Deformation tools, complimenting the D-Former...

JD_Mortal

I find that the D-Former tool, though it is adequate in many instances, could use some help.

I know "Daz is not a 3D editor", but it is... Moving and manipulating is what editing is. Daz does that, but it is not the focus.

What I would like is the ability to paint, as we already can do with the selection tool, but paint bump-deformations. Both in positive and negative ends of the spectrum, and with an influence-slider to adjust the severity of the bump. This being limited to the individual points, not actual pixel-detail of the model. Just as the deformer tool is represented. Not to create dragons from super-models, but to add ripples, adjust small out-of-place patches of folds, to raise and lower small sections to avoid poke-through without having to depend on the smoothing-deformer tool, or making it easy for the smoothing when it chokes on one tiny portion...

This will give us a fast way to deform and spot-adjust, anything on the model, where needed, quickly. If there were 1,000,000 points, that is the equivalent of a 1000x1000 greyscale image, or about a 334x334 RGB image, less if you limit it to 128 bump-levels of precision, or 64, or 32... You would only create an edit-bump size that is large enough to hold the edited data, not reserving one cell for every point on the model.

Once we are done editing, just as with the Deformer, we could save that and burn it to the models new form, make morphs with it, etc...

There is also an added bonus of giving use another simple method to deform the model with code/script, and create instant effects with this... (Wind blowing, using a water-ripple set of animated images or code. Smoothing, using anti-depth modification collected from the objects actual 3D point data, Wrinkling with the same methods or by generic values with images... Etc... This would require a full-model output or isolated output, similar to UV-wrapping, but more like point-cloud data. But not for your part, only ours, if we want to represent the points as a flat image to match the UV approximate locations. Again, this is the points, not the UV mapped pixels, but the UV would be used to "visualize", where the points align to the actual 3D wrapped model, when unwrapped.)

I just want something fast, and intuitive, and less cumbersome than trying to move and manipulate three components and "guess" how they will react with the model. Painting is easy, it rises out from the base/normal-average, or it sinks inward, away from you, into the model. Though, it is obviously more limited than the d-former, yet still, less restricted in its own way.

larsmidnatt

while I could see why you would want this, i serioulsy think they would pass this on to an external tool. Because existing tools exist for that stuff.

JD_Mortal

It isn't an external tool that I was proposing, I was proposing that this simple tool be a core element, using existing things that the program already does... and no tool exists to do this, in Daz, to my knowledge... External tools would be useless, because you need to see the models in Daz, to see the effect that it has on them, while you are editing. (In relation to the clothing auto-forms and smoothing alterations. The only mention of external components, or internal scripts, was the ability for US to use that data, those modification parameters, to edit with code and by external programs as simple images. Which, doesn't exist, because this doesn't exist.)

I can select points with the paint-brush, but only changes the weighting. (All it was designed for. Which is in relation to bone-translations, not surface-bump "normal" translations, and not in relation to the D-Former tool. Painting weighting for the deformer would be a nice bonus, instead of the limited globe selection tool. That would require an array of points, as a bump-map, which doesn't exist, but could. As opposed to the globe which is just a math formula. This would use the same "weighting array" that we use for weighting, but apply it to the deformer, not a bone. Same same, it's a node, a point of origin of some kind of influence.)

Think of it as a ghetto version of Z-Brush, just no tessalation or translations other than in/out from the surface. (Which is what a bump-map is. But a bump-map is usually just an illusion of a bump, creating painted shadows, not actually raising or lowering the surfaces unless you have coded surface-tessellation auto-subdivisions, which is a DX10 and DX11 feature, not a rendering feature, or a Z-Brush native "function".

Except you shouldn't have to go here, do this, parent that, adjust this, adjust that, select this, do that, set this, click that, check this.. and then it sort-of works...

You should just select the tool, and start painting/modifying the selected object in front of you. Quick dirty spot-edits, for correcting "issues" along the way, or saving as permanant modifications, as desired.

It would be nice if the deformed did that... Just select something and the deformer is already there, where you just clicked, on the item, ready to deform, without a goofy top-tool-wand, or whatever that horrible contraption is... Just simple XYZ of two points would have sufficed. With a simple node-marker to indicate there was a deformer-mod at that bone/location.

JD_Mortal

Just adding a note, from something I said above...

