I prefer to isolate the section of a head that I am morphing. The hidden verts stay hidden with *.rds and *.car. I am still more comfortable in MFM than VM, but when RDS saves a V3 head as *.rds, there is a strange message about a missing program part or something - anyway, the .rds will not open. It will save an OBJ that is a morph. But for interm steps, keeping the bulk hidden, this is of no use. I tried Carrara VM and it will not even save the head for me as a *.car. I did not bother with the OBJ test. Anyone else have this problem? Is there a way to beat it?

hmm, you know, I see I have a similar trouble, (using Carrara 2.1 here) and the way I just got around it was by opening V3 in uvmapper first, and saving V3 out again, unchanged. Then import the resaved mesh into Carrara (as facet mesh, a single polymesh, needed for morph targets, you know the drill but stating it here for others that may not) and she saved just fine. :)

wanted to add, she just now saved fine even with part of her mesh hidden in the modeling room :)

it must be some issue with the file format as it comes from Daz... I use a reuvmapped version of V3 that I saved out with uvmapper and so didn't run into this problem at first... hope this helps some. :)

If you export the head.obj from Poser "as morph target" and import to Carrara, you can assign names to groups of polygons which you wish to isolate, as an alternative to hiding unwanted polygons.

Bijou, thanks, I'll try that. Mateo, I did that - I hacked the usemtl to g (with V2 - the lashes - upperbrows - etc. are a bear to isolate) - and that works well enough - into MFM - save - hack back to one g - morph did not work. What I think happened: the verts were listed differently on save - to get the groups all together is my guess. Maybe if I make it one group in RDS/VM before the save - it will leave the order alone. At least with the upbrows and lashes - there is not the problem of duplicated verts at the new seams - those mesh are not linked anyway. The mouth, lacramal, nostril - may be a problem - they are linked - once they are duplicated - I don't know how to get those verts welded, but just those verts. I do have my preferred weld range = 0.0 pts - but hunting those guys down one-by-one is not worth it and you never know if there are others in there that must be left alone.

It is no-go in RDS with UVM export. The RDS file will not reopen - I am missing some primative extension - whatever that means. In Carrara I have a problem, too If I open as vertex primative - I can get it into VM - but it still will not save. If I open a facet mesh, I will save as a *.car, but I cannot get it into VM. I get the damn preview window, which I do not want or need, but the 1:4 window view will not show. I have tried every option I can find and I cannot get the modeller to open with a facet mesh. That is why I stayed with RDS .

this is definitely a bug with importing anything with autoposition disabled. I had autopositioning on, and so didn't run into the problem. But you can't autoposition when you are doing morph targets... not good! Definitely needs to be reported as a bug.

let me correct, if you turn off autoposition, then disable autoscaling, you get this error, I get it on every obj I've tried.

I'm thinking there's a way to beat it... don't turn off autoscaling. Seems that you can just put it back to 100 percent in the assemble room. I have to test to see if the morph targets are ok, but so far, its seems to work. Try that. :)

grrr, the morph export isn't working for some reason. I don't use Carrara for MTs (I render with it) so I never ran into this before. oh, I reversed it before, open as a vertex primitive, as a single polymesh (needed for morph targets), the file should open no problem in the VM. You need to make sure that the groups are imported correctly too (one object per group). You can just delete the parts of the mesh you don't want to bother with in the assemble room. also make sure you have the primitive and not the group selected in the properties menu in the assemble room. I had a head group and a head primitive in my object properties, you have to select the primitive so it shows up in VM. I'll get back here if I have success, trying a couple other things...

nope, wont save if I disable the map obj y to carrara z axis either... this is not good. :( I guess there's some bugs on obj import.

