Dawn 2.0 Underway

[Miss B]

Excellent explanation Ken. The very first time I imported V4 into Blender in order to try modeling some clothing for her, she came in at 68 or 69 separate pieces. I was shocked because I didn't realize that's how she was "put together", as it were.

Fortunately, Blender gives you the option to import at a single "group", which will give the user a single object, but it doesn't mean it's a single mesh by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm also looking forward to unimesh sometime this coming year.

 

[Ken1171]

Thank you, Miss B. Indeed, Poser also has an option to export as a single mesh, but that does the same thing Blender does - it welds all the split parts together, which changes the vertex winding order, and therefore creates a new geometry that is utterly incompatible with any existing morphs for the figure. The moment a figure is loaded into Poser, the original geometry is altered, and Poser doesn't know how to put it back together, so every geometry exported from Poser inevitably creates invalid geometry - whether or not we weld it back into a single piece. That's yet another thing unimesh Poser will fix. That alone will make Poser finally compatible with other software.

However, if all you want is to use the figure as a reference to model clothing on top of it, just use the existing OBJ from the Geometries folder. You can also use it to create morphs as well. Every figure we export from Poser is automatically useless because the mesh integrity has already been compromised.

Once unimesh Poser is out, all of this will be a thing of the past. Can't wait! ^___^

 

[Daniel Hicks(OganicPic)]

Thanks Ken . great to see it coming down the pike. That would make it work better with ZBrush wouldn't.

 

[Miss B]

However, if all you want is to use the figure as a reference to model clothing on top of it, just use the existing OBJ from the Geometries folder.

Yes, that's how I do it now. Don't forget, I've been using Blender for years, and this was back when V4 was still the go-to 3D female character. Now that I've become used to Blender's method of doing things, I use the existing OBJ when modeling (or should I say trying to model) clothing.

 

[unreal]

D2 has the usual 3 JCMs on the thighs as D1 has, and also 1 on the shoulders I wish D1 would also had. That's all! To put things in perspective, most other figures in both Poser and DS have JCMs by the HUNDREDS. That is a sign of poor figure design, because JCMs should only be needed on the thighs and shoulders (the ball-joints), and even then, in D2 they do much LESS work than they did with D1, thanks to the better rigging and topology.

One of the things that have visibly improved in D2 is the clavicle\armpit posing, which now produces a more natural, realistic shape than D1 was capable of. Another one is the thigh joint that poses well even without JCMs - that was perhaps the major issue with D1. It poses so much better that Paul has included both front and side leg split poses to D2 to show off her rigging quality. You can see that in the D2 dev thread, where Paul has showed some renders of the leg posing (because I wanted to see it). And remember, those poses were from *before* the JCMs were added!

So minimally, and only on the ball joints. Suh-wEEET! I'm impressed only 1 for the shoulder, since it's kind of 2 balls with a little lever between them. Now I'm intrigued by the topology. I really want to see how it's done!

Maybe *you* can see that in the D2 dev thread. Not me

 

[unreal]

Thank you, Miss B. Indeed, Poser also has an option to export as a single mesh, but that does the same thing Blender does - it welds all the split parts together, which changes the vertex winding order, and therefore creates a new geometry that is utterly incompatible with any existing morphs for the figure. The moment a figure is loaded into Poser, the original geometry is altered, and Poser doesn't know how to put it back together, so every geometry exported from Poser inevitably creates invalid geometry - whether or not we weld it back into a single piece. That's yet another thing unimesh Poser will fix. That alone will make Poser finally compatible with other software.

However, if all you want is to use the figure as a reference to model clothing on top of it, just use the existing OBJ from the Geometries folder. You can also use it to create morphs as well. Every figure we export from Poser is automatically useless because the mesh integrity has already been compromised.

Once unimesh Poser is out, all of this will be a thing of the past. Can't wait! ^___^

Isn't it possible to export the figure then use the import full body morph? Keeping vert order on blender's OBJ import and export.

You can save the imported full body morph as an external binary morph, then use a binary morph editor to get the UUIDs, delete the actors you're not going to use, then setup the pose file referencing the UUIDs in the correct actors. Right?

