Creating a created character as a dialable morph.
jukingeo
Posts: 711
Hello all,
I have many body and facial morphs available to me and I have noticed that I have a tendency to use a few many times again but in varying amounts. So this lead me to get the idea as if I could create a morph dial for my custom characters. Unlike a scene or shaping preset, a dialable morph based on one of my finished characters would allow me to change those features in one shot without having to go through everything every single time. Then I could go back and just tweak the controls I want to. As with a purchased character, I do want separarte control over the body morphs and head morphs.
I have looked on YouTube and on-line in regards to doing this, but when it comes to discussions on morphs almost all of the tutorials mention uses either Deformers or exporting the character into another program and then bringing it back in and from there creating a morph from it. But what I want to do is to be able to take a finished character that I created just using dials within Daz Studio and from that point create a dial for it, just like a pre-made store bought character. Take for example the character in the attachment below:
This is Anna and she was the first character I created in Daz Studio. She is saved as a scene preset so I can recall her at any time. But I wanted her to appear as a set of dials as morphs for the head and body. So I would have an "Anna-Head" morph for her head and an "Anna-Body" morph for her body. With the dials I can adjust how much of Anna would be dialed in to create a new character, just as I would be able to do with a Daz Store bought character.
Thank you,
Geo
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Comments
Sure. The basic way is to export your morph as an Object file (.obj) - be sure to give it the name that you want to use for your slider. Then, load a new, unmorphed copy of the base figure, open Morph Loader Pro and specify the .obj file you saved as the source, and it will then create a morph slider for your morph. You can then adjust the parameters for the slider (colour, min/max, icon are the basics). Now simply save your new slider as Support - Morph Asset. It will now load, along with all the others that you have for the figure whenever a copy of that figure is loaded. This will only save the morph - no textures, hair, etc.
You should be able to set up a morph control slider that will dial in all the morphs you've added. Try this tutorial: http://www.digi-dotz.com/index.php/tutorials/daz-studio-tutorials/193-create-single-dial-morph-control-in-daz-studio-4-9
...somebody wither here or on DA asked me if I had a full morph of one of my characters. So this is how it's done. Will have to play with it a little later.
One thing to remember though... the more extreme a morph is, the more there's a need for hidden JCMs and other hidden correction morphs and tricks to make sure it bends naturally. That's why a character like George works so much better than just dialing up a fat morph, so always keep in mind that creating a single morph for the head or body may not work as well as the original combination of morphs.
You can save as a Character Preset or Scene Subset and skip all that other stuff which is more along the lines of things you might to if your character was using Merchant Resources and you wanted to save your work with those and your own unique morphs as something for sale in the DAZ 3D Store.
I usually save an entire scene and then recall it when I want the character, such as the one above. However, what I want now is a dialable morph that allows me to adjust the degree of that particular character's shape. The purpose being is that I can have my own set of morphs to dial in either a muscular figure, a voluptuous figure, or even get more detailed and control groups of morphs say for the arms and legs and then just adjust a set with one dial. For example, I have the muscularity pack for Genesis 8 figures:
https://www.daz3d.com/musculature-hd-morphs-for-genesis-8-female
If you take a gander at that and note all of the options, you can easily see it takes a long time to fiddle with all those dials. In fact, I only regularly use about half of them...but it is generally the same ones. So I would like to group adjustments to a single morph and then dial in what I want for the arms, legs, back, mid section. But for the most part I want to combine body types to create new ones as quickly as possible and that is why I want to be ablet to 'dial in' a preset instead of just loading up a scene of a figure and then try to tweak each indivitual parameter from there.
Thank you.
Geo
By the way, have you watched this video from renderhub? It takes you through the full process, including creating the seperate head and body morphs
I tried this out and after a couple crashes because I didn't have the head and body separated right in terms of the parameter selections, I DID manage to get it to work. However, I didn't try it on Anna yet, but on another Genesis 8 character, thus the end results were pretty strange. When I dialed down to "0", I was expecting to get the Genesis 8 base character shape back, but surprise! I used a different base for the body and head and I got the base figure I used back. So it looks like I have to give this another go using solely the Genesis 8 base figure from the start. I will give it a go on Anna as I know she was created solely from the base Genesis 8 figure. So it should work with her. So I'll be back!
Thanks for that link, BTW. It certainly is a lot simpler than trying to do it from the Morph Loader.
Geo
Glad it helped. Until the day that the scrooges at DAZ finally relent and give us a full, comprehensive manual for DAZ Studio, we've all got to do what we can... :)
I think you can probably save the morphs that are dialled in as a Shaping Preset. Loading that Shaping Preset onto a fresh Genesis 8 Female might yield better results. I hope that you're able to get it to work for your Anna. I think Digi-Dotz does a good job of doing step-by-step tutorials. It's super generous of them to post their tutorials publically (and they also have some nice freebies as well!). That site is a treasure trove of great information. :)
Yes, it did! I just forgot to change the colors of the dials so I know it is my setting, so I had to go back and resave the morphs because just setting the colors will not help alone. Any changes disappear unless they are saved. As for the manual...well, right here...the forum is my manual! If I don't know something, the chances are good that someone here does!
That is a preset in which it is all or nothing. I usually save everything I do to a scene and that saves the whole kit and kaboodle. In this case I wanted to create a morph in which I can dial in the AMOUNT of the parameter on a figure. I do use shaping presets and pose presets for something I always use. For example, I almost always use the Collarbone Detail setting rammed up to max all the time. So knowing that, I have a shaping preset for all those items I know what I have a fixed setting for. This also goes for poses I use all the time as well. For example. I just got tired of putting the arms down and the hands in a relaxed position all the time, so I made a pose preset for that. One click and I am good to go. I also do it for kit bashing clothing as well with the Wearables Preset. If I create an outfit from others that I really like, I will make it a Wearable Preset so I can use it on other characters. I been doing quite a bit of this lately since I am stuck home due to this Covid crap floating around and I am attempting to streamline tasks in Daz Studio so this way I don't have to do so much work over and over again when I create a character. But sometimes I want more than what a simple preset offers and I want some adjustment over that, so that was when the idea popped in my head to create a single morph control that would control a bunch of existing morphs in one shot.
I am at the point where I have so many morphs (such as Genesis 8 Female) that it takes a long time to go through them all. Granted for some areas such as the facial features, that I usually like to go through individually, but the body I am more consistant with what I want. As I mentioned above with that Muscularity Pack, you have control over every single muscle detail on the body and for something like the forearms, it gets pretty lengthy if you want to set up some detail in that area. So with the help I garnered here in this thread, now I can set those forearm details to the max that I like and save it to a morph dial. Then I can dial all those details parameters in one shot with one dial. So this just gives me a bit more control over a preset.