topic Re: [Maya 2016] Blendshapes Across Separated Meshes? Best Work flow / How To? in Maya Forum

[Maya 2016] Blendshapes Across Separated Meshes? Best Work flow / How To?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 08:30:35 GMT

We have a character that is split up into many pieces which will be used in a game. They need to be separated in order to do runtime customization and swapping. These pieces also should have / share blend shapes. This is fine for the head, as it is separated and contained. But we would like to have blendshapes that effect the body entirely, such as weight gain, muscular or skinny.

The problem here is that say for the arms, they are split into three pieces: upper, lower and hand. If I want to inflate them in size, they ALL must change uniformly for a good result. Doing each piece individual makes this impossible.

Currently what is done is the blendshape is done on a version of the character that is not rigged and not split up. Then this 'proxy' mesh is cut up, and then each corresponding piece is transferred to main rigged and split up mesh by selecting the proxy piece, shift + selecting the matching piece and then Deform -> Blend Shape Options - Create. This is of course extremely tedious and the character cannot be exported without the proxy mesh.

Is there an easy way to have blend shapes across this separated mesh with ease of creation / use? I have scoured the web but it seems no one has spoken about such a case.

Software: Maya 2016

Engine: Unity 3D 5.3.2p1

OS: Windows 10

Re: [Maya 2016] Blendshapes Across Separated Meshes? Best Work flow / How To?

EthanShilling — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 11:32:56 GMT

So are you asking if it is possible to have one blendShape deformer affect multiple meshes instead of having one defermer per mesh?

This is possible (as with all Maya deformers) by selecting all the sperate meshes and running the following mel command:

deformer -type blendShape

This creates one new blendShape deformer (without any targets) attached to all the selected meshes.

Then when you add a new target, you will be able to sculpt all the meshes together as one complete target.

Hope this is what you're looking for.

Ethan

Re: [Maya 2016] Blendshapes Across Separated Meshes? Best Work flow / How To?

EthanShilling — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 12:47:50 GMT

My last post has the issue that you still need to sculpt the meshes after separation, which means that the edges along the seams that should always be connected are going to be difficult to deal with.

This might be a better alternative for your situation:

1. Start with your un-separated /un-rigged mesh.

2. create a copy of the mesh by selecting it and using the following script (or if you have Maya 2016 bonus tools you can use 'Duplicate as Mesh Reference' instead):

string $selectedShapes[] = `ls -sl -s -dag -lf`;
string $newMesh = `createNode "mesh"`;
connectAttr ($selectedShapes[0]+".outMesh") ($newMesh+".inMesh");
sets -e -forceElement initialShadingGroup $newMesh;

3. With the new (copied) mesh, split it up into the individual pieces (as you've always done), but keep ALL of the history as you do this.

4. Then with the original mesh, attach the blendshape deformer.

5. Now you can sculpt the blendshapes with the original mesh and because the separated meshes are connected with history, they will automatically update. So you no longer need to keep re-separating the meshes each time you make a change.

Note: I'm not suggesting you build this into the rig directly, but instead use this simply as a means of creating all the separated blendShapes quickly, which you can then export or make copies of (and so removing all the history).

So the general work-flow would be:

-add new target to the original mesh.

-sculpt it.

-duplicate or export (without any history) the separated meshes.

-go back to the original mesh and switch off the target, and create a new target... and so on.

Does this make sense?

Now admittedly, you would still need to connect the final separated shapes into the rig manually, but the whole splitting up process is more streamlined.

Hope this helps.

Re: [Maya 2016] Blendshapes Across Separated Meshes? Best Work flow / How To?

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 02:40:12 GMT

Thank you SO MUCH for responding! I'm on Snow-Okami's team and we were getting so frustrated. We searched and searched for a tutorial or an answer online, but no such luck. Snow-Okami then posted this. We honestly didn't think we'd get a response, let alone a well explained / detailed one. Much appreciated!!

Now, to get to work...

Re: [Maya 2016] Blendshapes Across Separated Meshes? Best Work flow / How To?

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 02:43:33 GMT

Thanks so much aflockofpixels, you really saved us on this one! Super appreciate you taking the time to write out such a detailed response. Hope this can help others who want to do the same thing.

Re: [Maya 2016] Blendshapes Across Separated Meshes? Best Work flow / How To?

EthanShilling — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 10:25:35 GMT

Glad to help out