Here is a DX visualization of something I mentioned, but not what I was requesting... I want this to edit only existing points, not do the whole shader-tessellation thing... (I am sure the new G3 might even do this part anyways, with bumps, in the rendering-engine, even if DAZ themselves does not do it internally, prior to sending to the rendering engine. Though not the DX-11 variation, but the CUDA or generic CPU version of this form of bump.)

http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SL-SurfaceShaderTessellation.html

I believe GL has a version of this too, in the new GL formats. (Seems to be what DAZ uses in the edit window, deforming the models into HD, from the low-Q "editing" models. (When you see the skin seem to change, directly after an edit, it has more "curves" than the generic model you just "moved" or "bent". I forget where I saw that setting for the quality. But I don't think the shader-bumps are counted in those alterations. I would have to do a test, but that is usually part of the final-render shaders, not the live editing GL display.)

Richard Haseltine

You can use the Node Weight Brush tool with DForms - move the field out of the way first, unless it's providing a starting approximation to the effect you want, and then with the DForm selected and the weight paint tool active go to Tool settings and select the influence map from the list of unuised maps and assign it. You can also weight a Push modifier by adding a weight influence node from the Create menu.

You can export posed or morphed figures, and clothing as well as figures, as OBJ, manipulate them in a modeller as separate layers, ex[port the layer you are chnaging as OBJ, and use the Reverse Deformation option in Morph Loader Pro to subtract out the effect of the morph or pose, leaving only your adjustment as a new morph.

JD_Mortal

Richard Haseltine said:

You can use the Node Weight Brush tool with DForms ...

Hmm... I didn't know that was even a possibility... I'll have to try that out. Another ten-step edit...

You confused me at the "Reverse deformation" thing... But I think I grasp what you are saying... to get the isolated morph from the external edit.

I will have to play with that when I wake though... Too tired to start searching for components and experimenting with the settings and tools. I was up all night trying to figure-out why the deformer was causing my eyelids to suck into my eyes, when I blinked, after applying a morph of the head. Apparently, it morphed the eye-rig too, and deformed the eyes, bones, and pivot-points in the process... Something I didn't expect, or realize it was doing. Tried like mad to figure-out the mess of piled-up bones that didn't show any changes until you actually saved the changes, making "fixing it" damn near impossible. By the time I found the bone I needed, it was impossible to get to again, to edit. The screen keeps disappearing and the bones don't show in the scene-tree of the model.

I just wanted small lips, and the eyes to be in the correct spot, and the ears, and the nose, and the marble-chrome-dome to be shaped like a humans cranium...

Want some interesting results... Render just a head, and upload it to google for "Find similar images"... Use the Genesis-3 base female... 80% of the results are other bad models, the majority of the rest are men's faces, a few are females, but I think that was just dumb luck, as the faces didn't match, but the backgrounds did.

Do the same thing with my model, I get 90% females faces, and a few CG-heads of females faces, and two men's faces... So now I just have to fix the eyes functions or adjust the morph so it doesn't alter the eye area.

JD_Mortal

I love this method... It needs to be a one-click operation... Select the bone, and just start morphing it with the paint-brush. Manually inserting the Dformer, and adjusting it out of the way, and constantly flipping back and forth to the windows is a pain... I had about 20 deformers on the screen, hidden, but all bound to my head to get the various "pulls" I needed.

But worth it! (Still want just a simple extrude-normal bump brush, for spot-editing of difficult things. And to quickly make wrinkles and folds in things. Not just stretch-Armstrong tool-adjusting, in addition to painting.)

I ain't got time for all that! xD

I have no idea where my morph went... lol. It was there after I made it, in the panel for SHAPES after I moved it... but after opening DAZ, the second time, it's no longer in the list with the rest of the morphs. :(

I'd put it back, if I knew where DAZ put it... if it shows it in the list to add it. (I didn't make an icon for it, and have no clue where it is, so I can't put an icon with it... until I figure-out where it is. I think I called it test...something... Searching for test didn't reveal it.

Richard Haseltine

If you saved the morph as a morph asset it should load with the item; if you saved only as a scene/scene subset it will load only with that scene or scene subset.

A Push Modifier with a weight node (Create>New Push Modifier Weight Node) will give you a normal move - you can't do positive and netative with a single item but you can have two different modifiers, one for positive and one for negative. There isn't, unfortunately, a built-in method to turn a push modifier into a morph - you'd have to export as OBJ and then import as a morph.