SKYLAB CHAT

[skylab]

Hey, thanks for that tip...our Blender users may find that useful

 

[Gadget Girl]

Ah-HAH!! I win!!

Take that, Poser...............

Glad to see you got it working. Wish I'd been on last night to help.

I'm going to stab at IPB again a little later with a (not Nataanni) test morph. I want to get it working with Chris' head morphs one way or another... I know it should work, I'm not sure why the REM behaves that way... I need to dig into the codes and really compare them line by line, I think, and see what the differences are.

I will say that not all older scripts will work with Dawn and Dusk because they use a lot of features that weren't always around, like being able to change where the joint center is with a morph dial. That might be why you were getting some odd rotations. I'm going to look through your posts about the issues you had again later on, see if I can recreate some of them. I was actually thinking a while back about writing a script to create INJ and REM files, but then I saw the built in option in Poser and didn't realize it was a Pro thing, so I didn't think there was a point. Seems like there is though.

 

[skylab]

Hey GG...I can't speak for Seliah, but considering all she went through, and was still going through last night, I bet she'd really appreciate that...both she and Miss B are Poser 11 standard users I think, and others got on board using P11 during the big sale recently, so lots of non-Pro users might be interested I was wondering last night if all this had to do with the difference in weight-mapped figures as compared to the old Gen 3 figures.

 

[Miss B]

About gemstones — GitHub - mrachinskiy/blender-addon-jewelcraft: JewelCraft—add-on for jewelry design .

Nice find! Thanks.

 

[Miss B]

Now, now, that there was more like buckin' bronco ridin'...........

But yes. I have a working INJ finally. And no eyelid peeking through the eyeball, either. LOL

YAY!!!!

 

[skylab]

Hey Miss B Thought you might like that Blender tip. And Seliah is probably pooped today after her wrestling match with INJ/REM, but we're all certainly happy for her

 

[Gadget Girl]

Hey GG...I can't speak for Seliah, but considering all she went through, and was still going through last night, I bet she'd really appreciate that...both she and Miss B are Poser 11 standard users I think, and others got on board using P11 during the big sale recently, so lots of non-Pro users might be interested I was wondering last night if all this had to do with the difference in weight-mapped figures as compared to the old Gen 3 figures.

Yeah I need to do some more research to make sure I do it right. I did look into the Dusk Head Resource Kit, and I think the issue is that many of those have animatable origins, I think especially when it comes to the jaw. Some of the face shapes are in a sense re-riggin the jaw. I looked up the script Seliah mentioned using, and it looks like it was made for V3 and 'compatable' figures. Not sure how much it's been updated since.

 

[Miss B]

Hey GG...I can't speak for Seliah, but considering all she went through, and was still going through last night, I bet she'd really appreciate that...both she and Miss B are Poser 11 standard users I think, and others got on board using P11 during the big sale recently, so lots of non-Pro users might be interested I was wondering last night if all this had to do with the difference in weight-mapped figures as compared to the old Gen 3 figures.

Actually, Sky, I have PoserPro 11, but it is my first Pro version of Poser, so "discovering" things I've never had available in the standard versions I've worked with in the past.

 

[skylab]

Oh Miss B, for some reason I thought you didn't have Pro...some setting that appeared differently to you than someone else...and something I found in the Preferences settings...I don't remember now...anyway, we're on the same page now...haha. And GG, yes, I think it was an overall compatibility issue...so having an updated script that does the "old method on new figures" would probably be perfect

 

[Miss B]

Not a problem Sky. I still do most of my work/testing in P9, as I'm much more comfortable in it. I really need to spend more time in PP11, but for now, the only thing I've played with is EZSkin3, and I'm still learning that as well.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

I will say that not all older scripts will work with Dawn and Dusk because they use a lot of features that weren't always around, like being able to change where the joint center is with a morph dial. That might be why you were getting some odd rotations. I'm going to look through your posts about the issues you had again later on, see if I can recreate some of them.

Yeah. I know that it's a really OLD, legacy program (IPB, I mean). I actually only went to it in a desperate sort of last-ditch attempt to generate a working INJ. If that had not worked, honestly, I was ready to throw in the towel and call the whole mess a wash. I really was.

