Person Atom Basics
The Person Atom is the heart and soul of Virt-a-mate. It’s safe to say it is exactly why everyone loves this program. The Male and Female models are Genesis 2 models available with the core install of Daz Studio. In fact many of the skins, Hair and clothing available for the Genesis 2 characters are either already integrated into VaM or easily imported using VaM's built in tools.
Adding a Person Atom
There are two ways to access the Add Atom Menu to add a Person Atom to your scene.
The first is directly from the
Base UI while in Edit mode. By clicking on the following Icon:
“Open Add Atom Menu To Add Person Atom" which will open the Add Atom menu with the Person Atom add option already selected.
Clicking on the “Add Atom” button
Will then add a default Person Atom to your scene. For more information please see the
Base_UI wiki page.
The second way is by accessing the “
Scene Add Atom” tab from within the
Main UI Menu:
Which also opens the Add Atom menu. From there you can select the “People” Category, select “Person” atom and then Click on the “Add Atom” button to add it to your scene.
For more information please see.
Add_Atom Wiki page.
Selecting A Person Atom
You can select the Person Atom directly by selecting its “Root Control” icon within the scene. This node is the Person Atom’s central control giving you access to all of its core editing features and allowing you to position the entire person control rig anywhere within your scene.
The “Root Control” Icon.
The
Base ui also has a shortcut for quickly selecting the Person Atom Root. This is handy in complex scenes where you can’t immediately find the root node or easily click it.
“Cycle Select Person Atoms” will select the first created person Atom and then cycles through the roots of all other Person Atoms loaded into the scene.
When you have selected the “Root Control” of the Person Atom. The Person Atom UI will appear just above the Base Ui.
There are a lot of options available in this panel and it can feel overwhelming at first. However the very basics of customizing your character are as follows:
Changing Skin Color and Sex
Person Skin Select
The “Skin Select” Tab is where you can choose from all of our built in Female and Male skins. When selecting a male or female skin the Person Atom will change to the appropriate sex. Selecting the material skin of the person atom is the only way to change the sex of the Person Atom.
The following documents list the default skins that come with VaM. We have 44 different skins available.
VaM_Wiki_Female_Skin_Library
27 Female Skins in Total: 17 Daz Studio Skins, and 10 Custom skins created by RenVR.
VaM_Wiki_Male_Skin_Library
17 Male Skins in Total: 9 Daz Studio Skins, 3 Custom Skins Created by Jackaroo and 5 Futa Skins Created by WeebUVR.
Morphing the Person Atom
These two tabs are where you can change the physical aspects Of your person atoms. They are broken down in male and female categories and subcategories of morphs and poses. All of which can be used on either sex. Please follow the page links for more detailed information.
”Female Morphs”
Person_Female_Morphs
”Male Morphs”
Person_Male_Morphs
Adding Hair
This tab allows you to add existing hair or create custom hair for your person atom. Please be aware that the library of hair displayed is based on the chosen sex of your character. Male and Female hair is not interchangeable.
”Hair”
Person_Hair
Adding Clothes
This tab is where you can dress your person atom. Like Hair the clothing library displayed is based on the chosen sex of your character. Male and Female clothes are not interchangeable.
”Clothing”
Person Clothing
Understanding The Person Atom Rig
The Person Atom rig is unique in that it is two separate rigs nested within a single mesh body.
The first rig is called the “Control Rig” and is the front facing UI that drives the Person atom. It is defined by the Green and Red joint controls as illustrated in these “joint Controls” images below.
Joint Controls
The second rig, illustrated here using the Debug Joints, is what drives the actual mesh of the person. This is called the “Mesh Rig”. The Mesh Rig is technically invisible in VaM, it can not be directly selected and posed, only influenced by the Control Rig, scripted plugins or pose morphs that influence the fingers, toes and genitals.
The Control Rig drives the position and rotation values of the Mesh Rig. Changing the values of Spring and Force of the Controls in the
Joint Control Tab or the
Joint Physics Tab affect how it influences the underlying Mesh Rig.
In this example changing the values of the Spring across all joints, in the
Person Control & Physics2 tab, allows the Mesh Rig to drop away from the Control Rig.
In this example the Hold Position Spring of the Hand Control Joint is dropped to “0” allowing the Mesh Rig of the hand to fall away. Increasing the Hold Position Spring brings the Mesh Rig back into alignment.
In this example the Mesh Rig for the hands, feet and head are being driven by the plugin “CycleForceMultiDirection.cs” included with the install of VaM. The plugin is written to influence the Mesh Rig of an atom and not the control rig itself.
Posing
Having the mesh rig and control rigs separate makes the process of posing and animating a Person Atom much easier. It allows the user to precisely pose or animate the Control Rig at the same time allowing the Mesh rig enough flexibility to not cause a physics explosion when interacting with other physics driven atoms.
There are two settings within the core joint control that directly affect posing. For a detailed breakdown please read about the
Control & Physics 2 Tab and the
Person Atom Joint Control.
In essence there are two different settings that influence posing in VaM. The first is the default control setting of “On” which locks the control rig in place
The second is “Comply” that allows you to move the entire rig around by pushing it into place.
