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Dawn 2.0 Underway
- Thread starter Chris
- Start date
eclark1894
Visionary
Only one group for the head? You're not going to allow jaw movement?
The lower teeth and gums are grouped for the lower Jaw and the tongue is one group. The head will contain the entire face rig controls with categories to keep them organized. But the jaw bone will be rigged as well as forehead, eyebrows, nose, cheeks, lips, chin, and ears. All will be selectible from the scene tab in DS and the heirarchy in Poser.
Edited to add, eyelids too! The tongue with have easy pose type rigging to curl and bend and even flatten it.
I'm looking forward to showing you all the progress!
Edited to add, eyelids too! The tongue with have easy pose type rigging to curl and bend and even flatten it.
I'm looking forward to showing you all the progress!
Looking good, Paul! I have a few observations about the feet and lower torso groups:
* What happened to the toes group for posing all toes as a whole? That is the most common action comparing to posing toes individually.
* Are groups for all the individual toes really necessary?
* Will there be a metatarsal group between the foot and the toes? That would be awesome for posing feet for high heels more realistically. Or even posing bare feet. That one would deserve its own group, and I can see people using it often.
* The abdomen1 group seems a bit too thin. I remember having issues rigging clothing or making character morphs work with thin groups with the original Dawn (torso bending issues). I was hoping to see torso groups more spaced out from each other now that we have eliminated one of the chest groups. Maybe it could be expanded up just a couple of faces to give weight maps more buffer geometry to work with? It would be great to take this opportunity to remove thin strip groups from the lower torso. Perhaps it's Ok for the hip to have a thin group, but I think the abdomen1 needs more polys [vertically].
* What happened to the toes group for posing all toes as a whole? That is the most common action comparing to posing toes individually.
* Are groups for all the individual toes really necessary?
* Will there be a metatarsal group between the foot and the toes? That would be awesome for posing feet for high heels more realistically. Or even posing bare feet. That one would deserve its own group, and I can see people using it often.
* The abdomen1 group seems a bit too thin. I remember having issues rigging clothing or making character morphs work with thin groups with the original Dawn (torso bending issues). I was hoping to see torso groups more spaced out from each other now that we have eliminated one of the chest groups. Maybe it could be expanded up just a couple of faces to give weight maps more buffer geometry to work with? It would be great to take this opportunity to remove thin strip groups from the lower torso. Perhaps it's Ok for the hip to have a thin group, but I think the abdomen1 needs more polys [vertically].
Glitterati3D
Dances with Bees
I agree that the thin abdomen groups created some rigging issues, what I'm seeing in that image is a thinner hip and more abdomen. At least that is what it looks like to me. With Dawn's pelvis, the hip is really a placeholder and probably will present no problems the way I see it here.
Paul can correct me, but if you go from Chest>Abdomen1>Abdomen2>hip>Pelvis, the abdomen groups are nice and healthy. Though, I would like to see a back view because that's where most of the problems cropped up.
@Glitterati3D I think the hip is OK being thin since it doesn't bend - it's just there for rigging purposes being the root node for the skeleton. But the abdomen1 is a critical group when we bend the torso to any side. It's where a LOT of stretching and compression happens, since the body can bend over itself like a switchblade. This is a case where thin strip groups can cause pinching on the geometry when we create character morphs with shorter torsos - like some entries from my "Body Type" series do. If the abdomen1 is already a thin strip, character morphs that make the character torso shorter suffer from insufficient number of faces on that group to produce good bending when morphed.
This was a major reason why I had suggested removing chest1 - to give more space for the 2 abdomen groups, keeping them more evenly spaced and with more buffer geometry for the weight maps to work with. Thin strip groups may work fine with the default Dawn shape, but posing problems emerge in some cases when morphing the body. The original Dawn has so MANY torso groups that look what happens when she bends over - the abdomen collapses over itself, even in the default shape. This is the chance to correct that issue with Dawn 2.0. We already have more geometry for the 2 abdomen groups, but as shown above, one is way larger than the other, leaving abdomen1 a thin strip compressed against the hip.
My suggestion is to enlarge abdomen1, so the 2 abdomen groups get evenly distributed geometry, finally eliminating the issues that occur from thin strip groups on high compression areas.
This was a major reason why I had suggested removing chest1 - to give more space for the 2 abdomen groups, keeping them more evenly spaced and with more buffer geometry for the weight maps to work with. Thin strip groups may work fine with the default Dawn shape, but posing problems emerge in some cases when morphing the body. The original Dawn has so MANY torso groups that look what happens when she bends over - the abdomen collapses over itself, even in the default shape. This is the chance to correct that issue with Dawn 2.0. We already have more geometry for the 2 abdomen groups, but as shown above, one is way larger than the other, leaving abdomen1 a thin strip compressed against the hip.