For my own personal uses... what I have at the moment is doable. It does generate a working INJ file just fine. That cuts down half the work of hand editing the .pz2 files. I have a lot of trouble doing those by hand because of a number of reaasons, not the least of which is I have a touch of dyslexia, and it's extremely difficult for me to read the lines and be sure that I'm editing the correct lines.

So, what I've got right now is that IPB is good for producing an INJ, but I just have to hand-edit that INJ to get the REM file. I actually was suspecting maybe the weight mapped rigging since this utility pre-dated the days of weight mapping, or some of the other newer tech that's wrapped up in the HW figures.

But I will say, after a little more experimentation with the utility this afternoon, that it can reliably produce both and INJ and an REM file for any morphs on Dusk except for the Head Resource Kit morphs. Those are the only ones that it goes nuts with the REM file. I would definitely NOT recommend trying to use IPB on custom built morphs, such as Pen's Diva, or anything one does in say, Blender/Zbrush. But for dialed morphs using anything EXCEPT the resource kit, it produces both a working INJ and a working REM file no problem.

The particular issue with the REM file on the resource kit morphs is that when you use the REM, what it does, is it basically deletes or hides all of the head except for the teeth, tongue, lower jaw, and one eyeball. So you get this pointy little cone shaped thing on Dusk's neck with the jaw sticking out and the eyeball sticking up in the center of the cone. Eww. All I could do was LAUGH when I saw that happen - but definitely EWW. LOL It behaves similarly if you're using a body REM - it just disappears the entire body. And if you're using s body+head REM, the entire figure disappears, though remains loaded in Poser's scene file.

At the moment, I'll take what I can get, though, and since it produced a working INJ, and I have a working hand-edited REM, I'm happy for now, and the Poser folks will be happy. Because if this hadn't worked, that was my last straw on getting his morph to function in Poser. All other methods I tried were turning out to be utterly useless.

I was actually thinking a while back about writing a script to create INJ and REM files, but then I saw the built in option in Poser and didn't realize it was a Pro thing, so I didn't think there was a point. Seems like there is though.

Yes. The Export As Morph thing is a PRO only option from the looks of it. It does not exist in my P11's Export options. And I will be honest, here... if I can't find an easier way to produce the INJ/REM files than this, Nataani is very likely going to be the LAST character I do for Poser, period. Because frankly, I've been fighting with his INJ file for WEEKS now, and I'm seriously not going through this again with another character. LOL

If you were willing to write a script like that, OMG I would love you forever! Haha. I don't understand script writing, so I have no idea where to even START on that! And yes, I think there would be a BIG call for it. Aside from P11 standard users, anyone using P10 or lower would probably find that script extremely useful as well.

Yeah I need to do some more research to make sure I do it right. I did look into the Dusk Head Resource Kit, and I think the issue is that many of those have animatable origins, I think especially when it comes to the jaw. Some of the face shapes are in a sense re-riggin the jaw. I looked up the script Seliah mentioned using, and it looks like it was made for V3 and 'compatable' figures. Not sure how much it's been updated since.

IPB was originally released for the Generation 3 figures. So, yes. Back around Vicky and Mike 3. When we moved to the Generation 4's, most of us just made our own IPB libraries for it, which allowed us to continue using it. Someone, somewhere, had gone to the trouble of releasing a lot of extensive Gen4 libraries for it, but I don't recall who did that or where they released it. To my knowledge, IPB has never been updated since it's release. It's been mostly user-supported since then, insofar as people sharing their custom-made libraries for the figures they use it with.

It does work - to a point - on Dusk. I had to create my own Dusk libraries, which is very simple to do. You just load a .cr2 that has the morphs injected, and then tell IPB which ones are "expression" morphs, and that's really all there is to it. It's not hard at all, it's just tedious to make sure you're ONLY selecting expression morphs on that step (which is why I re-did the libraries. It's very easy to accidentally select a non-expression morph and end up marking it as 'expression', which would then lead to some morphs not being applied if you run the script while telling it to ignore expression morphs.)

I know not all legacy scripts are likely to work on newer figures; and I have not yet tried this on Paul or Pauline, either, but I would expect the same kind of mixed results on those figures also. Like I said earlier in the post... turning back to IPB for this was a last ditch desperate attempt to get a working INJ. Even producing an entirely hand edited INJ/REM, which SHOULD have been a guaranteed to work thing - did NOT work. So for now, I'll take what I can get and REALLY REALLY hope that you do end up deciding to make that script.

