topic Re: Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices? in 3ds Max Forum

Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices?

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 16:32:23 GMT

I essentially want to morph (and eventually animate) one object into another. I have 2 models - a soda bottle and a telephone. They were both modeled completely independently and have a different number of polys and verts. Is there a way to achieve a simple morph?

Re: Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices?

10DSpace — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 17:36:57 GMT

Morph cannot handle different numbers of verts, but you could apply a morph modifier to each separate object and bring them toward each other. Then with visibility track fade out 1 object and fade the other in in transition frames. Not simple maybe, but could work for you. Hope it helps.

Re: Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices?

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 17:42:35 GMT

Gotcha. I came across this tutorial on youtube. Not sure I fully understand it, but it seems to accomplish what I want to do. Lots of moving verts around to get them close to each other. Do you fully understand what is being done?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRtCr0OlyWw

Re: Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices?

10DSpace — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 20:48:41 GMT

@Anonymous

Thanks for posting that link to the video. That is a very cool trick that I think I may have seen once but completely forgot about. It lets you create a morph target for 2 very different objects in terms of shape, topology and number of vertices.

Do you fully understand what is being done?

Basically, the wolfhead and the human head are both very different in terms of total number of vertices and the topology and the overall shape. So what he did was to create a copy of the wolfhead and using various standard Editable poly tools he moved and scaled the wolf head to envelop the human head being careful to position key anatomical features like the eyes and mouth so that they overlay each other. Then he applied a turbosmooth modifier set at 3 iterations to get plenty of resolution on the wolf head mesh and then used the conform compound object to conform the wolfhead to the human head. Then he applied an edit poly modifier on top of the wolf conform object (which now looks like the human head). Lastly, he went back to the original wolf head and applied a turbosmooth modifier and set the number of iterations to 3 (to match the number of verts in the soon to be morph target, wolf head). Then he applied a morpher modifier to the original wolf head and selected the modified wolf head that had been conformed to the human head as the morph target. That's it.

The guy goes fast with no audio explanation, but if you slow the video down and repeat the steps it works.

Thanks again for posting the video. I will be writing these steps down for future reference. Needless to say this is a better solution than my original post.

Re: Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices?

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 21:11:36 GMT

@10DSpace

Cool, glad you like it. So I guess I'm still wondering... does the wolf and human head end up having the same number of verts before the morph actually works?

Or is what he's doing a workaround and let's you achieve the same "look" but still having a different number of verts on two very different pieces of geometry?

Re: Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices?

10DSpace — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 21:40:35 GMT

@Anonymous

Since he used a copy of the wolf head with same number of verts as original wolf head and just shaped it into the human head and added a turbo smooth with same number of iterations then sure, the human shaped wolf head morph target and the original wolfhead have the same number of verts.

Re: Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices?

10DSpace — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 22:37:43 GMT

If this still isn't clear, think of the human head as just a passive reference for the shaping of wolf head morph target. So it doesn't matter how many verts the passive reference has. It is the morph target and object to which the morpher modifier is applied that must match in the number of verts.

Re: Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices?

10DSpace — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 04:04:26 GMT

For anyone who is interested I have attached an overview and a step-by-step for the process in the video which I created for my own reference. There is 1 step (step 6 in the attached) that is not obvious involving the Conform Compound Object that would be easy to overlook. I hope it is useful to someone.

Re: Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices?

10DSpace — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 13:18:50 GMT

After working through a few more examples, it seems clear that the extra polygons created by the Conform Compound object are a copy of the "Wrap To" mesh that must act as a projection cage for the operation. I updated the attached word document to reflect this for information purposes. The directions are the same, i.e., these extra projection cage polygons must be deleted as explained in step 6.

Re: Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices?

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 13:47:31 GMT

@10DSpace

Thank you! I'm going to try this out now 🙂

Re: Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices?

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 14:26:10 GMT

@10DSpace

On other thing... does the morph object and target have to be anything specific? (editable poly, editable mesh, etc.)

I'm assuming an edit poly will work?

Re: Morphing Shapes -Can it be done with different number of Vertices?

10DSpace — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 14:50:54 GMT

@Anonymous

I'm assuming an edit poly will work?

Absolutely, Editable Poly/ Edit poly works. Workflow is based on it and the edit poly toolset.