morphs++ won't allow. I'd like to be able to do scuplt fixes that are driven by joint angles - so they fire on and off only in certain parameter ranges, such as Arms up or behind head that sort of thing.

Is there a tutorial on that anywhere?

thanks so much

Richard Haseltine

This is ERC, morphs controlled by joints are usually referred to as JCMs (Joint-controlled morphs). Which application are you using - Poser, DS or something else?

bwise1701

Sorry forgot that info. I'm using DS Studio Pro 4.0
I'm using V4 with the Morphs++

thanks

Richard Haseltine

OK, if you want to control a morph from a single rotation it's fairly easy - set the morph to 1, and the rotation to the value you want to match the morph at 1. Right-click on the tab for the Property Editor pane (this will work even if the pane is docked behind other panes, as long as the tab is accessible - that's a good thing as, for a morph-heavy figure, the pane can take a long time to refresh if it's visible). From the menu choose ERC Freeze. In the dialogue, under Control property selection, you want to pick:
Figure Victoria 4
Node The bone with the rotation you ant to control the morph(s)
Property The actual rotation
then under Freeze properties you check the morphs you want to be controlled. Just click Accept and then if it works go to File>Save as>Support Asset>Morph and save out the new JCM.

bwise1701

Richard, when you bring up the ERC freeze dialog, and go to select which property/morph you want to be controlled it is a Loooonnnng list. Is there any way de-select all so you can check just a single morph quickly? And what about the restore figure options and so forth at the bottom?
Not quite sure what those mean...

bwise1701

Ooops spoke too soon, I figured out the right-click toggle selected trick.

But how do I set the range for the morph? Say I want it to be controlled from some range of the controlling joint angle - not 0 to current but explicit say 15 to 30 or some such - so the morph 0 maps to 15 and 1 maps to 30 and it is for any value less and 1 for any value 30 and above?

thanks

Richard Haseltine

You would need to edit the links in the property editor, adding a constant value for example. ERC Freeze by itself assumes that when the controller is at 0 so are the controlled properties

bwise1701

Not sure I understand that, I can click on the link under the morph and it will let me set a range there? A min max on the controlling joint angle?

Richard Haseltine

Setting the Min and max will allow you to specify a range of values, yes, which I think would work though I'm not quite clear on what you want - the default is to add the linked value to the local value, so setting a non-zero Min value would add a constant to all of the ERC values.

bwise1701

I just want the Morph I've sculpted for the shin and foot to be 0 when the foot bend (xrotate) is -20 (or less) and 1 when it's 32 (or greater).

I just wasn't clear on where I set the min/max value range on the controller's input value

Richard Haseltine

OK, so you need to add -20 to the ERC, set to DeltaAdd, link and to set the multiplier to 0.01923, with the morph having limits set to 0 Min and 1 Max. To edit the ERC you need the Property Editor (Window>Panes(tabs)>Property Editor) - be warned that ti can take a long time to populate with Genesis.