Heck, I would be willing to PAY for that, just to be able to do this stuff without pulling my hair out. Because as it stands right now, I am NOT going through this again. There will be NO MORE Poser character packs out of me after this until I can find a better way to do this than yanking my hair out by the roots for weeks on end just to produce an INJ/REM file that works. And... I know we don't know each other very well, but... it really does take a lot for me to say something like that. I'm really, really fed up with the aggravation of the whole thing. I've tried hard to cross-platform support with my content for many years, but this is nuts. LOL After this, until I can find a better way to generate INJ/REM files... about all I will do is release the skin textures and materials only; kind of like what the Face of Africa product did for DS, releasing only the skin texture and NO morph/shape conversion.

There would definitely be a BIG demand for a script that allowed us to easily and efficiently generate both an INJ and an REM file for the HW figures.

Hey Miss B Thought you might like that Blender tip. And Seliah is probably pooped today after her wrestling match with INJ/REM, but we're all certainly happy for her

I smell ulterior motive!! Okay, so I'm mostly joking. LOL. But yes, I have him working on the INJ/REMs now. At the moment, all I'm doing is setting up his materials... learning the ins and outs as far as how Poser handles bump vs. normals and all of that.

I'm not aiming for any advanced material settings with Nataani, because I'm literally learning the material room as I go on this. Start simple, you can do more advanced things later on as you get a better understanding of the tools. But as a result, he renders pretty much the same under both Firefly and Superfly, so yay! - neither group of artists will be excluded.

I really do want to break open EZSkin as well, but at the moment it's one too many things for me to be learning at the same time. It's just too much right now for my poor DS-comfy brain to translate. I'll dig into EZSkin later on, when I'm not putting myself on the frying pan to try and get Nataani DONE already.

 

[skylab]

Certainly understand your wanting a quick solution through this...go for it

I'm doing something light and fun today, after yesterday's match with the stormy water plane. I'll go back to that later. Today I'm just doing some more fun poses with Andy, for use with P11 Superfly

 

[Gadget Girl]

The particular issue with the REM file on the resource kit morphs is that when you use the REM, what it does, is it basically deletes or hides all of the head except for the teeth, tongue, lower jaw, and one eyeball. So you get this pointy little cone shaped thing on Dusk's neck with the jaw sticking out and the eyeball sticking up in the center of the cone. Eww. All I could do was LAUGH when I saw that happen - but definitely EWW. LOL It behaves similarly if you're using a body REM - it just disappears the entire body. And if you're using s body+head REM, the entire figure disappears, though remains loaded in Poser's scene file.

Actually I know what's happening here, because I've done this myself. The sort of faceless cyclops. It's actually scale getting set to odd amounts. I had to fix this in another script I'm writing, and it was the scale of the head getting set to zero that did that. I'm not sure why the head resource kit and removals cause this.

Just to clarify your workflow you were using IPB in Daz correct, and then making a cr2 for Poser?

Thinking about your experience, I actually may have half the script done, in that I do have a script that removes all morphs that aren't set to zero. So if my brains working, what you'd want to do, is remove the unused morphs, save all the remaining morphs at their value into one 'morph' or INJ and save it to the library. Then create something that removes those specific morphs and sets them to zero and also save it to the library. The main thing I'd need to brush up on, is saving to the library. The rest I mostly have written. Well I think I do, you never know for sure until you've actually written it, and figured out how to get rid of the cyclopses.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Actually I know what's happening here, because I've done this myself. The sort of faceless cyclops. It's actually scale getting set to odd amounts. I had to fix this in another script I'm writing, and it was the scale of the head getting set to zero that did that. I'm not sure why the head resource kit and removals cause this.

That could be doing it, I suppose - except that if you select the body part in the parameters, the scale is showing at appropriate values. Very weird! But good to know what's causing it!

Just to clarify your workflow you were using IPB in Daz correct, and then making a cr2 for Poser?

