Dawn 2.0 Underway

[CG Cubed]

It also needs to be attractive to users.
DS is my main program and to make Dawn attractive to me she is going to need to compete with the latest Genesis figure. I have ways of fitteing clothing from earlier figures within the program, I have ways of moving morphs acros from one generation to another, G8 has a wonderful face rig which i use a lot; I got the impression that Dawn 2 probably won't have this feature, I would like to see Dawn 2 take advantage of the features availble in my preferred program, I do not want to see her held back so that she works the same in different platforms.

Dawn 2.0 will have a face rig, and we will not be holding her back because of features not found in both programs. We will make use of the latest features available for each of the programs, and we will still have the same functionality as well. Our plan is to make improvements to better our figure, not just for the sake of the next "Ooo shiny", but for the existing community and the new comers. We take all the feedback into consideration and make the best choices we can to see that each iteration of a figure provides more of what you folks want and need. It is what motivates us, so keep the feedback coming, and we will do our very best to bring you the very best.

 

[Dreamer]

Probably a pipe dream but it would be nice if someone could come up with a way to transfer morphs from Dawn SE to Dawn 2. One can dream right?

 

[Ken1171]

Heeey, it's awesome to finally know that Dawn 2.0 will have a face rig! The suspense was causing some tension.

The grouping you have listed sounds GREAT to me. Keeping the head and hands as single groups with ghost bones sounds good to me too. Actually, I didn't consider the possibility of eliminating the metacarpal group, but so far that has been a PAIN when making gloves for the original Dawn, considering gloves are already a pain to rig even without the extra metacarpal group.

My only doubt would be pectoral bones as ghost bones because this removes good part of the intuitive posing. These new bones will make breast posing way more flexible, but those would be more fit to body handles than dials. This is not much of an issue on the hands, but maybe body handles could be a benefit on the jaw and pectoral bones? I suppose might be a reason why handles have been excluded this far?

Still on body handles, would the face rig have them too? I mean, I believe it would be odd to have a facial rig but with no handles to control them directly. Traditionally, body handles are used for rotations, but I also wonder if DS supports scaling and translating with body handles, like Poser does? For example, LaFemme's pectoral handles can be used to pose, and also to control breast size, depending on which tool Poser has selected at the moment. DS has the same tools (translation, rotation and scale), so maybe this could work in both Poser and DS, assuming we could have body handles to control jaw and pectoral bones. Or maybe these body handle controls could be added later as an add-on?

What about the lashes? Should they be part of the head, or a conforming figure?

 

[CG Cubed]

Actually, we can transfer morphs using the transfer tools in either Poser and DS, and we will provide a Dawn SE clone for Dawn 2, to help with both morph and clothing transfer.

We could do separate breast groups for the ease of selection.

Body handles are a consideration but for all the issues we mentioned before. Having an add-on control rig with handles would be great especially for folks who love to animate. Then we can have the best of both worlds. Simplicity for the new user and advanced controls for the more experienced. This would also allow for folks to make their character then load up the control rig for the posing and animation.

 

[Dreamer]

Actually, we can transfer morphs using the transfer tools in either Poser and DS, and we will provide a Dawn SE clone for Dawn 2, to help with both morph and clothing

We can? Ok clearly I need to spend more time under the hood lol

 

[Ken1171]

We could do separate breast groups for the ease of selection.

That would be a possibility, but it would be simpler to rig a shirt if the chest would be a single group.

Body handles are a consideration but for all the issues we mentioned before. Having an add-on control rig with handles would be great especially for folks who love to animate. Then we can have the best of both worlds. Simplicity for the new user and advanced controls for the more experienced. This would also allow for folks to make their character then load up the control rig for the posing and animation.

The idea that we could add body handles to a figure as an add-on sounds like the best option to everybody. Only those who want could have them, and if we can have them, we don't need extra groups. After all, groups are to make direct manipulations, and body handles have the same purpose. Once figure is posed, would could discard the handles. This would also keep them out of the way when sculpting the figure in other programs.

Which brings me back to conforming lashes - should we have them?

 

[Chris]

That would be a possibility, but it would be simpler to rig a shirt if the chest would be a single group.



The idea that we could add body handles to a figure as an add-on sounds like the best option to everybody. Only those who want could have them, and if we can have them, we don't need extra groups. After all, groups are to make direct manipulations, and body handles have the same purpose. Once figure is posed, would could discard the handles. This would also keep them out of the way when sculpting the figure in other programs.

Which brings me back to conforming lashes - should we have them?

We'll be discussing the lashes tonight during our Skype meeting.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

We're ditching the large lashes, right? Although, maybe the large lashes could be kept as conforming eyelashes for the (probably) few people who ever use them. I think there have only been a handful of products that took advantage of the large lashes.

I haven't yet been convinced separate conforming eyelashes (the exception is those large annoying lashes) would be best for the customer. Not that I'm the one who needs to be convinced. However, it seems to me that for content providers we'd be exchanging one set of problems for another set of problems.


Whatever is decided, I am looking forward to Dawn 2.0, as well as discovering how she is improved over Dawn SE.

