I want to MORPH!!

[JZee]

I dont know about max 5 as I use Max 4 but I am sure the technique would be teh same.

There is an option for morph given in max. I am sure you'd be familiar with that. The thumb rule for it goes that there should be equal number of polygons in all the models that you wanna morph. For example if you wanna morph a human character as a duck then you should have equal number of polygons in both the models.

'Hope this help.

[wtoddk]

I've done morphs before using the "equal # of vertices" rule. I'm just naively hoping to find a plugin that will do it between 2 completely different models.

[JZee]

Hey! now that I understand it clearly what you asked; ...Sorry I dont know about it but I'd keep coming back to this query post of yours as I'm also interested in same.
'Hope you find what you are looking for.

[bibi5000]

Sandblaster can do that in a certain way. You can morph an object into another via particles.

Check the description at Digimation if it suits your needs.

http://www.digimation.com/software/asp/product.asp?product_id=80&category_id=1

[wtoddk]

wow...yeah....that looks like it might just work!!

Thanks.

[Giant]

I had understood that Particle Studio was a later version of Sandblaster, is this true. If so, perhaps you could use that!

Giant

[MFreywald]

Particle Studio and Sandblaster though similar are two different entities. Particle Studio is for particles in the conventional sense and Sandblaster is for objects into particles or particles into objects kind of thing.

[Dave Black]

Not true at all.

Particle studio does object to object morphing. No problem. Probably one of the most powerful max plugins out there.

You can take a 1 iteration teapot and morph it into a 500000 poly character.

It rocks, though it does use particles.

-3DZ

:D

[wtoddk]

Groovy. So then, 3DZealot, based on your experience, which would be your first choice to do a complex morph? Sandblaster or Particle Studio?

[bibi5000]

Download the demo at Digimation and give them a try.

Particle Studio IS a newer version of Sandblaster and can morph objects. But it costs $495.00. You can get Sandblaster for $295.00. So it depends on the cash you want to spend :shrug:
There are also educational versions, if you are a student.


Sandblaster
Sand Blaster is the incredible particle system that has set new standards for particle effects on the 3ds max platform! Sand Blaster pushes 3ds max to the limit by combining flexible particles with a powerful and unique emitter and target system. First, you can use any object as a custom particle. Fully textured and animated objects are perfect choices; even use objects bound to space warps. So creating swarms of angry bees or schools of fish is a snap.

Next are the emitters. Unlike normal particle systems that force you to create particles from a plane or sphere, Sand Blaster lets you choose any 3ds max object as the point of origin for the particles. Plus, you can break down that selected object into a series of particles!

And finally are the targets. Sand Blaster lets you choose any single or grouped object as a destination for your particles as they move through your scene. Plus you can use Sand Blaster to reassemble your particles into the chosen object. With all of this power, you can blow up a Volkswagon Bug (emitter object) into tiny animated beetles (custom particles), and having them reassemble moments later into a speeding Ferrari (target object)! No other particle system on any platform gives you this kind of flexibility and control.


Particle Studio
Everyone knows about the power of particle systems. They can create almost limitless effects. Get ready to experience the future of particle systems! Particle Studio is the most advanced particle generation system available for the 3ds max platform. Completely event based, Particle Studio gives you unprecedented control over everything a particle does; it's birth, death, spawning, following an object, its material and much more are independently controllable elements. Everything a particle does, it's birth, death, spawning, following an object, its material and much more, is an independently configurable element within our unique interface called the Event Map.

Create entire sequences of events for a particle to follow or use Particle Studio's Quick Setups to efficiently generate complex particle motions with just a few mouse clicks. And like its predecessor, Sand Blaster, Particle Studio can take ordinary 3ds max geometry and break it into thousands of particles in no time and then reassemble them into a completely different object! For those of you who need the extra interactivity, you can even have the Event Map floating window open while adjusting other objects in the Modify or Create command panels - making Particle Studio invaluable when timing is critical.

[SuperMax]

Are you guys dicussing the same thing that happens at the end on Michael Jackons Black or White video clip where one face changes into another?

[wtoddk]

I have thought about the MJ video during this project, but I'm thinking more about morphing from one object to another one completely different.

Did you have some tips on how to do the MJ video effect?

I've tried out the Particle Studio plugin a bit...works great! And very easy to set something up quickly. The only thing it's missing is the ability to make the particles (that is, the chunks that break apart from one object to become another - see image) be something more blobby, metabally, watery. Any ideas?