One major possible difference between RDS and Carrara: (all groups of V3 work fine in RDS except the head - perhaps the head is just too large?) If I open the blMilWom.obj in RDS as a single group, the real grouping is retained and all can be morphed at the same time - using select/invert/delete/save/undo delete - I can extract the individual groups (or pairs fot MTM). If I open the blMilWom.obj in Carrara as a single group - it selects in VM as though it were a single group. The actual grouping seems to be lost - no - the saved OBJ has the groups - VM just selects the whole thing. Funny thing though, I opened an RDS file that had three groups opened as one - and it went into VM with all three groups - a blue line showing the seam and each group would isolate separately. If Carrara does not do this on its own, this is no help at all.

OK, if I reopen the single group version as one object/group - the groups are there. I could not find invert in Assembly room - if it has that - then the select/invert/delete/save/undo delete works. Hiding a group in Assemble does not protect it from being deleted. Somebody did not think this through when MFM was ported to VM. Evolution of a feature is supposed to make better not less useful.

I get all the groups in Carrara, no problem. I have edited each item separately in the VM and saved them out separately as obj... my problem is in saving the file imported for morph targeting as a .car file. Have no idea what its like in RDS, never owned that program. I have only a VERY old version of RayDream from the dinosaur days on my old Mac, and that version is from years and years ago. question, are you looking to the right in the assemble room, and opening the properties menu? The groups and all the parts are there listed in the properties menu under objects, provided you imported the mesh to separate the groups out, and not as a single mesh. I use Carrara to render, so I use that menu to rescale and reposition stuff all the time in the Motion/Transform tab under Properties. Much easier to select items from the Properties menu than it is to click on it in the window in the Assemble room. Also all the effects are there, the modifiers menu and such. attached is a pic of Carrars showing where you need to be looking for the groups...

another pic with the V3 imported obj and the groups... they are there :)

ahh I see, yeah, you don't get that ability to morph stuff as one object and still retain the real grouping. But, you could use Compose to do that trick, like Rhino folks do. Traveler has a tut on his site for that.

ahhhh now I see, it gets the grouping if you reimport it? well thats good... not good that it doesn't truly hide the verts though. I'm not really sold on the usefulness of Carrara for morphing Poser meshes... the bit I've tried with it, it seems pretty slow and not enough tools. (V3 is huge anyway) I think its a huge problem that I can't save anything as .car ... think I'll stick to magnets in Poser and other modeling programs for morphing. :)

The VM lets you hide, but you can only get one group in at a time, or at least what it is told a group is. The menu you show - that should allow selection of all but one group - to delete - so that the group can be isolated for save as a morph target - but it wouldn't - select one group and the menu rolls up. But, since it will not save the head as *.car - it is no help. Unless I can set up raw stock with stuff like lashes hidden, and only have to do it once, it means that morphs will take much longer to do - no pre-prep. It saved the figure less the head as a *.car. I tested Dina's head which is about the same size as V3 - same result - will not save as *.car - DAZ had nothing to do with this one. My bet is on the file size being too large. The tools are there, but I miss the selector tool - though the marquee does seem to do both jobs. Compose will probably not be able to handle V3's head. Probably have to use Poser to isolate morphs. That would be easier anyway, since it allows you to select what you want to export. I see why so many insist on exporting morph stock from Poser. -- You would have to hack a cr2 to get at the groups. The Carrara obj without disable autoscaling checked is huge - those morphs would be The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. The figure is shin deep in the floor with centering off, so using that will ruin a morph too. I also have C v2.1, but the OBJ file I saved claimed it was from C v1.0. So they have done nothing with VM but make it a less able version of MFM v5.5? It burned a day, but now I understand better. For morphing RDS 5.5 is better than its offspring. Unless I am missing something Carrara needs to: Provide a way to get multiple groups into VM at the same time. Keep usemtl lines and to be helpful, be able to use them as selectors in VM Be able to save large meshes as a *.car file.

has anyone used Amapi for this? I'm thinking of upgrading to Amapi Designer for all the improved mesh handling features.

