how to avoid jcms and get nice deformations (also works for G1 G2)

[Alessandro Padovani]

This is related to #987.

One common issue for daz figures is they require literally hundreds of morphs to get the figure working. Plus jcms don’t work anyway with G1 G2 figures that use triax instead, not supported by blender.

Now to help with this we may use a old trick that’s exporting prebended figures. This way we bake some main deformations by daz, then we may also use a corrective smooth modifier to help preserving the volume and shape of the baked deformations.

As a side effect this also works better with ik that likes prebended limbs. And exports better to game engines.

As a downside effect this will not work to import daz poses since the rest pose is changed this way. So it’s only good for original blender animation.

Below an example with G8F, the deformations are not bad considering no jcms are used at all. I also included the prebended pose to be exported in the dbz, Prebend_G8F.duf. This technique works fine with G1 G2 too.

May be this can be added as a note in the docs or a blog post for anyone interested.

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[Alessandro Padovani]

Below it’s the prebended pose exported from daz in this example, to get the idea.

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[bouich jules]

how to make prebended pose?

[Alessandro Padovani]

just load prebend_g8f.duf as a pose

[Thomas Larsson]

That sounds like a neat trick. If it works well we could bundle the prebent poses with the plugin. We could create a People folder under the to_daz_studio folder and put the poses in subfolders, so they are found by DS.

And yes, I am not thrilled by loading tons of jcms and transferring them to clothes either.

[Midnight Arrow]

@ Thomas

There may be a way to use the shape keys of the base mesh without transferring them to clothing at all. See #989.

[Alessandro Padovani]

Will see if I can get some nice prebending for all the generations from G1 to G81, need some tests though so this will take a while.

[Alessandro Padovani]

update.

Also see #1004 for tips to transfer the triax weight.

After some tests I believe that prebending is better served as a blog tutorial rather than a automated method. That is, the prebending may depend both on the figure and the outfit. In general a nude figure can be more prebended than a dressed figure, and a dressed figure may require more or less prebending depending on the outfit.

The general steps are:

1. In daz studio we prebend the figure as required depending on the figure and the outfit.
2. If it is a G1 G2 figure then we add the general weight maps: edit > figure > rigging > convert to blended weight.
3. Export to blender as dbz.
4. In blender we add the corrective smooth modifier to the figure.
5. In blender we merge the outfit parts and add a shrinkwrap modifier to the outfit.

Below an example with G1F and the magus outfit. I prebended the elbows and knees and a little shoulder, but left everything else alone to avoid distortions on the magus outfit. Then I converted to general weight and exported the dbz. Back in blender I added the corrective smooth to the figure and shrinkwrapped the outfit.

Please note that I uncheked "preserve volume" in the armature, since G1 doesn't use jcms and the corrective smooth is responsible alone to preserve the volume and prebended shape.

Overall the magus figure works fine enough and doesn't use any corrective morph. Prebended pose included magus-prebend.duf.

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[Alessandro Padovani]

prebended pose for G1F with the magus outfit

[Thomas Larsson]

Do you want to write a guest post on this?

[Alessandro Padovani]

I’ve looked at the blog but I don’t see how I can add a post. Plus last time I tried I could but with no pictures iirc. But basically I would add a note somewhere pointing here.

What do I have to do ?

[Thomas Larsson]

It looks like I can invite you as a writer at the blog, if I have your email address. Or you could just upload the text and pictures and I can put the post together.

[Alessandro Padovani]

no reply in a long time the discussion is here for anyone interested