mcjLagEffect Tutorial 2016

Introduction

mcjLagEffect is a free script for Daz Studio initially published in spring 2010

the release page is here : https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjlageffect

Typically it replicates the animation of a figure onto a skirt with a short delay, and this gives the appearance of dynamic clothing

Let's see if it still works !

The test scene/animation

A few notes about this scene

Tamoka's skirt is in fact a prop

That's why it is not affected by the leg movements

I made this skirt as a figure a while ago for Aiko3,

and fit'ed it to Genesis ( Tamoka)

but it wasn't reacting too well to this dance

and it was too short for our purpose

so i converted it to .obj format and modified it

then i parented it to Tamoka's hip bone

i also increased the number of facets because the d-forms will

look better when all the twisting and turning is added

another way to get this is to apply a SubDivision to the clothing

This is found in the Daz Studio menu : Edit/Object/Geometry/Convert to subD menu

Adding the D-Form

I Select the root node of the skirt and do a Create / D-Form

by default the field is centered ... well actually it seems a bit higher than the center

we want the dform to pull the bottom of the skirt, in a way that lags-behind

... relative to where the hip would bring the skirt

note how i squashed the d-form field and how i made it very wide and deep

the bottom rows will swing wildly, the top rows will swing less and the waist belt wont move

i could probably make it grab a few more rows, but not the waist band!

another important note: by default Daz Studio created a d-form field with all sorts of bizarre offsets and rotations

before fixing it to my liking, i zeroed XTranslate, ZTranslate, and all the rotations

The D-Form Base

by default the D-Form Base created by Daz Studio had all sorts of offsets and rotations

that i zeroed, Xtranslate, Z Translate, All the rotations, zeroed

i moved the base up a bit ( YTranslate )

we wont move the D-Form Base from now on

Now, when i X-Rotate the D-Form , the skirt sways back and forth

when i z-rotate the D-Form, the skirt sways sideways

Understanding what's going on

Since the dform and dform-base are parented to the skirt which is parented to Tamoka's hip

they both move together, the d-form has no effect on the skirt

if we deport in time the orientation of the d-form, but we leave the d-form-base alone

the d-form will tilt and sway and spin, relative to the d-form base

the skirt should see some action !

Follow the leader

mcjLagEffect needs something that acts as "the leader" and something that acts as "the follower"

we already know the follower will be the d-form

we cant use the d-form as the leader,

so we will create something that acts (travels) the same way as the d-form presently does

Create a Daz Studio Primitive cylinder, 10 cm tall, 2 cm in diameter

parent it just like the d-form ... to the D-Form base

select the d-form node, do a Edit/Copy selected item ( ctrl-c)

select the cylinder, do a Edit/Paste selected item ( ctrl- v )

there you go, the cylinder will travel along with us

Now the scary moment where we test the old dusty script

According to the instructions,

well that's interesting, it means we could simply select the D-Form as the leader and the D-Form base, which is its parent

would serve as the leader! This may work since i think they are perfectly aligned by default

or we could select the D-Form and secondly the D-Form base

But since we went through all the trouble of creating our dear leader cylinder ...

we select the D-Form, followed by the cylinder

and we run the mcjLagEffect.dsa script for Daz Studio 3 and 4

my animation is 15 frames at 15 frames per second, so i used a delay of 3 frames instead of 5

and it's an Orientation-only delay,

Success it Worked !