didn't have time to answer before fully, will now. the scaling in Carrara is just a value in properties menu. The mesh is not actually resized with the autoscaling import, just the group is resized in the assemble room. I know this, as I ran into HUGE troubles with Anything Grows and 3dpmr's fur coat, and discovered, I had to resize the fur coat object MESH, not just resize in the Assemble room's Properties menu... ended up rescaling the coat in Poser 2000x and exporting that coat obj rescaled so the fur modifier finally went on right. The reason the figure is stuck in the floor is because the autoposition is turned off - if you were to go to the properties dialog and turn her main group back to 100 percent, she'd be standing on the floor again, teeny tiny according to Poser scale, as all Poser meshes are very small. The Poser meshes are actually WAY too small for Carrara, I work with exported Poser scenes rescaled about 2100x larger for this reason - otherwise they simply will not render right in Carrara. Carrara has its strengths... I just don't think modeling and modifying Poser meshes is one of them... building and rendering scenes is what I love to do with Carrara. I think Amapi has Carrara beaten hands down in the modeling and morph department. (and probably why Carrara Studio comes with version 5.15) I just finally broke down and preordered Amapi 7 designer... I love Amapi 5 and didn't think that 6 was enough of an upgrade... 7 sure appears to be.

Hello Jaager, I'm not sure if I understand what's your problem, but I use Carrara to make morphs, and it always works very well. To make for example a head morph, you could try this: 1. Load the figure obj in Poser, and create a head prop with the group editor. 2. Select the head prop and create a group for each inner material (teeth, tongue etc.). You don't need the material groups for the morph, but you can hide the groups later in Carrara VM. 3. Export the head prop as obj (all export options disabled). 4. Import the head obj into Carrara, using the import options: "AutoPosition" enabled (default option) "Disable Auto-scaling" disabled (default option) "Map OBJ Y to Carrara Z axis" enabled (default option) Vertex Primitives Create a Single Polymesh Create Only One Group, 5. Open the vertex object in VM. The obj group names are polygon names of the vertex object. However, the names sometimes don't show up in the "Select Named Polygons" list. If you don't see the names, save and close the document, then re-open the document and VM. Now the polygon names (the former obj group names) should be listed under "Select Named Polygons". You can easily select and hide the inner parts of the head. When you export a vertex object with named polygons from Carrara, the polygon groups become obj groups, and the polygon names become obj group names. I use this method to create multi-group obj models with blended seams (no duplicate vertices at group edges) in Carrara. You can also take two or more obj groups into the same vertex object, and preserve the vertex order of each obj group (needed for morphs). To create a morph for two adjacent body parts, for example head and neck: 1. Create a head prop and a neck prop in Poser, and export each part separately, to create two objs. 2. Import both objs into Carrara. Now you have two vertex objects. In the Assemble room, the head and neck objects are not properly sized and positioned (because of the AutoPosition/Auto-scaling options). If you wish to see the relative size and position of the parts in the Assemble room, you can deactivate both Auto options, and zoom in to see the very small objects. However, you usually don't need properly sized objects in the Assemble room. 3. Open the neck vertex object in VM, select all, and copy. 4. Open the head vertex object in VM, and paste the neck geometry. Now you have a vertex object containing two polymeshes, head and neck. This operation doesn't modify the vertex order of the polymeshes, so the morphs will work. The polymeshes are properly sized and positioned in relation to each other. 5. During the morph creation, you can temporarily add geometry (ruler lines, rotation center vertices, contour polylines etc.). Don't connect the two polymeshes, and don't connect additional geometry and one of the polymeshes. This will modify the polymesh topology (vertex order), and there's no way to restore the generic vertex order, so the morphs won't work. Be sure to delete all additional geometry, when you're finished. 6. When the head and neck morphs are modeled, still in the same vertex object in VM, select the modified neck polymesh (you can double-click a face of the neck, to select the entire neck polymesh). Cut the neck polymesh, so that the vertex object contains only the morphed head polymesh. This will be your head morph obj. 7. Open the neck vertex object in VM, delete the old neck geometry, and paste the modified neck polymesh. This will be your neck morph. 8. Go to Assemble room, and export the modified head vertex object and neck vertex object separately, to create the two morph objs.