I always wondered why that's not just built into Poser.

 

[unreal]

Thank you, Miss B. Indeed, Poser also has an option to export as a single mesh, but that does the same thing Blender does - it welds all the split parts together, which changes the vertex winding order, and therefore creates a new geometry that is utterly incompatible with any existing morphs for the figure. The moment a figure is loaded into Poser, the original geometry is altered, and Poser doesn't know how to put it back together, so every geometry exported from Poser inevitably creates invalid geometry - whether or not we weld it back into a single piece. That's yet another thing unimesh Poser will fix. That alone will make Poser finally compatible with other software.

However, if all you want is to use the figure as a reference to model clothing on top of it, just use the existing OBJ from the Geometries folder. You can also use it to create morphs as well. Every figure we export from Poser is automatically useless because the mesh integrity has already been compromised.

Once unimesh Poser is out, all of this will be a thing of the past. Can't wait! ^___^

Shouldn't it be possible to write a script to do this? Doesn't it just need a vert map? On the Poser side, you could make a map, "merge to unimesh", write that to an OBJ, make your morphs, then apply those morphs backwards through the map?

Orr... could just wait for unimesh to be the way Poser works. I hope it supports face groups. Back and forth, easily with blender could really help to spur content creation.

 

[MEC4D]

So minimally, and only on the ball joints. Suh-wEEET! I'm impressed only 1 for the shoulder, since it's kind of 2 balls with a little lever between them. Now I'm intrigued by the topology. I really want to see how it's done!

Maybe *you* can see that in the D2 dev thread. Not me

It is more about the rigging and weight mapping in this case than the topology (what is indeed great and better than before but not flawless) , the topology in this areas needs to be very tricky to make it works without JCMs and using just quads almost impossible , but on the other hand triangles giving bad shading in unbiased rendering and need to be heavily subdivided for rendering , so I am glad they are gone forever . I guess just 3 JCMs are nothing . The way Dawn2 can pose, other models are behind including DS models . Paul did really great work on the setup .
My favorite are the weight mapped eyelids , no JCMs, no morphs, single bone but behave like with 3 bones and all automatic in phisically accurate way , amazing Paul's weight mapping technique here.
Someone said, "oh just simple weight mapped figure " I would say "simple is beautiful "
There are some people that value their characters based on how much JCMs they put in to make it works. What is of course not really that positive thing unless you use JCMs for amazing effects while posing , like automatic gravity or wrinkling of to the skin while posing or for muscular/skin effect.

Cath

 

[Ken1171]

Thanks Ken . great to see it coming down the pike. That would make it work better with ZBrush wouldn't.

It looks like Zbrush doesn't care for unimesh, since it can work with meshes whether they are split or not. I have sculpted figures in ZB, and exported morph targets back in OBJ format, and noticed all the groups were split. And it wasn't ZB who split it - Poser can only export split geometry, so it was already split the moment GoZ imported it from Poser. It appears to work either ways, so that doesn't seem to be a choke point on this subject. It would be if we tried to use this MT in DAZ Studio, though.

 

[estherau]

I was kind of hoping that dawn 2 would be out by xmas. Any updates other ETA?

 

[MEC4D]

I was kind of hoping that dawn 2 would be out by xmas. Any updates other ETA?

Chris is going to announce it when the time is right .
No one of us here can make the call ...

 

[Ken1171]

But while we wait, we can make supporting contents! ^____^

 

[unreal]

It looks like Zbrush doesn't care for unimesh, since it can work with meshes whether they are split or not. I have sculpted figures in ZB, and exported morph targets back in OBJ format, and noticed all the groups were split. And it wasn't ZB who split it - Poser can only export split geometry, so it was already split the moment GoZ imported it from Poser. It appears to work either ways, so that doesn't seem to be a choke point on this subject. It would be if we tried to use this MT in DAZ Studio, though.