No, no, no... IPB is a standalone program. It operates independently of either software. Workflow when using IPB is as follows :

-- Morph the character.
-- Save this morphed character to the Poser library as a .cr2
-- Open IPB (separate program)
-- Load the morphed character
-- Select the library that you're going to use on the character (in this case the Dusk library that I built for it)
-- Select options (I usually "exclude expression morphs" to be safe, and then I select the options to produce INJ *AND* REM files)
-- Select body parts that you want the INJ/REM to affect (in this case, for a full morph, head and body both are selected)
-- Click on Process Options
-- Now click on Save
-- At this point you have a window - navigate to the Pose library folder you want your injection saved to, and save it. Do the same for the REM when the window pops up for that as well.

Then you go back to Poser, refresh the library folder where you saved the INJ file, and test the INJ.

So, IPB operates independently of Poser. It is not a plug-in, it's a standalone program that automates all the hand editing of producing an INJ/REM file. It has a bunch of options, but those are the basics.

Thinking about your experience, I actually may have half the script done, in that I do have a script that removes all morphs that aren't set to zero. So if my brains working, what you'd want to do, is remove the unused morphs, save all the remaining morphs at their value into one 'morph' or INJ and save it to the library. Then create something that removes those specific morphs and sets them to zero and also save it to the library.

Something like this, yes. That's basically what IPB does, except that IPB predates all of our weight mapped and other updated tech figures. It strips out unused morphs; writes only the used morphs and their values into the INJ file, and then writes (if chosen) the REM file by setting all those values back to zero.

IPB does not auto-save to the library; it pops up a window where you navigate to the folder and tell it where to save. That's when it does the write process to the library.

But yeah... anything that would make this process less painful would be greatly appreciated, that's for sure!

Well I think I do, you never know for sure until you've actually written it, and figured out how to get rid of the cyclopses.

Cyclopses are funny. Just.. not when you're trying to actually get the Cyclops to behave. LOL!

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

For reference.. this is what the IPB program looks like, with a character loaded, options selected, and processed (with the resulting INJ in the window on the left side). Yes, we can edit the output before saving if we desire also..

So, this is the other thing that confuses me with the scales, as I actually have it set to exclude scale channels, so theoretically, it should not be altering the scale of any body parts at all. And that's why I said that it was rather strange to have it altering scales.

But again - this is a very OLD, legacy utility program - and these figures are much, much newer and have a lot of newer tech wrapped up into them, so I am certainly NOT surprised at the mixed results.

Heck, I'm just glad it produced a working INJ file. I can hand edit that INJ to make my REM (which is what I did here for Nataani), but having a doable INJ file output helps enough for this case. I don't think I would have the patience to go through this headache again. But for Nataani's case, it at least got me halfway there.

 

[Miss B]

I really need to dig that off my external one of these days. Since I haven't really tried creating my own characters, I haven't rushed to use it, though I think I did have it installed on my old laptop years ago.

 

[skylab]

Yeah, after she wrote down the process, it would still be very useful in creating custom characters for M3, and back then figures were not so resource heavy to cause crashing problems...might be something I could try one day when I'm just messing around Wonder if that utility would work with Nursoda characters, since they were old rigging...some of my Hein and Doc characters might be worth trying.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

I really need to dig that off my external one of these days. Since I haven't really tried creating my own characters, I haven't rushed to use it, though I think I did have it installed on my old laptop years ago.

Every character that I've ever released for Gen3 or Gen4, I did their INJ's this way. It's definitely a creation tool. But it helps a LOT.

Yeah, after she wrote down the process, it would still be very useful in creating custom characters for M3, and back then figures were not so resource heavy to cause crashing problems...might be something I could try one day when I'm just messing around Wonder if that utility would work with Nursoda characters, since they were old rigging...some of my Hein and Doc characters might be worth trying.

If they make use of INJ/REM's, it might work? You would have to set up a library for the figure before trying to produce a morph injection, or find someone who has the libraries offered. If I can hammer out the specifics with the HW figures here, I will release my own IPB libraries for them... but that's only if I can be sure they're workinf right.

I'm not sure if Nursoda's would work. I don't own them, so I can't check for myself, sorry! You could try it, I suppose... at least the utility is very cheap if you have PC.

 

[skylab]

It was in my account last night when I checked, so it must have been something I got years ago, so I have the utility.

Here's something for fun...Andy sitting poses, and my corked jar model from years ago, with a new look using D3D Superfly Materials...and screen caps showing access to corked jar mats.

ANDY AGAIN

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Those came out really nice, Sky!