ICE cage deformer

[Anonymous]

Hi.

I'm doing a project where I need to cage deform some detailed clothes to a simulated cloth mesh.
I have it working but it's really really slow (takes about 5 mins to apply the cage deformer etc) and the scene file is HUGE because of the envelope weights of the cage deformer. and it takes ages to save.
The strange thing is that Lightwave has something which does the same as a cage deformer (fx metalink) It doesn't have any stored weights and it's practically instant.

I wonder if anyone has a clue how to make one in ICE and if they think it would be faster than XSI's original. (preferably one that doesnt need to store a bunch of weights in the scene.)

[Anonymous]

Can you post a screencapture of what you want to do and of your solution. Not sure actually what you want to achieve.

[Anonymous]

I can, but it's just as easy to describe.

I have a jacket, with lapels and such. this isn't easy or appropriate to do a direct cloth sim on, so..

I have a proxy of the jacket which doesn't have anything fancy on it, just a plain mesh that is similar to the jacket but without lapels and pockets.

I run the sim on the second, and I cage deform the first to the second.

There is no problem with this. It works fine except for the issues stated in my first post. Ie that it saves a bunch of weights with the scene, making it very slow.

I imagine that ICE would be able to do a similar job by weighting to proximity of nearby points instead of saving an envelope. thereby keeping the scene light and fast.

If that still isn't clear I can post images.

[Anonymous]

Its clear now, I am new to ICE too but this seems like something I want to try. Give me some time 🙂

[RaffaeleFragapane]

Speaking of cage deformers: ICE would still have to save the weights if you wanted performance.
A cage deformer works based on a delta, at some point you have to store a relationship between meshes in their base state, otherwise results wouldn't be consistant.
The weights are heavy because you're talking of an NxM relationship (weight table is points in one mesh by points in the other) for a proper cage, which easily ends in the tens of millions entries or more.

FX metalink in LW probably integrates and maps point velocities from one mesh to the other. It will still have a lookup table of sorts somewhere, just not the same way you have with a cage deformer since it doesn't need to arbitrarily map the weights in both directions, it's a much easier to optimize situation in terms of lookup.

You can reproduce a simulated effect like FX metalink in ICE anyway, but the maths for proper integration might be a bit tricky, or if you're happy with some primitive interpolation it's a fair bit of work with arrays, nothing out of reach though.
I might give it a go if I find sometime this week. Moving between continents again though, so no promises 🙂

[Anonymous]

well, thanks very much both of you.

[ReinhardClaus]

Ben's "binder" addon might work for that: shaders.moederogall.com/

[takitapsyop]

Pooby -

I just did something similar. My solution only worked in playback but it did the job.

Not in XSI right now but I'd suggest you look in to creating two ice trees, one in the modeling stack to initialize positions based on proximity from the slave to the master mesh (set particle stick node sets a lot of useful data) and another one in the simulation stack to actually stick the points to the master mesh.

note that this requires the simulation engine to evaluate proper but you can probably explore similar ideas to get one that is more interactive and doesn't need to play fwd to work (mine worked so I stopped and moved on to something else)

if you like contact me offline I can send you a scene later.

-T

[Anonymous]

That sounds great..
The only issue would be if Lapels and things get flattened onto the master mesh.

[takitapsyop]

Somewhere in one of the stick compounds also there is an example of how to store and accomodate the offset matrix of your point to the surface.

-T

[RaffaeleFragapane]

Alright, got some time, was bored, and started working on a compound or two.
In the meantime, here's a 2m job on an uninterpolated cage deformer you can play with.
Interpolation will come when I get bored again, or you can work on it yourself now that you have the barebones of what I was talking about with deltas.
Doesn't need to be simulated, only needs a reference object to describe the cage's base state.

e74f6ba0aa0c998abc9839401d7bb1b3.zip

[Anonymous]

That works well. How can I make you bored?

have a read through this

www.stampsales.co.uk/

[RaffaeleFragapane]

Playing with stuff, so not too bored yet.
For the time being just switch the get closest point node for a get closest location, remove the array pick (no need since get closest location returns a single location) and you should get the mesh following closely.
It's still not in full what the cage deformer does, that's a bit trickier with the context limitations, but it might get you where you want to be in terms of speed and overhead (lack thereof).

Scene attached if you're that lazy you need one :D, but it really is a matter of swapping a node and deleting another.

359f1058a29caf8e6d146723c18fd652.zip

[Anonymous]

And TDs thought they'd get more sleep with ICE out! Nope just like anything else- the more efficient it is the more they/we demand!

This is looking awesome esp. given how long you've been working at it. Amazing!

[Anonymous]

Excellent work. thanks very much ..

[RaffaeleFragapane]

That is one of the coolest things about ICE (no pun intended).
If you know what you need to do, it takes seconds to do it and it computes blazing fast.

When I said 2m to put it together I meant 2 actual minutes to wire things together and maybe reconnect one thing that was connected out of retardation.

"code less create more" was the wrong slogan imo, "f*** around at the speed of thought" would have been better.

[Anonymous]

Were the hell did you pull this ReinterpretLocationToNewGeometry Node from ?
thx,
H.

[Anonymous]

Ok, I guess it's a private compound... I'm still a newbie when it comes to ICE.

[Grahame_Fuller]

No it's there. It's just not exposed directly. Hunt around in the \Data\Presets\ICENodes directory of your install location and you can drag it into an ICE tree.

[Anonymous]

Ok, I got it... ICE is like Doom, full of secret crossings 🙂
Thanks a lot.
H.