 

[Ken1171]

We'll be discussing the lashes tonight during our Skype meeting.

Thanks, Chris! ^^

We're ditching the large lashes, right?

Right, that has been decided when Chris was working on the updated mesh. Yay!

I haven't yet been convinced separate conforming eyelashes (the exception is those large annoying lashes) would be best for the customer.

I am not convinced myself, and that's why I have been asking the community for feedback. I can see the pros, though:

* Easier to sculpt facial morphs
* Better starting point when adjusting lashes to a newly created morph.

Cons (that I know of):

* Poser users would have to manually copy morphs to the lashes when they don't already exist. Only the Pro version can do this.

There might be other pros and cons, but those are the ones I could think of. Either way, the time to decide is now.

 

[CG Cubed]

Well,we have decided to NOT have conforming lashes. other cons include people forgetting to include them on human character morphs, Excessive resources with the conforming bones, especially with the face rig...

So unless there is a real compelling reason, we will keep the eyelashes as part of the figure.

Also we are NOT including the large fantasy eyelashes, they are already removed from Dawn 2.0 mesh.

Thanks!

 

[Ken1171]

So unless there is a real compelling reason, we will keep the eyelashes as part of the figure.

Alright then, it's decided! I didn't think of this, but I can imagine it being complicated to keep conforming lashes together with the face rig. That would be quite a thing.

In another subject, what about including a JCM master ON/OFF switch? This could be a dial that gets multiplied by all JCMs in the figure.

 

[Miss B]

Also we are NOT including the large fantasy eyelashes, they are already removed from Dawn 2.0 mesh.

YAY!!! I never liked them, so won't miss them at all!

 

[eclark1894]

Eyelashes is another part of the mesh that I forget is even there.

 

[Dreamer]

Do we have even a guesstimate on when Dawn 2 will be hitting the store? I understand that there maybe numorouse reasons why you can't say, just trying to workout if it is worth wrapping up a couple of characters I had been doing for Dawn SE or waiting and adapting them to the new Dawn

 

[Chris]

Do we have even a guesstimate on when Dawn 2 will be hitting the store? I understand that there maybe numorouse reasons why you can't say, just trying to workout if it is worth wrapping up a couple of characters I had been doing for Dawn SE or waiting and adapting them to the new Dawn

No guestimate on Dawn 2.0 release. If I were you I'd move forward with your Dawn SE characters. And here's a good reason why, Paul will be creating a video tutorial around the Dawn 2.0 release that will show artists how to move their favorite Dawn SE character morphs they own, and transfer them onto our new Dawn 2.0 mesh in DS. Paul demonstrated this during Skype Friday night to Lisa and me. In a matter of minutes he had the Maelwenn's Elisa character for Dawn onto our new Dawn 2.0 mesh. Amazing stuff. So... your current Dawn SE characters can have new life with Dawn 2.0. At least in DS format that is. Paul being the magician that he is probably understands how to then make that work for Poser also, but not sure about that process myself. I'm just a modeler.

 

[Dreamer]

Ok thanks Chris I'll keep working at them then

 

[Chris]

I spent much of today morphing our Dawn SE onto our Dawn 2.0 mesh. Much fine tuning was done to get the desired results. This should make a lot of current Dawn SE users happy. This way as promised your Dawn SE clothing and such will be able to transfer to this figure mesh and Dawn SE still has life going forward.

Here are a few screen grabs of the Dawn SE morph on our new Dawn 2.0 mesh.

Dawn SE morph (Left) Dawn 2.0 (Right)

 

[Miss B]

Looking good Chris.

 

[Ken1171]

So... your current Dawn SE characters can have new life with Dawn 2.0. At least in DS format that is. Paul being the magician that he is probably understands how to then make that work for Poser also, but not sure about that process myself. I'm just a modeler.

My guess is that this process must be using the Transfer Utility, projecting the morph from one figure to the other, adjusting the bones to the new shape, freezing the ERC, and saving as a morph asset. The trick is on how to tweak the Transfer Utility params to get the best results. On the Poser side, no worries. We can just export the DS shape as a morph target, load it back in Poser, and adjust the skeleton to the shape. It's always easier from DS to Poser because the exported morph targets are still unimesh. I am eager to try it myself!

 

[Hornet3d]

No guestimate on Dawn 2.0 release. If I were you I'd move forward with your Dawn SE characters. And here's a good reason why, Paul will be creating a video tutorial around the Dawn 2.0 release that will show artists how to move their favorite Dawn SE character morphs they own, and transfer them onto our new Dawn 2.0 mesh in DS. Paul demonstrated this during Skype Friday night to Lisa and me. In a matter of minutes he had the Maelwenn's Elisa character for Dawn onto our new Dawn 2.0 mesh. Amazing stuff. So... your current Dawn SE characters can have new life with Dawn 2.0. At least in DS format that is. Paul being the magician that he is probably understands how to then make that work for Poser also, but not sure about that process myself. I'm just a modeler.

Great if it can be done in Poser.