Honestly, I'm not quite sure what Diogenes (formerly phantom3d) was thinking when he moved the rotation centres for the weight-mapped rigging. It's still stellar work, of course, but in terms of body proportions I'm not very happy with it.

By the way, the torso is posed a bit differently in the squat between the Antonia's because WM had her arse so far back I had to do something to keep her from falling over.

Of course I can't make any strong claims before actually doing the work, but it seems to me that if one added the missing JCM for the larger x-rotations of the thigh - which I omitted in part because I foolishly believed that the human hip could not bend that far, but also because I was forced to use the workflow from hell and got worn down by it eventually - 1.2.0 would win on all counts.

As always of course, your mileage may vary.

Not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing here but I definitely know that the JCM I created in a half hour won't cover all those bends lol.

We're at odds with things we'd want to do with the figure ;) It's ok, I can work with what's there. I want to make iris and pupil and teeth morphs, you didn't build the figure for those things really, it's the strictly realism camp. Not much deviation from a standard human character type stuff. I'm managing to make do, figuring things out. The gums and teeth being a single mesh is a tricky one especially. As far as JCMs go, in all reality from my perspective you didn't cover a lot of things that might go beyond the norm. Good thing I can make my own also. I'm having fun with the figure so that's what really matters.

@primorge: I had a vague memory that I wasn't happy with the way Antonia WM bends, then you claimed that she was "vastly superior." So I decided to do a proper comparison to make sure I wasn't misremembering, and then I shared it here in case anyone else was interested. I didn't want to bore anyone with a long list of things I like better in 1.2.0, but I can.

I will say one thing, that's some Avant Garde mouth design, very unusual. Some nice modeling there, especially poly redirection, and in the figure in general.

Oh. I think the WM looks better in your pics. Shrug, different strokes lol.

"Antonia-Opinions?"

Sure one could have tried to make a figure that's more versatile. I guess that's the Poser/DAZ way. For an absolute beginner like me I think it would have been overreaching. Neither the mesh nor the JCMs are great. People got excited mostly because most of the Poser figures at the time were so horrible.

And obviously arguing over taste is futile. You see the potential of the figure, and that colors your perception of what is. Perfectly reasonable.

primorge posted at 12:25AM Sat, 14 August 2021 - #4425281

"Antonia-Opinions?"

All opinions are valued, but that doesn't mean I have to agree.

I agree odf :)

Good one!

I just checked, the weight-mapped rigging is under the Creative Commons license, as well. So if that suits your purpose better, you'd be able to use it as a basis and still distribute your work freely.

Honestly, if I had a lot more time and motivation, I'd probably either try to come up with my own weight-mapped rigging or, more likely, try to tweak the existing one. Knowing Diogenes, he probably had good reasons for putting the centres where they are, so that could be an interesting learning experience. Maybe one day...

Anyway, it's late here. I just wanted to show you an example JCM that demonstrates that I can get comparable results to weight mapped. I'll package all the JCMs as an inject, when I get to that point, probably maybe, so people can use them on 1.2 standard if they want. It'll probably be mostly shoulder and leg hip region stuff. I know you are working with the low poly version so if you want a couple few fixes for that one I'd be glad to help if you're not into doing it. I haven't really looked super close at the WM version, not sure if it needs like elbow or knee JCMs, as weight mapped figures typically do, to emphasize boney protrusions...

primorge posted at 1:02AM Sat, 14 August 2021 - #4425288

I just wanted to show you an example JCM that demonstrates that I can get comparable results to weight mapped

No need to demonstrate that, really. You've shown sufficient evidence of your skill.

I know you are working with the low poly version so if you want a couple few fixes for that one I'd be glad to help if you're not into doing it.

Thanks, that's very generous. I used to have scripts to transfer morphs from lo to hi and hi to lo poly, so it would probably be more productive if I had a go at reviving those and applying them to your hi-res JCMs.

I think I have to apologise to Diogenes. I just checked the rotation centers for the thighs and knees, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with them. The shorter thighs in Antonia 1.2.0 are due to the JCMs taking away a lot of volume. (wipes egg from face)

odf posted at 3:55AM Sat, 14 August 2021 - #4425237

It certainly sounds like much less work than writing a good cloth simulator from scratch (with the emphasis on good).

You may also want to look at VirtualWorldDynamics, available here in the store.

The cloth dynamics in Blender are also promising, I am told.

FVerbaas posted at 5:27AM Sat, 14 August 2021 - #4425292

You may also want to look at VirtualWorldDynamics, available here in the store.

Sounds interesting. Thanks!

FVerbaas posted at 5:26AM Sat, 14 August 2021 - #4425296

The cloth dynamics in Blender are also promising, I am told.

Funny, I am told the same thing. :-)

Since I don't use Scala anymore, I've started to port my old mesh manipulation code that I used extensively in the creation of Antonia to Python. That's going to be helpful for converting morphs between the lo and the hi res mesh, fixing broken vertex orders, symmetrizing meshes, generating deltas, and probably a bunch of other things. Hopefully I can eventually extend it to handle PMDs and subdivision morphs, as well. From memory it used to be pretty slow and memory-hungry, so I might have to do some optimizing. Luckily, making Python go fast is what I've been doing in my day job for the last few months.

