Hi.

I'm making some JCMs for some torso actor bends for a figure.

In this example the figure has 4 actors of focus for the fixes. Abdomen Lower, Abdomen Upper, Chest Lower, and Chest Upper.

The figure is weight mapped and has no pre existing JCMs for these actors. Unfortunately the weight mapping isn't very good in these areas.

To address this I created JCMs to deal with the problem bends in each actor, both positive and negative degree bends at their assigned limits (on average the 30° range)... The JCMs turned out well and work well enough together within a range of normal bending that you would expect, and beyond, for a torso bend. Much better than default results. However the forward rotations (positive), at their max, of all involved actors simultaneously are showing some serious compression of the polys that still could use an all encompassing post transform/difference JCM fix layered over the already existing JCMs. Basically some smoothing and tweaking of verts.

I realize that most humans cannot bend their spines in a manner like a boiled shrimp but I usually like to create JCMs that address such absurd poses... for ummm... aesthetic reasons. The JCMs are meant for distribution so a kludge fast and dirty fix would be easy enough but I'd prefer to go the extra mile. Also, I could just include an end user manual dial for the fix but I'd rather have it operate under the hood as a normal JCM fix (I'm also creating off switch dial(s) for the JCMs)

The fix was easy enough to create in Mudbox; I posed the actors to the limit of their rotations with the JCMs I created active and exported post transform via PML and created the fix, reapplied as a difference morph. Zeroed the figure rotations and resulting JCMs leaving only the encompassing FBM active. The difference. Exported it as obj and reapplied as FBM.

So now I have the fix for all these simultaneous bends, works as needed in conjunction with/over top  the individual actor JCMs. Unfortunately I'm not terribly good at math so figuring out the proper formula for creating the dependency in the valueOps tab is eluding me.
Here are the bends concerned and fixed for each actor...

Abdomen Lower 25°
Abdomen Upper 30°
Chest Lower 30°
Chest Upper 30°

The difference fix full strength value 1

The question is; what type of operation(s) and scale math formula will I need for the FBM JCM to reach a value of one when the condition of all of these bends are met? A bit more complex than multi axis single actor fixes, perhaps, which is why I am throwing my math challenged self at the mercy of the Poser tech pantheon...

Thanks

Since you said it is a new JCM .. I'd try selecting it in the body, edit, then teach (as keyed not value) set it to 1 and select the actor/body parts bend to desired (eg abdomen lower 25) .. then select next actor/body part and repeat.. when done set to 0 and repeat .. setting actor/body part bend to 0 (or whatever number you want the JCM to start activating at)  .. finally stop teaching.  Then check to see if it works how you want, and set limits  min 0 max 1 if needed.

bwldrd posted at 5:38 AM Sat, 26 March 2022 - #4436389

Since you said it is a new JCM .. I'd try selecting it in the body, edit, then teach (as keyed not value) set it to 1 and select the actor/body parts bend to desired (eg abdomen lower 25) .. then select next actor/body part and repeat.. when done set to 0 and repeat .. setting actor/body part bend to 0 (or whatever number you want the JCM to start activating at)  .. finally stop teaching.  Then check to see if it works how you want, and set limits  min 0 max 1 if needed.

Thanks for the response. The method you propose will result in a Pose controller dial with the fix built in and controlled by the end user (via the FBM master itself, as suggested, or an additional created master), a morph controlled joint(s) rather than joint(s) controlled morph... I was trying to create a multi actor triggered jcm that works when the condition of several rotated actors is met. I already mentioned that setting it up as an end user controlled fix dial would be easy enough, looks like that's the route I'll go with as I haven't been able to figure out the formula to set it up as I wanted, yet. I was actually thinking of setting up several optional Pose controllers with built in morphs so we're on the same page there. The regular JCMs are single and 2 actor triggered dependencies.

Thanks Bwldrd