Strange Mesh Deformation from Shape Keys of Imported Morphs

[Hank Yelany]

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I encountered this issue when trying to use imported morphs for the Golden Palace genitalia. I think I followed the right steps for doing so.

-I imported the figure without merging the geograft

-I then used the “import custom morphs“ tool to import the genital morphs as shape keys

-Used the “transfer shape keys” tool to copy the shape keys from the genitalia mesh to the body mesh

-Merged the genitalia geograft to the body

*In the test I didn’t import any body morphs on the figure, just ones for the genitals

Most of the shape keys seem to work fine, but some of them warp the mesh like the above picture (anus_open3 shape key, value set to 1) in addition to what you’d expect the shape key to do. I also saw this for the anus_open2 and some others, but they would often move vertices on the figure’s elbow or shoulder blades, or some other random areas.

I tested the transferred shape keys on the body before merging the geograft and the same warping occurred. Maybe I did something wrong during the import process?

*I did some searching and found this: Blend from Shape, which positions the warped vertices in the same position as they were in the “Basis“ shape key. This makes the mesh more normal, but also seems tedious.

I’m not sure if I’m just missing a step or if I messed with something in the settings. Maybe corrupted morph files? Not sure if anyone else has encountered a similar issue.

Here is the blend file with the test figure.

[Alessandro Padovani]

As I understand it you have to transfer jcms from the body to the geograft, not the other way around. Then if there are custom jcms for the geograft you have to import them after merging the armatures.

Also be sure to export the geograft with zeroed morphs, most geografts provide a “zero“ setup.

If you change the figure size after importing and apply the rest pose then the morphs are not scaled and you need to use the “adjust strength“ option in the global settings. That is, for simplicity it is better to scale the figure to the desired size in daz studio before exporting.

note. You can’t share blend files of daz figures it is against the daz eula. Also the blend file may show the issue but not how to reproduce it so it’s not too useful. You can share duf files and provide the exact steps to reproduce the issue.

[Hank Yelany]

That’s my bad, I didn’t know about the blend files.

I’m not too sure about this, but I think the custom morphs I imported were just the basic morphs for the graft and not jcms. I didn’t change the scale at all, but I did notice the importer has the option in the global settings. I just left it as the default. I’ll attach the duf file. I just did the steps from above.

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-For the test, I imported the base V8 with GP genitalia with no morphs applied. The geograft was unmerged.

-I clicked the “import custom morphs button” after selecting the geograft

-I then went to this folder in the file viewer: “data\Meipex\GoldenPalace\GoldenPalace_Genitalia_v2\Morphs\Meipex\Base\”

and used the search function to import the morphs that affected the shape of the genitalia. Search terms were: “vagina“, “anus“, “labia“, “camel“, etc. I imported the morphs with those terms in the name.

-I then selected the body mesh first and then the geograft and hit the transfer shape keys button. This menu popped up and I used the default settings.

-After the shape keys were transferred I disabled the drivers for the shape keys (pretty sure the morphs weren’t driven by bones).

-I then selected the body object and tried to change the value of shape key. Vertices that I thought weren’t affected by the morph started shifting around.

*Also, for me the morphs “Anus_Open3“, and “Anus_Open2“ were the ones that caused problems. For some reason, “Anus_Open1“ wasn’t an issue. I first noticed the mesh deformation on a more complex character, but it also reproduced itself on the barebones V8 with just the genitalia graft loaded.

[Hank Yelany]

This is kind of embarrassing. I tried the import again, but this time without transferring the shape keys before merging. The shape keys worked properly this time. I think I was under the impression that the shape keys had to be transferred to the body mesh or else they would be deleted when the geograft was merged. I was looking at the blog post for the “Morphs Section“ and I think I got confused by the Mix Shapekeys part at the very end.

Still kind of weird that a shape key meant for the genitalia would affect the body mesh that much, or at all. I guess this issue could be marked invalid.

One more thing, the shape key values seem to be purple (driven) by the rig by default even though it usually isn’t clear what bone in the rig would control the shape of that part of the mesh. From the tutorial I saw, the driven shape keys seem to play a role for jcms the most. Not sure if this would be an improvement or if it would just make it more convenient for users or if it doesn’t matter that much.

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[Alessandro Padovani]

Then it is as I explained above you have to transfer from body to geograft not the other way around. If you transfer from geograft to body it takes the nearest faces and try to “project“ the geograft morphs to the body thus the odd effects.

As for which bones drive a morph you can look at the drivers but it can be a mess since daz studio usually has morphs driving other morphs.

If there’s nothing to add please close as invalid.

[Hank Yelany]

Yeah, thanks for the response. I’ll try to learn more about drivers.

[Hank Yelany]

user error. transferred shape keys incorrectly.