Advanced Rigging Section

 

• Remove Custom Shapes: Remove custom shapes added by the Add Custom Shapes tool.
  
• Copy DAZ Properties: Copy DAZ properties from active object to selected objects. Don't overwrite properties that are already set.
• Convert DAZ Rig: Convert the current character to a different type of DAZ character, with a different rest pose.
• Add Extra Face Bones: In Genesis 3 and 8 characters, expressions are poses for bones in the facial rig. The face bones then become driven by rig properties and cannot be posed freely. This button add an extra layer of face bones which can be posed freely on top of the driven bones. Deprecated in version 1.6: Use Make All Bones Poseable after the morphs have been loaded instead.
  
• Add IK goals. Make selected bones into an IK chain and create an IK target.
• Add Winder. Create a winder bone that controls a chain of bones.
• Change Prefix To Suffix: Change bones names from the prefix notation used by DAZ Studio (lShldr, rShldr) to suffix notation necessary for using Blender's symmetry tools (shldr.L, shldr.R).
  
• Lock Bones: Lock location, rotation, or scale for selected bones.
  

 

Add IK Goals

IK goals and winders are useful for quickly posing long flexible object with many links, such as chains, rope, tails, etc. IK goals are best suited for chains that are fixed at both ends, whereas winders work best for chains with one free end, such as a whipping tail. From DAZ Studio we import a chain with the root bone at the center.

 

We want to control the chain with an IK goal.

Select the bones that should belong to the IK chain, and select Add IK goals. 

• Pole Targets: Add a pole target to the IK chain.
• Hide Bones: Hide the bones in the chain, except the first bone and the IK target. 
• Lock Bones: Lock location and rotation for the bones in the chain, except the first bone and the IK target. 
• Disable Bones: Disable the bones in the chain, except the first bone and the IK target.
  

A new bone (the cube) appears at the end, and we can pose the entire chain by moving and rotation this bone, and the first bone in the chain.

If Pole Targets is enabled, there is an additional pole target (also a cube) which controls the midpoint of the chain. You may want to change the pole angle in the IK constraint of the last bone in the chain.

If Hide Bone is enabled, only the first bone and the IK goal are visible.

If Lock Bones is enabled, the location and rotation channels of the intermediate bones are locked.

If Disable Bones is enabled, intermediate bones can not be selected, which we can see in the outliner.

Add Winders

A winder is another way to control a long chain. Since only one side of a winder is fixed, it is best suited to control objects like a whipping tail or male genitals, where the location of the other end-point is not so important. Winders appear in the MHX rig to control fingers and also the spine.

Select the first bone in the chain and press Add Winder. Note that all bones in the chain must have the same orientation, otherwise the result is unpredictable.

And now we can pose the entire chain smoothly by only rotating the winder bone.

Lock Bones

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