My suggestion is to enlarge abdomen1, so the 2 abdomen groups get evenly distributed geometry, finally eliminating the issues that occur from thin strip groups on high compression areas.
You're welcome!
Glitterati3D
Dances with Bees
Ken, all I was saying is that from what I can see, her abdomen issue seem to have been addressed in Dawn2.0. From the images posted here I see a very big difference and the problem areas addressed. It's not like Dawn was unusable before, but the new Dawn appears to make supporting her easier than DawnSE was and she was pretty easy.
The one thing I really miss in La Femme is Dawn's pelvis. Her pelvis makes rigging, modeling, the entire creation process simpler. I wish La Femme had Dawn's pelvis on every skirt I rig for her.
The groups have been improved, no doubt about it. My comment was about abdomen1 being much smaller than abdomen2. I think the lower one could be just a tad taller, like 1 oe 2 polys higher to become more evenly distributed. My point being that if that group is already short (vertically), and I make a character morph with a shorter torso, the group can become critically short, which affects posing quality.
The one thing I really miss in La Femme is Dawn's pelvis. Her pelvis makes rigging, modeling, the entire creation process simpler. I wish La Femme had Dawn's pelvis on every skirt I rig for her.
That is very true. The introduction of the pelvis group was one of the BEST things, coming from V4. In the same way, one of the first things I liked about V4 was the elimination of the pesky buttock groups that never looked good when posed.
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eclark1894
Visionary
Yeh, they were troublesome. I always wanted to have V4 spread 'em a little bit.
Here is a shot from the back. The front is a little taller on ab2 only because it follows the edge looping of the rib cage. From the back it is pretty even. Overall the groups can be adjusted if any issues arise during rigging.
As for the Foot grouping, like the hands, all the controls will be available from the foot group. This will include all toes bending together, and individual controls for metatarsals. The individual toe groups are to be consistent with the fingers and will allow minute adjustments for the most versatile rigged feet ever in a Poser/DS figure.
As for the Foot grouping, like the hands, all the controls will be available from the foot group. This will include all toes bending together, and individual controls for metatarsals. The individual toe groups are to be consistent with the fingers and will allow minute adjustments for the most versatile rigged feet ever in a Poser/DS figure.
eclark1894
Visionary
A Quick question if you don't mind. And no, I don't know if it's possible or how much work it would be, and it's not a suggestion. I'm just curious. Would it be possible to have control chips or handles on fingers and toes, for direct manipulation and posing?
I think it was previously discussed that control rigs can be added later as add-ons.
I would vote for a dedicated group at least for the all-toes part. This has always been included with any figure I know of, and the lack of it strikes as unusual since we use this group so commonly when posing the figure. I think it's important. Conversely, the individual toes should not have groups because they get in the way when trying to select the all-toes group, making the selection difficult. Individual toes can be posed with dials, since that happens very seldom anyway. It's a matter of priority based on the groups that are used the most in any figure.
When I suggested removing the metacarpals from the hands, it was not about reducing the number of groups in the figure, but instead removing groups we don't normally use when posing the figure - any figure. Those can be left as dials. In this sense, not having a toes group seems harmful to any workflow, especially when individual toes are getting dedicated groups. Posing individual toes is rarely done in most poses, and they definitely get in the way when trying to select the [missing] toes group, which is the one we use the most.
Therefore, my suggestion is to remove the individual toes groups, and instead add a toes group. Based on how people pose figures, I believe this would make more sense. In all these years I have posed figures, it was rare when I ever wanted to pose individual toes, but I ALWAYS needed to pose the toes because of shoes and the pose itself.
Individual toes can be ghost bones controlled by dials. This would also avoid shoes from having individual toes groups created in DS, where we don't have the option to choose the specific bones we want in the rigging for shoes.
eclark1894
Visionary
I wonder if I can adapt Dawn and or Dusk to movement in Blender?
Would Blender support ERCs from Poser? Things like master dials that control morphs across the body, or pose hands and fingers? Other than that, I suppose an FBX export could work out. The DS version export would keep the mesh in 1 piece, while Poser would break it into multiple parts (as many as Dawn has groups).
eclark1894
Visionary
I'd definitely have to export it as FBX.
I would be surprised if Poser could export those, but Blender does have the capability to duplicate it.
I'm so impressed with how this is all coming along. I hope you're keeping your health in mind while doing all this. It's obviously a lot of work. I'm glad that you're really thinking about how to make Dawn 2.0 a sold platform for character and clothing creation.
Oh! And I'd like to pass along a link to a set of body "classical pose" body scans I came across. I think they might be good for posing references, since they're actual scans. But they're sans clothing, so I'm not sure how best to send it to you guys? If you're interested, that is?