CGTalk - exporting morph targets?

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capone_adam

01-19-2005, 12:55 AM

Hi, I made a character a while back which had morph targets. I'm now wanting to make a new character but with the head of the old character, with the morph targets. From what I see you cannot save them as a file but you could merge them into the new scene and 'reconnect' them to a new morph. Only thing is, I'm going to have to adjust the neck area as its going on a new model and also the neck in general was one of the main weaknesses of the last model. But I'm aware that if you edit the geometry the moprhs mess up?

Basically I would really appreaciate any suggestions/advice on this, thanks

EricChadwick

01-19-2005, 01:30 PM

Typically I attach the body to the head, so you could clean up the neck at that point in the stack...

Skin (weight head verts to a single bone, animate body)
Edit Mesh/Poly (attach body to head, weld neck verts, optionally change model)
Morpher (load head targets, animate head)
Editable Mesh/Poly (head model)

But tweaking the existing head morph targets can be difficult. One way I've done it is to arrange the stack like this...

Edit Mesh/Poly (edit the head)
Morpher (load the head targets, all set to 0)
Editable Mesh/Poly (original head model)

Then I snapshot the completed model, snapshotting each target in turn, to make the new targets. Some of the new verts won't "know" where to go, but at least the vert order will be maintained. You can also add a Symmetry modifier on top to reduce the workload.

I made a video that includes that last method, look for Content Modeling towards the bottom here...
http://www.whatif-productions.com/video.htm

PEN

01-19-2005, 02:33 PM

You can also edit the base model with an edit poly mod below morpher and then copy the edit poly mod to all the targets and reload them.

EricChadwick

01-19-2005, 02:53 PM

I would have thought that would just push all the targets' vertices into the same shape as the base. Guess I should try this out, could be a real time saver, thanks for the post.

capone_adam

01-19-2005, 03:05 PM

Thanks all,

PEN, I'm sure its just me misunderstanding but what do you mean when you say 'copy the edit poly mod'...is this another vital part of max I have never come across, you can copy mods?, I tried right clicking on a mod but there was no copy option?

capone_adam

01-19-2005, 03:10 PM

Hey thanks all,

...but if I click on my edit poly under the morpher I am forced to collapse it, which surely isn't right? I also tried right clicking it but 'copy' option does not highlight...

EricChadwick

01-19-2005, 03:16 PM

You cannot copy the base modifier (Editable Poly or Editable Mesh), but you should be able to copy an Edit Poly or Edit Mesh placed above the base.

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