Yeah, I'll rework that geometry on the breast. I've had to work with it also while doing morphs. I'll generally preserve the breast area for morph retention, but will clean the topology up.
We need Dawn 2.0 to still be attractive and visually appealing, but I will greatly reduce the uniqueness. I've had several artists on Facebook that don't prefer to comment here, suggest to me that Dawn 2.0 needs generalized, or a heavy dose of vanilla (my words).
Oh, and I'll create a better lips parted morph too.
Thanks, Chris! I imagine how challenging the original Dawn must have been, having no previous version to improve from. All of my missing morph suggestions for SR-2 were based on V4, but now it's based on the original Dawn. BTW, my suggestion to replace the jaw bone with a ghost bone still stands, so that the jaw group could be removed.
One thing I always wanted to ask was WHY does Dawn have so any mat zones? For example, what is the purpose of splitting the torso into 3 zones when it could be just one? Same for the arms (3 groups) and the legs (2 groups). This is a royal pain when editing materials for products or renders. For example, I have to redo all materials when rendering in Octane, and the more mat zones, the MORE work. I mean, those zones use the exact same maps, so why splitting them? Someone suggested it was for facilitating the creation of 2nd skins, but how often does that happen comparing to us editing materials for products and renders? If that is the reason, then it looks like the exception becoming the rule. I am sure there must be a good reason - I just don't know what it is.
I am also concerned with the transition from 2 spine bones to 4, along with 2 for the neck. The 4 for the torso is understandable, though I had issues with the way Dawn's abdomen1 and 2 became thin strips that cause posing problems with morphs that change the body proportions. As we have discussed before, there must be more buffer space for the weight maps to act on the geometry. Dawn's abdomen groups are like 3-4 polys tall on her back (thin strips), which tend to become a problem with body morphs and posing. If we must have 4 torso bones, the grouping needs to be cleaner and more uniform.
But the 2 bones on the neck can be a pain when it comes to groups on conforming clothing, because it's a very small part that is affected by 2 bones. I really wonder if 2 neck bones are really necessary to justify how annoying it can be when rigging clothing. Maybe a single bone could suffice? I wonder what kind of posing acrobatics would require 2 neck bones? In general, I try not to pose neck1 too much because of what it does to the clothing. It's something to consider.
Still on the skeleton, perhaps Dawn 2.0 could have breast bones like most modern figures do. That could save a LOT of work when posing the breasts to whatever direction, instead of having to rely exclusively on fixed morphs that try to predict all possible situations. In addition, I was impressed by how we now can use body handles to scale and translate the affected geometry in Poser 11, making it possible to use body handles to not only pose, but also scale, position and shape it. For example, LaFemme's breasts can be resized and posed with their respective body handles, as opposed to having series of morphs to do the same. Scale the handle, and this controls the breast size. Of course, specific breast shapes can still be made with morphs, but the handles can pose breasts with ease, without the usual morph hunting.
The same was valid for customizing LaFemme's facial features using handles. Rotate the eye handle, and we have slanted/drooping eyes. Scale it to control eye size. Translate it to move the eye position around. No morph hunting needed. The same works with the nose. Translate it to move the nose position on the face. Rotate to change the shape, and scale it to affect size. And those are all ghost bones, meaning they require no extra body groups to work. I had never seen this in Poser, and many of us who saw this got impressed, thinking THIS is the way to go.
Of course, not all is wine and roses with body handles. If we apply a morph that changes figure height, or any body proportion, the handles end up out of place because they are not part of the default skeleton (ghost bones are just extra appendages). Nerd3D has commented on how to fix this, but it's not something trivial. In addition, LF's chips were made using parts of the figure geometry, which is a new feature in Poser 11, and will not work in older versions. On the DAZ Studio side, though, it's nothing new that the latest figures will only work on the latest DS version. People hanging on to older Poser versions will have to upgrade. However, this can be circumvented by creating the chips in Modo (the modeling program HW uses), so the handles will work in any Poser version. Nonetheless, smooth joint translations are still Poser 11-only. Very powerful stuff. Translate LF's neck joint up, and now she has a longer neck without breaking the rigging. If I didn't already used P11, I would upgrade just for that.
For those who don't know, these are some of the reasons why some of us are asking if Paul would be willing to carry those rigging features to Dawn 2.0. One thing to consider, though, is that I don't know how this could affect compatibility with Reallusion's CC3 Transformer, because their base figure doesn't use bones on the facial rig. It does have breast bones, though, and I think Dawn 2.0 should have them, too.
Personally, I think Dawn's arms and neck are too thick, and her hands too bulky. It's great to hear that all this is being changed in Dawn 2.0! I remember 2 of the most common criticisms about Dawn when she was first released were her wide shoulders and manly jaw. The jaw is easy to change with morphs, but the shoulders took some more work because it's ball joints working there - very tricky area. Santa will not deliver presents there because any changes can be potentially naughty. I hope Dawn 2.0's shoulders will be narrower (more feminine) by default. Her jaw is also quite a recognizable feature, and could be more feminine as well.
Yay for Dawn 2.0! ^__^
