Smoothing and Deformation brushes plugin
IsaacNewton
Posts: 1,300
This is a request for the hardcore programmers, since this request would require some serious technical knowhow.
I and many others have asked a number of times for DAZ3d to include a method to smooth and make simple deformations to meshes, but without result. So I would like to turn to the community to ask if anyone could produce a plugin which would make available (within DAZ Studio) brushes for performing direct manipulation of figure, clothing and object meshes.
I envision a Smoothing Brush which would be useful in removing wrinkles and other distortions introduced when various different morphs are applied or when certain poses are applied. Typically this would be used on characters and clothing of characters with more extreme morphs. I know that it is possible to apply a smoothing deformer but whilst that works some of the time, I find there are many situations that the deformer cannot cope or even makes matters worse.
Another useful brush (or maybe 3 brushes) would be a simple Deformation brush which would allow the user to push or pull the mesh in the x, y or z axis.
It would be important that these brushes would work on the fly within DS, so that for example if you conform a clothing item to figure with an extreme morph, you can then make immediated changes to the mesh to solve distortions and poke through issues, especially when changing from one pose to another. Brushes would need to be scaleable and variable strength, of course.
I realise that in an ideal world, the DS software would be able to avoid such problems in the first place, but since we are not there yet, a plugin to deal with these issues directly within DS would be a great benefit.
I would imagine that such a plugin would easily command a $30 or more price tag. With a few thousand sales (less DAZ3d's share, of course) that could be a nice little earner!
Anyone up for the task?
For the rest, please say if you are interested in such a plugin.
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Comments
I know something like this would be extremely useful. I could think of a million times I could use this product creating scenes for a comic book.
"Oh wait, I need to dent that barrel" or "Dang, that pose caused some pokethrough" and then "I need to smush the face/stomach for this punch/kick"
And rather than exporting the figure to a modeler, then reimporting it, you could just select the brush and have it done in seconds :)
Both Push Modifiers and DForms can be controlled through a weight-map - that isn't a full implementation of what you want, but it offers some of the features. I have put in a request for weight mapping on Smoothing Modifiers but I've no idea whether that could be implemented in a practical way, or whether it will be if it can.
I never have gotten the hang of weight mapping. I think it's the multitude of sub categories for each axis that just kind of overwhelms me or something.
There's only one map for both of these options.
maybe I'm thinking of the wrong thing then. When I see weight map tool, I think when you select a bone, then paint the geometry that will move with the bone on the x/y/z axis, plus all the other optional weights that go with it like scaling and such. Which doesn't really seem like it ties into this request.
That's using the tool for rigging. But you can also use the saem tool to paint a single weight map (which replaces the field) for a DForm, or via the Push Modifier Weight Map node to paint a weight map for a push modifier. Both have the effect of allowing you to paint in or erase the effect of the modifier, though they are not anywhere near as flexible as actual sculpting tools.
Well, you can now color me intrigued. I had no idea that I could do that. I've only just rediscovered Dformers. (I hadn't touched them since the beginning of Genesis 1 when for whatever reason there was a period when they would not work on the triax weight mapped meshes. Before then I used them quite a bit.) I didn't even think about the possibilities of weight mapping the Dformer. That would make for some wicked cool effects, I'm thinkin'. Hm.... I must experiment now.
I accept that much can be done with weight maps, the same is true for external modelling programs like Hexagon, Zbrush or Blender, or many other programs. The point is that whether you use weightmaps or modelling programs, you have to go out of DS toachieve what you want, which is usually a minor modification (such as a nose being pushed out of joint by a fist as kaotkbliss intimates, hehe). In the case of modelling programs, you can see to some extent the effect you are likely to have on the object once you are back in DS, but often (especially with clothing) the effect is not quite what you expected. For weight mapping the problem is even worse. You have to use an external program like photoshop to make a map and guess what effect it will have back in DS. This problem often requires several rounds of trial and error correction before acheiving the effect you want.
