Cineversity

Hello!

I have a setup with a spline with several posemorphs that I would like to copy from one object to another.
This other object is actually identical, with the same amount of points and so on. I have just copied and pasted it from one scene to another.

I have used the hierarchy option in the tag so that I could have the spline somewhere deeper within my rig and keep the tag on my Null with all the other controllers.
I think I am missing a little something here as I can manage to make this setup work when I copy these things to a new scene.
What I do is this:
- Copy & paste spline
- Move the PoseMorph tag to a new null and copy & paste that
- Relink the spline in the PM tag Inclusion/Destination
- Move the different sliders and nothing happens…

Is there a logical step I am missing here?

As a add-on question, is it possible to create PM point poses while the tag is not on the deformed object itself? F.ex. on a null somewhere else in the scene?
I haven’t been able to make that work.

Hi Racecar,

So far my understanding of this Hierarchy option is, the “Object” in question must have the same position in the Hierarchy. The Hierarchy itself must not be based on the same kind—if those objects are not “recorded”.

If only the spline was “recorded”, then it should work. Keep in mind that such a hierarchy could have several object with the same name and kind in it: Which one would you like to have affected then? I checked it here again, to see if there was a change, but so far I can’t see anything.

If the PoseMorph tag sits directly on the Spline in the original set up, my suggestion would be to -not- use the Hierarchy option. Place the Tag then directly to the Alternative Spline.

Let me know if I have understood your set up correctly. :o)

All the best

Sassi

Hello!

That is good to know! Because of the way it is setup I guess I was excepting the workflow to be as easy as replacing the link in the PM Inclusion/Destination field, especially since there was only 1 object at it is 100% similar to the one I “recorded” before… Well things are never that easy

I will see if I can copy and paste it if I have the tag directly on the spline. The problem with that is that if the spline is deep down in my hierarchy it is a bit difficult to reach the morph sliders.
Relinking all of these to new user data sliders would be to cumbersome…

Just a thought… Is it possible to select one object in the viewport that actually selects another?
Meaning if I have a null visible in the viewport that f.ex. looks like a circle, could I select it and make it show my PM tag sliders?
I believe the visual selector has a similar function? But it would be good to have everything selectable around the rig for easier/quicker access. Also it would make the selecting in the rig more consistent.

Franck

Thanks for the feedback, Franck.

If you have external objects which you use as “Target”, go to the Advanced Tab of the PoseMorph, while in Edit mode, and there you find your “link-field” to (re) place the objects. I was not certain if you have had created all your “morphs” on the Spline itself, or what else was the set up. (Example files support the communication here tremendously. ;o)

From the help-manual:
Destination
Here you can Drag & drop the object which should be affected by the Pose Morph tag. This feature allows you to move the Pose Morph tag freely in your hierarchy so you can have better access to it when animating (place the Pose Morph tag on a “morphs” Null object, for example). If Hierarchies are activated, just drag the Parent object in the Destination slot. Note that objects can still be edited when the Pose Morph tag is used that way. Simply select your morph target and edit the linked object.
This option allows to use the tag on any Object, without having this object the one which will be morphed. With the list below you can stop for example that hierarchically objects might be affected.

Let me share some other thoughts here, if you don’t mind. You can set names to pretty much anything that is in the Object-Manager (OM). If you name all these—even deep down in the hierarchy—objects (here the spline) with additional “codes”, such as “abc”, or “want to see now”, “5208”, what ever, you can open a second OM and use the magnifying-icon to search for exactly those. In the appearing list will be only objects with, e.g., “5208” in the list. So you could just click in the + sign of the OM1 and get a new one. Use the search and done. OR: use the any OM with the Bookmark options. There are more options, but these seem to be the best fit from my point of view.

If that is established, perhaps set the parameters of the Tag in question as HUD (when active), and with a click on the icon (Pose Morph) in the OM you get all the parameters wanted in that moment on the screen.

I hope that helps a little bit to streamline your work. I certainly believe that you know all of that, but in my experience, they are sometimes ignored—even they save a lot of time.

All the best

Sassi

You are right! Scene files are much easier to illustrate the problem.

Here are two new ones where I have simplified my problem:

1 - “Spline Morph-01.c4d”
    Original file with spline point morph “recorded on spline and then moved to a Null Ctrl object.
    Works fine.

2 - “Spline Morph-Copied one element at a time and relinked the tag-01.c4d”
    Copied one element at the time and relinked the spline to the null.
    Stops working :(

If I copy both elements from the original file at the same time into a new file, everything works fine though…
Is this working as it should?

Yes, I can recreate the problem. If they are separated and then later in a new scene brought together, the function is gone.

I tried to save the Tag by-it-self as a Tag Preset. The memory of the Pose1 morph was gone as well.

My suggestion, use the method of copying all parts as group as you mentioned.

Save the source scene-file as copy and delete in the copy everything not related to the morph set up. Save this state of the scene as C4D file. In the scene file where you need that set up working, use the Merge option and merge the “copy” scene and go from there. I can’t tell if that is in any case working working for you, as I had (of course) a simplified version only.

I would like if you could get in contact with the support and clear the “memory-loss” of the Tag. I’m not certain if that is normal or perhaps a problem. I tested it in R14 as well and got the same result for anything said above.

Good luck with the few things that works. I hope the Object-Manager>File>Save/Load Tag Presets will work one day for this as well, and with it the option to copy and paste among scenes.

Just a quote from the Help-Content:
“All morph targets are created and stored in the tag itself (technically, it’s simply the changes between the original object and the morph targets that are stored). ... ”
This means the memory should be only in the Tag, not outside or anywhere else. In my book, this should lead to the function that you expect, if I got your input so far correctly.

All the best

Sassi

I almost thought I was going crazy with all of this.
Good to know that this happened for you as well. I will contact Maxon for this and for a couple of other Spline Point moth crash related issues.

I will try to work around this issue and copy it all in one go. I’ll try the merge scene option as well. That’s a good idea.
Thanks again for your input :D

Thank you, Franck, for creating a Support ticket.

If you have had crashes, that is certainly something that needs to be addressed ASAP. So your input here will certainly safe someone else’s sanity in the future.

Have a good one.

Sassi

In case anybody else is wondering about this here is the reply I got from Maxon support:

“your issue is expectable behaviour because copying the objects one by one,
the connection between tag and object is lost completely and there is no option
inside the tag to reconnect a missing object.

You can only use target objects to morph between from the beginning and copy
these objects seperatly, because they can be set up inside the tag separately.”

Thanks for sharing, Franck.

Very nice of you to post this. This comes as a surprise to me. It doesn’t is something that I expected at all, even though I see that it happens right now. For example, if you take a “Restriction’ tag, fill it with selections and move it to a, e.g., Null, as you suggested with the tag in question. Then copy it, and paste it in a new scene. The entries of the selection names stays. I did not expect that the selection content was copied, but the “internal recordings” of the tag.  Equal names of selections will work again.
Hence the option to save Tag Presets.

There is a need to change a) the Help Manual or b) to store the data that it can be saved as Tag Preset.

Please note that this is the first time in 8 years here in the forum that I see things differently than the support-answer. There is an information/procedural conflict for me obviously and I like to clear it, one or the other way.

All the best

Sassi