crucial blendshape mistake....(noob)

[proximity]

ok perhaps I wasn't being clear here.

has anyone else had the problem with an object with blendshapes inwhich when you rotate the entrire object blendshapes no longer evaluate properly 'locally.'

My problem is that when my character is lying face down is face targets behave as if there trying to move in world space.
Has anyoneone else had this problem?

please reply, and make my day.....

[GrafOrlok]

Your blendShapes are probably in the wrong deformation order. Let me ask you when you use the blendShapes, are they moving back to their original position? This is what happens when the blendShapes are deformed last in the deformation chain. You deform the geometry by transforming the joints and then you deform the geo by using a blandShape.

RMB over your geometry and choose inputs->All inputs... and you get a list of all the inputs of the geometry. MMB drag your blendShape node to the other side of the skinCluster node. You should have the skinCluster node above the blendShape node.

/Staffan

[proximity]

I think the problem is a little more subtle, but very noticeeable. I will have to post a few times so to be clear about this very annoying problem.

Mr Orlok, I can't change the order in which these things calculate, if I try to move the parrallelBlender node below the skin cluster the head flies back to the orgin and it loses all connections, ie skin cluster and tweak nodes are removed from the input list. As there are few inputs there is nothing really I can do in the deformation order to fix this, nothing seems obviously wrong.

Heres a pic of inputs.

[proximity]

here's to illustrate the rotate problem as well. Everything works fine while the character whilst rotating in Y. but when you rotate him in z the problem occurs. Here is a left eye blink example....

At r 0 0 0

[proximity]

at r 50 0 0.

(sorry for posting so many times- I need a website :blush: )

[BigSky]

did you make your blends after you skinned it?
To check:

Go to edit>evaluateNodes>ignore all

then select skeleton and > go to bind pose

Or:

Are you getting double transforms on your blend? Ie, are any of your blends got any imputs?

[misterdi]

Could you give us a snap shot of your hypergraph connection to this head?. It seems strange that the parallelblender is on top of the list. It should blending between the two blendshape node before the chain, unless you add that parallel blend node after you have skinned the head.

The ideal connection should be from blendshape1 and blendshape2 goes into the parallel blend and output the result as skinClusterGroupParts.

BTW: is all weight of the skin cluster is set to 1 for the whole head?. Otherwise you might have some sort deformation of the eyelid when you rotate the joint.

[proximity]

@bigsky- yes I did do all my blendshapes after I skinned. There are no double transforms on blends. they just screw up (as stated ) when you rotate the character thru x ie up and down.
when i rotate the head side to side blends still work correctly....

@Misterdi- i check on the graph ed and everything is weighted right. If i rotate the neck joint for example everything behaves/deforms correctly its only when i do a blend that something crazy happens.

thanks for taking time out to look at my problem it's really appreciated.

[colt]

Stupid question, but when you say you rotate your character, what exactly do you rotate? The root node of your skeleton? Did you grouped your blendshapes to this node, or your mesh?

[proximity]

ok, I'm going to try an emulate what I did for this character and as you will see how things don't quite work right. Feel free to follow along at home!

I will have to split this into 2 parts bcos of the file limit, but what I'm doing is pretty simple- please tell me what I'm doing wrong!

1. make a cube.
2. smooth bind all default settings. duplicate, unlock transforms and move.
3. make two targets in this case; house and pointything.
4. make the blendshape with parrallel. See next post for image...
5. set both to 100% in Bshape window.
6. rotate from master joint 180% note the problem.

[floid parkins]

Did you delete the history before creating the blendshapes

[proximity]

@Mr Parkins- no I didn't del history in this instance, but i just tried it on this test cube scene and it made no difference...


edit: hmmm the image didn't upload right.... try again.

[misterdi]

Proximity, I have check your hypergraph snapshot and your workflow, seems to me the problem came from the use of parallelblend of the blendshape.

The reason I believe that you use parallel blend is due to the fact you have skin your object before adding blendShape, which you don't want to lose your effort weighting the skin for so many hours.

So the solution is simple, don't use parallel blend, just modify the data flow in hypergraph.

Here I'm using your example with the cube.

This is the original hypergraph snapshot.

As you see, the shape came from a node called pCubeShape, and goes into 2 node which is the blendShape1 and a tweak1 node which then goes to the skinCluster1 node. Result of the blendShape1 and skinCluster1 the goes into a parallelBlend1 node which then create the final shapenode.

Since we need to remove the parallelBlend1 node and put the blendShape1 in front of the skinCluster1 node, drag and drop the tweak1 node to blendShape1.

A relationShip editor will be opened. Connect Output Geometry[0] to Input[0]->Input[0].InputGeometry.
This will make sure if you tweak the base shape it will be carried over to blendShape1 node.

Next drag and drop blendShape1 node to the skinCluster1 node, and connect again the Output Geometry[0] to Input[0]->Input[0].Input Geometry.
This will tell maya that the shape as result of the blendShape1 nnode to be used by skinCluster1 node.

Next step drag and drop skinCluster1 node to pCubeShape1 node, and connect again the Output Geometry[0] to In Mesh.
This tell maya to use the result of the skinCluster1 as the final input mesh of the shape node.

Look at the next message

[misterdi]

This is the result in hypergraph of the new connections.

But we still have parallelBlend1 node dangling in the view without really doing nothing. So you can safely now delete the parallel Blend1 node, to clean up un-necessary node.

This method only works in certain condition and as you re-arranged the flow it always be safer to have a couple of back-up first before changing the hypergraph.

Condition to be made:
1. When you create the blendshape, you have to be in bind pose.
2. otherwise there should be another tweaknode to handle this.
3. The parallel blend is only use because you create the blendShape after skinning, no other purpose.
4. Ask Alias why behaviour of parallel blend is not intuitive enough.

Look at next message

[misterdi]

But as final snapshot I'll post the hypergraph snapshot after deleting the parallelBlend.

And look at the input Connection list, you will see now blendShape was under skinCluster and no parallelBlend anymore.

BTW: For you kids, don't try this at home.

:p
:beer:

[proximity]

cheers misterdi! :applause:

I will have to print this out and follow along step by step, but I can sorta see what you are doing.
I will give it a shot tomorrow!


:)

[proximity]

yo, problem is SOLVED!!!! Misterdi, I owe you a beer!

Actually when I applied this thought process to my main character is quite daunting with so many connections but its just the case of narrowing it down trial and error.

Thanks everyone for there suggestions. (yay)

:cool:

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