If the brushes were active within DS, you would immediately see what effect your brush stroke had, making the whole process immediate and interactive. How often I have seated a figure on a soft chair and thought I should really make a morph for the chair to show that the surface is soft and yields, but the effort is more than it is worth. Or vice versa, where the leg should be morphed when the figure is sitting on a hard surface. How easy that would be with some simple deformation morph brushes. Whilst Deformers are useful they are frequently too blunt an instrument to work effectively and efficiently.
Weight maps are painted inside DS, using the Node Weight Map Brush tool.
One thing about dformers, as well as mesh manipulation in a modeler, is that conciously I expect polys to stay the same shape and size and that the ones adjoining the selected polys would bend and adjust in accordance to how I'm moving the selected polys.
Unfortunately this isn't how it works and the polys touching the selected area scale and stretch to accomedate the selected poly's new position often making dforming very difficult.
Perhaps you could give an example of what you want to do. Certainly if the verts move at the edge of a selection, any adjoining, even outside of the selection, would have to move since they are adjoined. If you don't want them to, you need to limit the changes to not extend to the selection boundaries.
It would be easier with an illustration and you'll have to forgive my poor paint skills
The yellow is the selected verts/polly and you can see (sort of) in the what happens example, the pollys nect to the selected area gets streatched out
Another issue that arrises when using dforms is; take a straight pipe and select half of it, then rotate the dform handle 90 degrees. You would expect the pipe to bend at a 90 degree angle, but it doesn't, the very end of it stays mostly in its original position and the middle of the selection rotates creating some weird melted pipe thing.
*edit*
I guess the problem with this is that I can see where the need for both ways to work would come up, and how is daz to know your intention?
A thought I had of how a "deform brush" could work in Daz is simply select a strength and a direction (from the object's center) then click and drag the mouse like you would with the geometry editor tool and the pollys would move in that direction by that amount.
I'll have to play with DFormers, but my understanding is that would be taken care of with the weight map, or perhaps if there is falloff on the brush.
I would be so happy with some kind of dform brush in Daz as I'd like to use dforms to get specific/realistic looks (dforming the skin where a hand is pressing into it, etc) but with the current dform it takes quite a bit of time just to get the area I want to mess with selected, then another good chunk of time randomly adjusting the handle to try and get the mesh to do what I have in mind.
1 of 2 things usually happen, 1: I give up and delete the dform or 2: I ned up using upwards of 4 or 5 dforms to affect 1 spot. Very rarely do I get it in 1 go.
Precision rotation requires setting the Deformer base to the center of the rotation.
Is there a good weight map non-video tutorial anybody can recommend? This is something I'm completely clueless on how or when to use.
I tend to do written tutorials, so once I get a chance to delve into this, I'll try to get one done.
Thanks!
Another brush that would be really useful would be a "Shrink to figure" brush, plus the reverse brush. There are many times when you want parts of a clothing figure to be tight fitting whilst other parts are loose. For example a dress might need a really tight fit around the waist or the hips but be somewhat loose elsewhere.
I know this is an old thread but I was looking for something similar and stumbled upon this.
I think what the wish for is something similar to what Poser has. Poser has a morph brush that you can fix minor poke through or crushing in a matter of seconds and also has a similar 'shrink to figure' function. Deformers or using the weight node brush seems like a long way around to getting that done. I think a simple morph brush that doesn't have a learning curve would be very useful for most of Daz 3D's customers, myself included. Just saying...would be nice.
Using a weight map access node on a push modifier would do this
Thanks for the reply. Do you know of any tutorials on this? For many as soon as the words "weight map" and "node" appear in a sentence, eyes start to glaze over :)
I assume that a darker, or maybe lighter, colour on the weight map would turn the push modifier in to a pull modifier, is that correct?
No, the range is between zero and the full effect of the modifier - though you can have two modifiers with oposite effects. It's not a full tutorial (it skips the hard part, painting the weight map) but i did go over the basic steps here http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2211076/#Comment_2211076