Improvements related to creating custom CC models

Votes
2

Product:
Character Creator 4

Version:
4.02

Status:
Active

Issue 8738

Improvements related to creating custom CC models

I have no reason to have or use Realusion software - I literally have no use for it - and I own it all pretty much. So don’t take this as negative, but the custom character situation kind of sucks. I find myself fighting the software constantly to get and keep a correct model.

Here are some things that might help it drive me a little less nuts.

* Allow me to rotate bones in the adjust bone editor like the manual says you can. You can only rotate them with the mesh with the proportion editor or move them in the bone adjustment editor.

* Let me use the skin weight editor with custom CC3 characters.

* Don’t default mirror to on in the editors. I rarely have a character where this is not a disaster, and I can’t count the times I’ve had to undo and uncheck. Give me a nice default of no mirror; it won’t screw up symmetric or none symmetric models, and when you want it and you have the correct model, it’s a click away.

* Give me auto bone positioning per bone. It’s terrible for some bones and messes with the mesh, but it’s also almost essential for things like hands. It’s a real pain to work around this.

* Give me the option not to do whacky bone and proportion stuff to my model when I bring it back with GoZ. I know it’s possible, but I have to jump hoops every time. If I bring my custom model in, things are off. Proportions are not 100. If I use auto bone positioning, the mesh silhouette is off. To get something that looks like the model externally, I have to export it to FBX, Maya, then import it as a CC3 character. Proportions are now 100, bones are in slightly different positions, and my model looks correct. But it’s a pain to do every time, and sometimes it crashes on the import.

* Sometimes, things will go whacky on one arm with no obvious way to address or understand what’s causing it. None of the provided tools appear able to handle it once it happens. It’s generally at the shoulder, elbow, or wrist and either involves a full 360 twist of the mesh during animations, shrinking, or ballooning. I’ll see this even when I’ve got an exact mirror arm and shoulder from the other side with no such problem.

* It would be great to get some additional helpers like correct eye blink. Headshot must be doing something to place and align those eyelashes; it would be great to get some help there. Internally or externally, that’s common and annoying work.

* It would be awesome if it was easier to use Headshot image alignment tools to help make corrects / adjustments to the eyes, nose, and face of a custom character. You have to hack it to use now - plug in an image of the original high poly model, run headshot using the current body with your custom character loaded, and update the model to get back the original head. Although unfortunately, if the generated head is much different, the image alignment tool might be too far off to be that useful. If it’s just off vertically, you can temporarily fix it by adjusting the character height.

Thanks. Love the software.

OS: Windows 11

Suggestion

Submitted bybad_character Jul 28, 2022

COMMENTS (5)

animatedbeing Sep 18, 2022

I would also like the "correct eyeblink" feature to be fixed.  It often happens when I import DAZ figures. The lashes are not easy to select with the mesh editor.
I have found I have to mess with the eyelash sliders to get close to normal. I have to keep checking to ensure the corrected lashes work for open and closed eyes.
I've attached images. Note: the settings don't work for all figures.

Attachment:

correct eye blink.png
correct eye blink with morphs.png
eyelash upper center.png
eyelash upper inner width.png

Ascensi Aug 12, 2022

I've noticed a bit more on symmetry, it's currently not available to mirror expressions for the Facial Profile Editor or Edit Mesh.. it was working before in CC4 for HIK Characters? 

Your custom character may have had the weights scrambled and this could be the reason why your mesh is distorting unless bones look fine (symmetric) in the bone editor and only after you've added an animation that the bone position becomes distorted. If that is the cause you might want to second my issue https://www.reallusion.com/FeedBackTracker/Issue/Urgent-HIK-Characters-not-correctly-being-converted-duplicate-joint-issue-confusing-CC4

bad_character Aug 11, 2022

Thanks for your notes!

I’ve noticed recently that adjust bones and proportions are not defaulting to symmetry anymore for me. Always did, so maybe that changed in one of the two recent updates. Either way, it’s great.

Another issue with symmetry stuff I’ve run into - if I copy symmetry in proportions, it only moves the bones, not the mesh. Behaves just like adjust bones, which doesn’t seem useful.

Ascensi Aug 10, 2022

If you want to use skin weights with custom CC3 Characters, export the CC3 Character to FBX and import into CC4 to be Characterized, the weight painting options will be there. Additionally you can use akeytsu to replace the body with custom mesh that may have additional arms etc and paint weights there or do it in CC4. I've asked for the same thing but this is the workaround for now. There's apparently supposed to be a major update in Sept that will allow us to transfer weights on HIK Characters and GoZ work properly (you can select all parts including the root and GoZ but then individually GoZ parts back to the same selected model with HIK Characters)

What I've noticed about the characterization process that you might have a case where the head or other body part may seem detached - the body animation can walk away from the head. This is because there should be no gaps in bone order with Characterization.. so some Characterization profiles might add an empty space between neck bones for example.

There might be an issue with symmetry, I have a custom symmetric CC3 character I'm working on, topology is completely different, it basically has 8 legs and a digestive system, and I've set it up to do mocap. The body parts are split the way Reallusion did to CC characters, the UVs are also created with the same multi material concept and organization in mind. In my case there is only the left breast bone that is flipped only with an animation added but not in bone adjustment window etc They're currently examining the issue.

The reason why I think it's symmetry related is because both Edit Mesh and weight painter don't seem to work with symmetry. For eye blinking on a custom mesh, you have to add extra mesh resolution (edge loops around the eye) and sculpt the eye lids pulled down as a morph or add eye joints externally that you can rotate with proportion.

To do whacky stuff, try to first position the bones into ideal areas and then sculpt it into shape, or do gradual GoZ steps that the bones can slowly follow after each update.
I've requested that the facial expression Editor using proportion allow us to include body bone adjustments so we can stretch the neck for the head forward morph etc

bad_character Jul 28, 2022

It looks like a couple of these issues may be related to the history of the model. 

Once the proportion / bone placement issue pops up, or the mesh glitches pop up, I can’t seem to recover from them easily (though I have somehow done it with the mesh glitches - but I don’t know how - I can do an entirely new clean wrap of the base mesh around my model mesh and GoZ that in and the issue will persist even across that - I can make the problem side completely symmetrical to the good side and it usually persists). 

I did find though, that if I stop using the same project or model, load the neutral mesh and GoZ over that, it doesn’t seem to have those two issues anymore.