Just in case we're not aware: Poser Python now supports SciPy and a form of PIP install.

FVerbaas posted at 7:06PM Sat, 14 August 2021 - #4425320

Just in case we're not aware: Poser Python now supports SciPy and a form of PIP install.

I heard. Very exciting. Hopefully the docs will tell me exactly how that works. If I could get Numba to run within Poser Python, that would probably help a lot.

@FVerbaas Do you know where information about that legendary SciPy and PIP (-ish) support can be had? I tried the Poser manual but couldn't find anything.

There were some threads in the PoserPython forum about the PIP install. I'm on mobile now so difficult to give more exact pointer. Scipy documentation is available on the web at scipy.org. The package is already installed so a simple import should do the trick*. It comes with no particular adaptions for Poser so it doesn't appear in the Poser docs.

The PoserPython forum is perhaps the best place to discuss this.

*) From the top of my head. I must have some examples somewhere, but I'm not at home now.

Thanks! I had a quick look at the Poser Python forum and didn't see anything, but I'll go dig a bit deeper then. Right, scipy is installed, should have remembered that from when I checked out Poser's site-packages folder. Will shut up about this now and continue in the Poser Python forum if I have more questions.

It comes with no particular adaptions for Poser so it doesn't appear in the Poser docs.

You know, it would have been nice if the Poser docs had something like a list of supported Python libraries. Then again, what would Poser be without hosts of undocumented features. :-)

odf posted at 6:00PM Sun, 15 August 2021 - #4425389

You know, it would have been nice if the Poser docs had something like a list of supported Python libraries. Then again, what would Poser be without hosts of undocumented features. :-)

Word to that...

Long silence.

There was going to be a vaguely sarcastic remark about information monopolies but I used my sarcasm quota up for today. It's a small pool.

Story Time... I figure it's safe to mention the following here as it will be buried amidst the avalanche of posts.

Did'ya know that's there's this particular deranged freebie creator who publicly insults and name calls me every time he releases a new freebie? Weekly lol. And this is in the description of the freebie. I haven't bothered to collect his shoddily crafted things to see what kind of rants are contained in his ReadMes; He seems to have a descriptive fondness for inserting things in my colon lol. At this point I'd say it falls under the jurisdiction of internet "hate speech", it's hilarious. The people who host his stuff do absolutely nothing about it, even though I emailed them about in the beginning. No response. At this point it just makes me think the guy is a very powerless person throwing stones through the dark glass of the internet. Fun fact. Needless to say my view of the Poserverse is rather "Schopenhauer-esque", I would say Kafka-esque but at least in his yarns there's glimmers of sympathy :)

Back to painting armpit stubble. And good luck with your script endeavors.

@primorge That's horrible. I have no words.

FVerbaas posted at 5:13AM Mon, 16 August 2021 - #4425296

The cloth dynamics in Blender are also promising, I am told.

And just to be different; you do know that Blender can accept Poser cloth sims? Alembic export from Poser. I use .abc export from Poser so I can use Blender's Mantaflow sims in my Poser imagery.

@parkdalegardener I did not know that. Will have to play around with the Alembic exporter at some point.

In the meantime, I'm close to finishing my reread of this thread. One of my favorite bits so far was when some folks discussed the difficulties of simulating breasts in the cloth room and jokingly predicted that by version 12, Poser would have a tits room. I guess Bullet might be the closest to what they had in mind, although I haven't looked into its capabilities in detail.

Still trying to put a smile on her face. Ironically, I found that a negative frown helps a bit. One of these days I'm gonna have to grab my Osipa again and give her a proper expression rig with nice, accurate subdivision morphs.

As far as I know Bullet does not support a volume constraint. That's what for now limits the potential of such new room.

One would also need mechanical properties of surface polygon read from an image map. Properties by group would give too abrupt changes.

One of those days I'll have to try out Bullet and see what it's capable of. Can it do pressure? I was really impressed by that feature in MD.

@FVerbaas + @odf

You have to see this! https://blendermarket.com/products/modeling-cloth

The guy made a 50 minute long video to show it. I bought it. It's all Python...

Description from the site: _Modeling cloth is an interactive cloth simulation engine. You can click and drag, add wrinkles, shrink cloth around objects mix softbody and cloth effects together and so much more. _

I wrote "I bought it". Not what I meant. I donated. The whole thing is free available on Github. Look at the Youtube video.

Hello adp001.

Sounds interesting!

I am on a remote location now with restricted bandwidth. Will check on this later this week when I am home again.

Here is the github address. Maybe you have a chance to have a look at this.: https://github.com/the3dadvantage/Modeling-Cloth-2_8

With the addon from above and this 20 minutes long video tutorial (showing how to setup cloth in Blender):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywXILQnPWK4

there seems no urgent need for MD anymore. But if this is not enough, then there are other (paid) tools. One of my favorites: Simply Cloth Pro from Blendermarket ($33, free demo available).

@odf: After a first look into the source it seams to me that it could be converted to work in Poser. Most of the critical parts are made using Numpy.