I don't think I see that in Blender. I export a figure as "morph target" plus "include existing groups". I get a single mesh BUT the edges are discontinuous. Not multiple meshes. I get vert groups too, if I want them. It's OK in edit mode using falloff. In Blender terms, the mesh is non-manifold. Plays hell with 3d printing, too

In some cases, sculpt tries to keep the edges together, but doesn't treat the edge as smooth. In some cases, it can't keep the edges together. I assume blender sculpt is doing something.

It's possible to make something that does sculpt, though. In Blender, make a list of the verts. Duplicate the mesh and weld it (make it manifold). Map those "welded" verts to the original list. Blender doesn't know, you'll have to use proximity to do that.

"Welded verts" will have at least two source verts each. Sculpt the "unimesh" . When you're done, use the map to apply the positions of the "unimesh" verts back to the corresponding verts in the original mesh. Then export that back to import as a full body morph.

No?


Orrrrrrr, Poser could just use unimeshes.

 

[Ken1171]

I don't think I see that in Blender. I export a figure as "morph target" plus "include existing groups". I get a single mesh BUT the edges are discontinuous. Not multiple meshes. I get vert groups too, if I want them. It's OK in edit mode using falloff. In Blender terms, the mesh is non-manifold. Plays hell with 3d printing, too

The OBJ is still a single one - it's the groups that get split into separate meshes. That's easy to see in Blender if you try sculpting over it, you may open holes at the split seams. You can also compare vertex count between the original from the Geometries folder, and the one Poser exports. The latter will have higher vertex count, but still the same number of polys. What happens is that all vertexes shared between groups get duplicated.

In some cases, sculpt tries to keep the edges together, but doesn't treat the edge as smooth. In some cases, it can't keep the edges together. I assume blender sculpt is doing something.

Smoothing can only work if the mesh were a single piece, but we can't get that from Poser exports. You can enable welding in the export options, and that will make it a single piece, but the vertex order won't match the original, so morphs will spike out if loaded back in Poser. I made a tool to fix that in particular. It rebuilds welded OBJs exported from Poser, restoring the vertex order. It only works with OBJs exported from Poser. That allows exporting unimesh morph targets from Poser, and they can be further sculpted elsewhere, or used as morph targets.

Orrrrrrr, Poser could just use unimeshes.

That's the way! ^___^

 

[RAMWolff]

D2 has the usual 3 JCMs on the thighs as D1 has, and also 1 on the shoulders I wish D1 would also had. That's all! To put things in perspective, most other figures in both Poser and DS have JCMs by the HUNDREDS. That is a sign of poor figure design, because JCMs should only be needed on the thighs and shoulders (the ball-joints), and even then, in D2 they do much LESS work than they did with D1, thanks to the better rigging and topology.

One of the things that have visibly improved in D2 is the clavicle\armpit posing, which now produces a more natural, realistic shape than D1 was capable of. Another one is the thigh joint that poses well even without JCMs - that was perhaps the major issue with D1. It poses so much better that Paul has included both front and side leg split poses to D2 to show off her rigging quality. You can see that in the D2 dev thread, where Paul has showed some renders of the leg posing (because I wanted to see it). And remember, those poses were from *before* the JCMs were added!

Just hoping that the base rig for Dusk 2 is made available to those of us that are planning on creating stuff for him. I know you love Dawn so D2 mixed me up for a second, but only for a second!

 

[DanaTA]

Maybe we should refer to them as D2F and D2M?

Dana

 

[Ken1171]

Just hoping that the base rig for Dusk 2 is made available to those of us that are planning on creating stuff for him. I know you love Dawn so D2 mixed me up for a second, but only for a second!

Maybe we should refer to them as D2F and D2M?

Dana

It's easy to forget Dawn\Dusk start with the same letter. Cath has suggested D2F and D2M, and I find that simpler to type and to remember.

 

[estherau]

Or Da2 and Du2

 

[Satira Capriccio]

Impossible to confuse Dawn 2 and Dusk 2 though. And it's not like those are difficult words to type. Imagine if Dawn had been named Brightening and Dusk named Gloaming.

 

[R_Hatch]

Fortunately, they didn't go with L'Crepescule and L'Aube