ok, tough question- how to import morph targets from a model to another(same)

[phormis]

Ok, just to be clear...

You have one file that has your new head and its' morph targets.

You have another file that has the body rigged.

Now you want to combine the two? Is that right?

Let me know, I have a way to fix this.

-Paul

[shibumenon]

hmmmm ...... so you basically want to change the morph targets in each channel without anyone else getting a hint about it, right?

I was in a similar situation some time back.
I had all the individual morph targets in one file, and then there were plenty of max files where the animator had already keyframed morph values. When the morph targets were updated/changed we needed to update all these animation files as well.
I had written a script to solve this issue, and it worked quite well.

In your case, I guess the targets are all loaded onto the morpher, instead of them being individual meshes. I hope there is no change in the number of vertices for the head on both files.

if u can script, thats the way to go ...... hint: look for WM3_MC_BuildFromNode in the reference.

- shibu

[FabioMSilva]

not quite to either ^_^ i probably explained wrong

i have 2 scene files. both have the model with the exact same stack.
both have exacly the same number of vertices, and the exact same model.
1 has all the new morph targets with all the reaction manager things, and the other scene file has Old "useless" morph targets" but has all the body correctly rigged&weighted.

"hmmmm ...... so you basically want to change the morph targets in each channel without anyone else getting a hint about it, right?" hehe thats not the case here ^_^i just wanted to avoid setting the facial animation controllers+morph all from the biggining on the correctly rigged body. but yeah, the morph already has some animation(tought its not important right now)

paul,
"You have one file that has your new head and its' morph targets."- yes, but the new head is the same as the other in the other file. the only difference is in the morphs

"You have another file that has the body rigged." yes

"Now you want to combine the two? Is that right?" yes

the main problem, is because the body is already attached to the head(the body welded to the head is on that edit mesh modifier, so when i turn it off, the body disappears leaving only the head)

thanx for your help so far :) hope u can suggest a good solution for this.

thanx

[shibumenon]

if you wish to, zip me both files, i 'll try to look at it .... is it a personal project ?


- shibu
shibumenon74 at yahoo dot com

[FabioMSilva]

if you wish to, zip me both files, i 'll try to look at it .... is it a personal project ?


- shibu
shibumenon74 at yahoo dot com

cant do that:shrug:

[Matt-Clark]

If you're not worried about losing the animation then merge in the body with the good targets and simply cut and past the morpher modifier to the old model?

[Aearon]

i think you should do it the other way around, that will preserve all your work you have done:

- in the scene with your rigged model, export the skin data using skin utilities in the utilities panel and save
- delete the body rig from your scene containing the new and already setup morpher
- merge just your rig and the "SkinData_..." model that was output by skin utlitities from the other scene
- replace your existing skin modifier on the model with the morpher with a new one, add all the bones of the merged rig
- use skin utilities to transfer the skindata onto the model

if you have any further questions feel free to pm me too, i'll be gone over the weekend though

[phormis]

Ok so I THINK I understand now.

You have one file that has the Head with the new morph targets. You have another file that has the old head and the body together. You want to merge in the new head and replace the old one. The problem is you have an editable mesh that is attaching the body and the head.

If I am right this would be how I would handle it.

1) Bake the verts of the skin modifier (if you can).
2) Go into the old file and collapse the stack to the edit mesh modifier.
3) Delete the faces that make up the head.
4) Merge in the new head with the new morph targets and position it in the right place.
5) Copy and paste the Skin and the Skin Morph modifier onto the new head (do not copy the TurboSmooth modifier).
6) Create a snapshot of both the head and the body.
7) Attach the two snapshots together and weld the verts. This will create the "Complete" mesh.
8) Skin Wrap the new complete mesh to the Head and Body "drivers".
9) Add the Turbosmooth modifier to the new complete mesh.
10) Be happy :-)

In the future I would suggest using the "Driver" and "Complete" workflow. This way if you need to replace the head it will have no effect on your rigging. There are MANY other positives to setting up your rig this way.

Let me know if this works. If not we'll try something else.

-Paul

[PEN]

Just wonding why you can't just extract all the targets that you want from the new head, merge them into the scene with the old head and load the targets into morpher? Or have I missed something when I skimmed the thread.

Paul sounds like he has a handle on it though.

[FabioMSilva]

i appreciate all your help, but unfortunatly, none is working, since when i try to import the headmesh, max always crashes. i've even tried to destroy all the dependencies, such a links, reaction, and even deleted morpher and edit mesh modifier leaving only the head(to do as paul hormis suggested) but still no good:shrug:

guess the only way is to use the correctly rigged body and merge all the new morphers and add them to his morph. and reconfigure the reactions again(now this is the boring part). I'll have to re-do 1 / 2 hours of work.

in the end, i'll have to stick with Pen's suggestion:) since max doesnt allow me to do anything at all about it.

anyway, thank u all very much for your help

[phormis]

You have some sort of other problem there. Can you merge your models into an empty scene?

-Paul

[FabioMSilva]

no good :shrug: same thing happens(when i try to import the second one to the same New scene)
maybe it's lack of RAM??(2 gigas DDR Dual channel)

but i wonder about that...i even tried it without skin&turbosmooth modifiers on :S

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