Maybe your next project? :)

The modeling cloth project appears to be low recent progress. Last updates 2019.

None the less good to check out. Even if it only matches MD2 functionality it would be a giant leap forward for Poser.

I can imagine what happened there. As you can read from various texts, the programmer needs money. Or at least imagined to earn good money with the AddOn.

Obviously that didn't work out. His Patreon page shows $9 monthly. And he writes somewhere that if you want to donate to him, don't go through a Blendershop, because they keep 30% (I had read that too late and had "donated" $34 through Blendermarket).

Since he's obviously good (but unfortunately doesn't know enough about marketing), he'll have turned to other projects that earn him more. On top of that, there are several other projects on the topic that cost a few bucks but are clearly more tailored to end users (work about the same as MD and bring heaps of content/templates).

But anyway. If it's actually possible to sufficiently recreate the few missing functions from Blender and integrate the whole thing into Poser as it is now, then that would be more than a little sensation (assuming it runs sufficiently fast on a standard PC of the younger generation). Not only for dynamic clothing, but also the almost always ugly, clumsy and wrong looking conforming parts would benefit.

Imagine if you could just touch LaFemme's blouse in the Poser UI with the mouse and pull it out of the skirt. Or roll up the sleeves on her blouse. Without the author of the garment having intended that. And the whole thing looks real. Like fabric and not like carved out of wood or made out of cardboard. With old and new garments (something the stores are unlikely to like) :)

@adp001 Sounds very interesting. I'll check it out when I get a minute. I've dabbled with simulation stuff, but haven't done anything production ready in Python/Numpy, so just studying their code in itself would be useful for me.

For me, I think the most challenging part would be to give it a good interface in Poser.

adp001 posted at 6:58AM Thu, 19 August 2021 - #4425601

I can imagine what happened there. As you can read from various texts, the programmer needs money. Or at least imagined to earn good money with the AddOn.

Obviously that didn't work out. His Patreon page shows $9 monthly. And he writes somewhere that if you want to donate to him, don't go through a Blendershop, because they keep 30% (I had read that too late and had "donated" $34 through Blendermarket).

Yes the eternal problem of one man band attempting to play works sized for a full orchestra.

On top of that, there are several other projects on the topic that cost a few bucks but are clearly more tailored to end users (work about the same as MD and bring heaps of content/templates).

You have any examples?

But anyway. If it's actually possible to sufficiently recreate the few missing functions from Blender and integrate the whole thing into Poser as it is now, then that would be more than a little sensation (assuming it runs sufficiently fast on a standard PC of the younger generation). Not only for dynamic clothing, but also the almost always ugly, clumsy and wrong looking conforming parts would benefit.

Guess we will have to try. I take it there an overview of Blender functions called? ('from Blender import ...')

Imagine if you could just touch LaFemme's blouse in the Poser UI with the mouse and pull it out of the skirt. Or roll up the sleeves on her blouse. Without the author of the garment having intended that. And the whole thing looks real. Like fabric and not like carved out of wood or made out of cardboard. With old and new garments (something the stores are unlikely to like) :)

And LaFemme slapping you in the face telling you to keep your hands off her, right? ? Anyway loads of issues to solve there but there are ways to do that. Most will be too laborious for the Poser users.

Yes the eternal problem of one man band attempting to play works sized for a full orchestra.

Wisdom for the ages.

Ups! Must be something different about the author of the addon. Rich Colburn is Simulation Engineer with Gerber Technology. Here is a video from the Blender Conference 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfdhIvo_ops&app=desktop

I'm not intimately familiar with the Blender ecosystem, but I'd speculate that going with a homemade simulation engine instead of the one that comes with Blender didn't turn out to be a great decision in the long run. There's a lot of industry funding behind Blender development right now and surely anything to do with simulations would be a major focus. So anything one person can implement on their own, even if they're very good and experienced, will surely be surpassed before too long. As I said, pure speculation, but it seems plausible to me.

In Poser that's quite different, in part because (and again I'm speculating) there's just not as much developer power behind it and Bondware is going to have to be really careful on where to put its priorities. They might decide that dynamic clothes are the future and give cloth simulation a complete overhaul for the next version to make it super-easy and powerful for end users, or they may not.

Now I'm wondering: if Patreon had existed back in the day, and I had set one up when it became clear that people are interested in Antonia, how much money would I have made per month? More than $9? Less?

I've always had trouble with breast morphs, which tend to get awfully lumpy when I try. So I'm reasonably happy about how this one turned out. Done on lo-res Antonia with a magnet for the overall shape and the morphing tool to refine. Image shows morph at -1, 0, 1, 2, and 3.

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ETA: should have rendered her with increasing values of the "Mouth Open" morph, as well. :-D

Remember kids: don't put poles on the boobies! I foolishly ignored the warnings, and now my morphs are paying the price.

The two on the left look all right. The two on the left have too sharp folds as they are, even for shapes held in a bra.

(I assume that as a westphalian you prefer your feedback straight? If not forgive my Dutch honesty)

Been watching this video. Looks promising indeed! Loads and loads of things were missing, but the video reflects status of July 2020 and some things will have evolved since,