going off to try this :) thanks. Sounds a little like there's still an OBJ import problem of some kind. I was using her reference OBJ file to import, wasn't importing from Poser. What options do you have checked or not when importing the reference obj to poser? Are you exporting the Poser prop as obj or are you importing the saved prop file into Carrara? have you tried this with V3? I'm having trouble saving her at all as a .car file. I wonder if its the size of her mesh, although I've rendered two of her in a completed scene in Carrara (and saved) without any problems, which tells me that its more an import problem. I use Carrara mainly for rendering, so this is mostly new to me using it to create morphs.

bijouchat, Yes, I forgot to mention, this is very important: When I import the figure obj in Poser, all obj import options are disabled. "Centered", "Place on floor", and "Percent of ... size" must be disabled, so that the generic size and position of the model is imported. The Poser props are exported as Wavefront obj from Poser (all export options disabled). Basically, you can't import a Poser prop library (pp2) or a Poser document (pz3) in Carrara. However, if the pp2 or the pz3 contains prop geometry (embedded geometry), then you can import the pp2 or pz3 in Carrara. Select "WaveFront" in the "Choose File Format" list (Carrara doesn't know that you're going to import obj data in the pp2 or pz3 file). Carrara imports the first embedded prop geometry found in the pp2 or pz3. The rest of the pp2/pz3 data is ignored. If you're on a Mac, you need to change the file type of the pp2 or pz3 to "TEXT", otherwise the files are not listed in the file import dialog. On a PC, the pp2 or pz3 maybe needs the ".obj" or ".txt" extension. Of course, this is a weird obj import method. Usually, you export the prop as Wavefront obj from Poser, then you import the Wavefront obj in Carrara. I don't have V3 (I have no V's :). How many vertices is she? Might be a memory problem. For example, a car file with a 120,000 polygon vertex model saves on my computer, if I allocate at least 300 MB RAM to Carrara. If I allocate less than 300 MB, Carrara crashes, when I try to save the same car file. Morph modelling needs less Carrara resources, because you usually import only one body part or a few parts of the figure.

Hi VK, V3 is over 90 k of polygon count, forgot the exact count now but its between 90k and 100k. Dina/Vina is 110 k in polygon count... and I've saved and rendered her in Carrara no problemo :)and I've only 384 mb in ram and handicapped with WinME to boot... lol. As I said, I have saved and rendered two full V3 meshes in one scene, complete with textures and transmaps no problem in Carrara so I don't think its the polygons. prop files with embedded geometry should import, might have to change the extension but thats not a problem :) I open them all the time in UVMapper Pro (without even changing the extension), familiar with the process there... :) havent had time to try this yet, but it sounds interesting and worth a shot :) thanks for sharing!

VK, Thanks for the comments I have used the copy/paste in MFM, so if I were stuck with VM, I would probably get around to that. It is just not a convenient way to do a full toro with arms and legs. The 'save/reopen causes the multi-group to be there' - I probably would only have found by accident - so thanks. I was commenting on auto-position in that the figure was at a different place with it off. I just did the controls. If disable autoscaling is not checked, the morph enlarges the head If auto position is checked, the morph moves the head to the floor. If disable autoscale is checked and autoposition is not, the morph is OK - I use the unmorphed head, so the applied morph would have zero deltas if it were correct. The problem is the V3 head. Carrara does indicate why it cannot save the mesh as *.car, it just will not. The rest of the figure saves as it should in Carrara, but it is the head that I am aiming at. I have XP Home with 1 gig RAM / I don't know how to affect the memory available to Carrara - it has about 80 gig of empty HD to use as a swap . Task manager says the Carrara is using less than 400K of RAM when a save as *.car fails - it had at least an equal amount available if it needed it. My guess is that there is some upper limit on mesh size coded into the program and these two figure heads exceed it. It is probably an easy fix - things may be going beyond what the programmers imagined. Bij, nice to talk with you about this, If I get around to rendering in Carrara, here is an experiment I would like to try: RDS will take the Poser plug-in - use a PZ3 and allows posing within RDS - I am nor sure about ERC though - or if morphs can be hand set- but i think that is possible. Carrara will open an *.RDS. The shaders part seemed a bit daunting compaired to Poser 4, but after the Materials room in P5, I think the complexity there is about the same.

