Exporting head

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This message has been edited so it can be used for a tutorial

In this tutorial, we'll prepare Michael 3's head so we can use it to create morphs in Hexagaon.

Ron Knights (Altered_Ego)

[Lister]

A.E., I haven't looked at the tutorial you are referring to, so I don't know what it says. But I DO know Poser. ;-)

Yes, you are correct. To export Michael's head from poser, you should uncheck "universe" (which will auto-uncheck everything else in the hierarchy) and then check just the head (don't export the eyes). Also, when the OBJ save options box comes up, make sure only the top and bottom boxes are checked.

One major caveat for Poser users:
When you export left- or right-hand body parts, Hexagon's clone function won't work properly because the clone gets flipped on the object's boundary box edge instead of the body center. If you force the clone to flip on 0, the math isn't close enough to satisfy Poser, and the resultant morph target warps the model.

How I get around it:
I export both sides as an object file.
I import this into Hex, and weld them (because symmetry mode doesn't work on 2 different pieces)
I do my alterations using symmetry mode.
Tough part:
I turn off symmetry mode.
Using the align mode, I make a copy of my work (I place the copy above the original).
Using point selection and lasso, I select half of one model and delete it.
Then I select the other half from the other model and delete it.
Then I move the top half down next to the second half.
Now they are mathematically aligned properly.
I hide one half and export the other.
Then I hide the other half, show the first, and export it.
Both morphs will then import properly back into Poser.

A real PITA, I know. And I'd really appreciate it if someone could show me an easier way. But until then, at least this works... ;-)

[Altered_Ego]

I'm going to share what I've learned so far. There were some mistakes in the tutorial that came with Hexagon 2. Maybe you can help me clarify what I don't know.

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We need to do some prep work to get Michael 3 ready to use in Hexagon.

Let's load Michael 3 into Poser. For the purposes of this tute, I've selected Michael 3's body, and renamed it "M3."

Here's the Adobe Acrobat version of the tutorial.

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This screen was edited to go with the new version of the tute.

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Screen2

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This is the part where the original Hexagon tutorial was wrong.

Bear in mind that we only want to export the Head.

The best way to accomplish this goal is to remove the check from Universe.

Now there are no checkmarks!

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Now let's select ONLY the head. Do not select the eyes.

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screen3

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see screen3

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Now we're in Hexagon. We want to import wavefront.obj.

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see previous screen

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Let's go to the left and click Skin Scalp. Note that it's now highlighted.

Drag an arrow to see some changes.

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The top of the head should be higher now.

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Let's export this head as a wavefront.obj.

If you previously imported your file at a Import scale factor of 100, you’ll want to change the Export scale factor to .01.

Let's call it m3head.

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Now let's switch to Poser and load Michael 3. Let's select his head.

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Now let's click on Object, Load Morph Target.

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screen8

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screen9

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This screen can be deleted