Hey every one, hows it?

I was wondering how one would go about creating conforming clothing/Smart props using carrara 6 pro and Hexagon 2.5?. The only information i can seem to find is all poser based and well i cant imagine myself purchasing poser just for clothing.
I'm at the stage wear i export the character obj mesh to hexagon and create the object around the chracter mesh. Aside from a few scaling issues the object re-imports back into carrara and lines up perfectly (after rescaling) with the fully rigged daz charecter. Simple stuff i know but its where im at and parenting the objects to the chracters bone only really works in a practicle manner for hard surface armour and such. 

Now from what ive read the basic concept is to create another rig for the clothing that mirrors the character rig but how would one create the cr2 ect. so that it can be reloaded in the same manner as the daz items.
Carrara seems to have the poser export options, cr2. ect but are theses fully functional, like poser, or will there be discripensies and problems when i try to use the created items in other programs such as daz studio, or if distributed freely for others to use in there program of choice. I ask becuase Ive personally ahd nothing but problims with carrara's fbx export and daz studio/Blenders collada im/export. But any way lets not get into that.......

I ask because while most of the content (Both daz and third party) is fine (kind of) for single frame images and such if you have the time to tweak it, it seems very impracticle for animation. Poke through and morphing compatiblilty problems are the bane to my existance at the moment, to point where im willing to devote a large portion of my time to creating some more robust and hopefully user friendly items for at the very least the carrara comuinity. 

Thanks
Goatfish

Woops sorry have to edit. Carrara cant export cr2. Yeah so how do you go about making them is what i was getting at?

There should be no re-scaling. So that is Exporting / Importing settings. It's always best to import the figures .obj from it's Geometries folder to your modeling app of choice. The figure is then at Zero pose.

Carrar rigging is not the same as DS/Poser. You can't do it in Carrara. You can do Carrara rigging but that does not transfer right to the other two.

What you can do. Hack the figures Cr2 to point to your clothing .obj. This will give yoiu a conforming clothing figure as long as your clothing has the same grouping and group names.. BUT, you can't distribute it to anyone else. It is only for your own use. Very important to remember.

eg. using the V4 figure Cr2. There are 2 lines in the Cr2 that needs tp be changed.

1. Open the V4 Cr2 using WordPad or any Cr2 editor free in the freebie sections here.
2. At the top of the file you will find the first line you need to change.
       figureRezFile :Runtime:Geometries:DAZPeople:blMilWom_v4b.obj
                                     Change to point to your clothing .obj
      figurerezFile :Runtime:Geometries:(what ever file name you have it in):(whatever name used).obj
3. Scroll down a bit and you will find the second line to change. it's the same as the first.
4. Save as a new name. you don't want to overwrite your original Cr2.

You now have a working Cr2 for your clothing item.

Other wise you will need Poser or the DS setup tools, sold at Daz, which are not cheep.

Thanks for the info. it a good to finnaly have a strating point to work from. Its a shame that you cant redistribute from carrara. Putting all the work in to get something reliable and i geuss of value and not be able to share it is a big shame. I geuss ultimately i could load up the work files with whatever content i create in carrara's .car, so all's not lost i suppose. I wonder if daz will ever adress this. The fbx exproter in c6 is useless (at least for me) witch made reliable game content/aniamtions out of the question in carrara. Its a great program as every one here knows, it just seems so isolated and a little "buggy" in its ability to transefer content. Oh well maby in C8 lol. Can't complain about the price.
 
Thank you

ps thanks for the tip for exporting straight from the geomitries folder. I didnt really consider that the scale issues where comming from exporting the objs through carrara to hexagon.

PPs Also i watched an interesting vid last night with a guy in maya who copied v4's weight map (i think it was hard to tell with his accent) to the clothing he created. when he moved V4 it moved perfectly insync. No distortions or poke through and the thing was skin tight. I wonder if thats possible in carrara?. Probilly been done bu ill give it a go who knows lol

*"Its a shame that you cant redistribute from carrara."

*It's not anything to do with Carrara. It's the hacked Cr2 you are not allowd to distribute.

C8 has better fbx exporter. Better collada too.

He must have made a wieght map. V4 does not have one that I know of. DS/Poser don't use them.

Oh so its the cursed legal attack penguines again, damn them and there quest to shackle us all into submission with there "Though shall not breach the sacred copyright" or whatever legal thingy/scaremungeringsoulfeastingincrementaldrainyouofyouredesiretocreatedohigery.

Sorry about that im just a little fed up with the whole is it for comercial use or not or mabye but only in versioan 2.56789.53 and only if its a sunday and its snowing in the amazon while dany divito sings the twelve days of christmass in ancient persian to a sea gull!!! lol

Nothing pesonal to any of us forum dwellers, we just like being creative and trying to help out others when we can.lol. To bad parliment doesnt work like the forums, you write in and someone listens.LOL 

Yeah the weight maps have had me scracthing my head, i even started to look through the carrara manual which normaly cuases me to become distracted becuse i start to learn about other things and then have to run back to try them out and it just gets confusing lol so thanks for the heads up. I figure ill just try and line up the topopligy in hex to follow the main contours of the characters geomitry so that hopefully it will with enough polys conforms nicely with out poke through. Also if i start with the bare minimum i can controll the overall count as i work up in detail, kind of like how the miniture sculpters build up there layers of detail. Its probily just common sense to do this but yeah ill try it out and hope fully figure out in the long run how to get things working nicely in the animations. Ive had a look at alot of the meshes that are causing the problems and they kind of look like the person got the rough shape and then subdivided it up a bit and went done. Others though that ive looked at are simply works of art.
Like the guy who built the chaos eater sword with perfectly optimised toptoligy thats still low enough in polys to be used in a faitly busy scene. Then he gave it away for free, so inspirational lol

The weight maps seem like a good idea still, mabye taylor it to work in harmony with the character...mmmmm.....mabye......Could cause problims with the morphs though so mabye thats why they dont use it.....mmmm......
I think ive had to much coffe...mmmm......

Thanks for the info

ps sorry about the loaded questions/statements meant no offence lol 
pps if they fix the export issues ill gladly pay the full price for c8
ppps C6 still rocks and dispite its buggyness so does hex, i geuss i should just upgrade c6 and get the retail daz studio so that all talk the same language and play nice. Would be nice to only have to work in one progrma though.....Oh the rose tinted romantic idealism of it...LOL

Sorry bout the rants been a long few days of trial and error lol
 

You can do all the commercial work you want with the Daz figures. You just can't distribute the hacked Cr2 of which I explained how to do. If you created your own by either Poser or the DS tools, you can do as you please with it.

Most poke through is caused by JP's(Joint Parameters) that need to be adjusted. Those are the joint bends. Again, you would need Poser or the DS setup tools to do this. Unless your only using Carrara.

I agree that modeling is an art. Keeping the poly count down and still look smooth and bend/morph well is a fine balancing act.

Err, last I heard, DAZ made available for download at their site "legal to hack" cr2's.  They are as interested as we are in new clothing items for their figures.

That could be.