topic Re: Deleted The Geo that Xgen was Built from. in Maya Forum

Deleted The Geo that Xgen was Built from.

betachannel3d — Fri, 10 May 2019 22:21:33 GMT

I was working on a set of hair and I was happy with the result. I converted this to geo and started doing some work for baking my hair onto my hair cap. At some point during my baking I must have renamed, or deleted the geometry that my xGen Interactive Groom hairs were built from. Now, when I open the scene it obviously doesn't know what to do.

Is there a way to do one of the following:

Find out the name of the old geo?
Once I know what it was using before, can I simply rename a duplicate of that old mesh and have it work?
If that doesn't work could I transfer all of the data that should be in the description to duplicate instead? If so, how?

Any help very much appreciated.

Re: Deleted The Geo that Xgen was Built from.

sean.heasley — Mon, 13 May 2019 15:05:59 GMT

Hi @betachannel3d and welcome to the community!

If you changed the name you should be able to simply change it back to what it was when you made the groom.

However if you do need to transfer the groom we actually have an article on how to do that.

From that article:

Overview

If a model changes after you have created a Description and completed grooming, you may need to transfer your groom from the first model to the second. You can use the following steps to complete the transfer process.

Bake Out

Open your original Maya file with the old model.
Open the Utilities tab.
Select Guides to Curves.
Select all of the guides for a Description.
Convert the guides into curves.
Export the curves to a new Maya file named after that Description.
Open the Outliner.
Repeat for each Description.
Select all of the XGen patches for all Descriptions.
Delete the patches which will delete the guides.
Export the XGen Collection into a file named for the Collection.

Rebuild

Open your new Maya file with the new model.
Open the Utilities tab.
Select Guides to Curves.
Import the XGen Collection file.
Select the geometry you want to bind to Description.
Bind the geometry to the Description.
Import the Maya file with the appropriate curves for the Description.
Select all of the curves.
Use Curves to Guides to create new guides on the new patches.
Repeat steps 5 to 10.
Delete all of the imported curves using the Outliner.

Maps

Your maps were all created for your original models faces. You will need to transfer those maps onto your new model.

Other Data

There are other items that will also require touch up. Anything that was patch based, or uv based, that was baked into a file will need to be recreated. Obvious exampled of this is anything that involves an XPD or XUV file. If you used the Specify Points Tool, check the points for Clumping modifiers and regenerate the maps.

Re: Deleted The Geo that Xgen was Built from.

betachannel3d — Mon, 13 May 2019 22:50:36 GMT

Hi Sean,

Thanks for the reply!

Sadly this doesn't work in my case. I don't have a version of the file where the mesh/shape is intact.

I'm using Interactive Groom and it appears that renaming the model has no effect on the Description but deleting the geometry does.

Is there a way to point a Description at a new set of geometry without the old geometry?

file -f -options "v=0;" -ignoreVersion -typ "mayaAscii" -o "C:/Users/robert.evans/Desktop/DELETE/interactiveGroomNameTest.ma";addRecentFile("C:/Users/robert.evans/Desktop/DELETE/interactiveGroomNameTest.ma", "mayaAscii");
// Warning: line 1272: The default image may not be modified. Use the -i/image flag instead. //
// File read in 0.09 seconds. //
// File read in 0.09 seconds. //

Re: Deleted The Geo that Xgen was Built from.

sean.heasley — Tue, 14 May 2019 16:37:53 GMT

Hi @betachannel3d

You cant transfer a real groom because xgen is based on ptex you need the exact same topology to transfer a groom which might not work in this case since the model was deleted.

You could try to save it as a preset and then load that preset onto a new model but again I'm not sure if this will work since the original model has been deleted.

If that doesn't work then the groom may be lost and you'll need to start with a fresh groom on the new model.

Re: Deleted The Geo that Xgen was Built from.

betachannel3d — Tue, 14 May 2019 17:07:56 GMT

Hi Sean,

Sadly neither of these possible solutions work.

In the future it would be great if there was a warning when attempting to delete a mesh that is referenced by any Xgen Description. I had the geometry and xgen preview hidden while working on other parts of the scene. I assume I deleted the required mesh while doing some scene clean up and now I've lost hours of work.

Thank fully I have the description converted into geometry so all is not lost. I've just lost the non destructive side of this hair style.

I truly appreciate the suggestions.

Thanks again for your time,

-r