good and bad news VK... bad news first, the V3 head still will not save as a .car file... good news.. the head morph works perfectly! And naming the materials as separate polygons in Poser is absolutely ideal! Jaager, you have to save the obj out at local coordinates from Carrara, if you do that the morph will work exactly as designed. I moved her eyebrows and it worked...

yes... I can only dream for a plugin for Poser to Carrara... ugh! I don't have RDS ... sniff! Have a real old Mac version of Ray Dream Designer way back when (and a real old mac that can't run P4)... no RDS on PC... waaah :( I guess I can pray for Daz Studio to have one... but I'm not hoping too much. I am sure that CL won't do it. Its been the main huge sticking reason I won't upgrade to P5, no plugin. I guess I could rig up a bone setup in C2, I saw Ringo had posted one in the Carrara group, I think someone solved the eyes problem too, and there's morpher for expressions, but its not nearly as elegant as being able to use Poser.

I will go back and look. Trying to morph V3 eyes without hiding the damned lashes is near impossible for me. Hiding by hand everytime takes so long that I have no energy left for morphing. Eye socket may also be a big help for isolation. If I could have a stock right eye, lashes hidden at the start for every morph, it would go smoothly. This materials as group - if it works for me. may be the way to save this. I don't remember seeing the local coordinates option, I will look for it. More controls. My mind would hang up on "local" as in local to what?

local coordinates is the exact position of the mesh, world coordinates is the position or scale of the mesh in the assemble room :)you don't want the assemble room's coordinates and transforms, just the changes of the mesh from the VM. The autoscale and autoposition only affects the world coordinates, it does not shift the mesh coordinates as it was saved out of Poser. Poser is quite similar, when you export an obj as 'morph target' it means you are exporting mesh in local coordinates without any world transforms. VK's method of spawning a prop and naming the materials with Poser's grouping tool is absolutely perfect. The polygons are named in the VM, without separating them from the actual mesh, and the MT worked. I moved her eyebrows as a test and the morph worked exactly as it should.

I found local coordinates. Once, once, I got materials to groups, I cannot repeat it. No matter though, I got the dread, "wrong number of vertices" message when I tested the save. The stock works as a morph, but Carrara save - no. I guess I have a jinx.

you can make the materials polymeshes, yeah. I do that regularly when I go to render in Carrara, so I can move materials around or delete them when I need to in the VM. You do that on import when you select vertex primitives, but the morph won't work right if you do that. Using the Poser group tool will name the material polygons perfectly without disrupting the mesh on import to Carrara. (come to think of this... maybe thats why V3 saves in Carrara when I go to render her?!) I followed VK's instruction to the letter and it worked perfectly.

this is the import morph dialog

this is the export morph dialog. I find it easier to post pictures, as I have a bad habit of transposing my directions.

yeah, the carrara save for a morph won't work for me either... BUT... hmmm. I'm going to have to try something with importing materials as polymeshes, and seeing if I can get Humpty Dumpty V3 head to save or to go back together again as a morph...

no go, it reorders the polygons :( But it does save when you import the head as vertex primitives with materials as polymeshes, and that's probably why I can save my Dina and V3 scene files without problems... Unfortunately you'll have to export intermediate steps out as obj until we find out what the problem is. I think you're right, there's some upper limit to how many polygons you can have in an object.

just reported the save problem to the Carrara list and to Eovia, maybe it gets fixed :) I think ol' V3 pushed Carrara pretty far this time! g