[wtoddk]

Anyone used Next Limit's Real Flow? Could that do it?

http://www.nextlimit.com/galleryrealflow.htm#

[gaggle]

I guarantee you'll get blobby watery results with RealFlow at least, it's not getting that that's the hard part with that program ;)

RF may infact be able to do something like that, yah, in the sense that it can lay down gravitational forces on all verticies of a given object, which means you should be able to cover it head-to-toe with its particles.. animate the gravity of the one object down, and up on another object, and the particles ought to start flowing to the new target.

That's pure theory, I wouldn't have a clue if it'd actually look and behave properly though. For sure you wouldn't be able to have, say, a teapot made out of RF particles all thru'out a scene and then at some point moving them to somewhere else. The teapot would be watery all the time and such. So some sort of fancy blend between the actual teapot and the RF-particle-based teapot would have to be taken care of (this is in contrast to the breaking Particle Studio and such are capable of, where you can't see any differences before the object actually starts breaking up)

[Riddlaz]

Another thing with the morpher is that it doesn’t just rely on the amount of vertices but it also depends on the vertex numbers, for example if you somehow got your target model to have the same amount of vertices than the original model you will be able to morph between them but the results won’t be pretty because of the vertex numbers, the morpher will take for example vertex #1 and match it to the position of vertex #1 of the target model witch could be in a totally different location the vertex next to it and the final result wont even resemble your target model.

I personally haven’t used the digimation plugins but IF you can’t use meta particles according to the description you can always use a custom particle, you can use something like a sphere in order for them to blend together better than the default polygon particle but the most important thing is the material when it comes to how seamlessly the particles blend together.

Laters,
Riddlaz C.

[sireel]

would changing object A to a general shape and having it turn invisible and have object B turn visible from a similar general shape to its final form be a bad way to go for your particular animation?

[wtoddk]

The opacity animation won't really work too well, as the morph will be very very slow (30 seconds or so).... it would be too easy to see that it wasn't a true morph. Thanks for the idea though.

[EricChadwick]

There used to be this obscure plugin for Max that allowed direct 3D morphing, regardless of vertex count.

Unfortunately the guy seems AWOL, or at least he was a while ago when I checked this out, and tried to contact him for an update. The script itself is protected, so you can't see its guts. Have to find him to fix/update it.

Look in the link for the Morpheus script. Works in Max3 I think. Might work in v4 or v5 though.

http://www.cyberkreations.com/kreationsedge/index.php?url=storage/cdk

Some cool ideas in there.

[Dave Black]

There is also a massivly high quality plugin called Thinking Particles by Cebas.

www.cebas.com

Go have a look, it's amazing what it can do.

-3DZ

:D

[Luxo-Jr]

Have you tried looking up morphing in the online tutes that come with Max???

[wtoddk]

There used to be this obscure plugin for Max that allowed direct 3D morphing, regardless of vertex count.
http://www.cyberkreations.com/kreat...url=storage/cdk


I looked at this site, dropped the script into max5, but no go. Has anyone had luck with this script? The "Morpheus" script, that is?

[Chut]

since this thread has to do with morph, i though i might share something i have in mind for a very long time now.

as Riddlaz stated inorder for the morph to works, both the source and the target must have the same amount of vertex with one being distort in anyway you like. now, i have an idea that might make morphing fun to play with if it's possible to implement through plugin or script.

the idea is this: instead of having two or more identical model on screen, you now need only one. the rest is in a textfile (containing the vertex only).

for example, let's say i want to morph my character that i modeled: what i will do then is open the original model and move its vertex until it resemble moprh #1 and then export it to a text file and named it - morph#1.txt (which contain only the vertext number and its position in 3dspace).

next, i want to create another morph by opening my original model and position it until it resemble morph#2. export, save - morph#2.txt and i repeat this step until i have all lthe morph that i want.

now, the final step: i will open the original MODEL and run TextMORPH script and i choose morph#1.txt and morph#2.txt to be the target and begin using TextMORPH as though i was using Max Standard MORPHING technology. THIS way, i can do all kind of morphing which doesn't take up any viewport space or make the viewport lack. and also, with this i can animate the head and hand at once (without seperating the head from the body).


anyway, that's just my though - sorry if it sound funny or impossible.

[EricChadwick]

Well, these features are already there, at least as far as saving viewport speed and having separation.

For the viewport speed issue, once you've added the morph targets to the Morpher modifier, you can hide or even delete them. They are stored in the modifier. If you choose delete them, you can save selected to store them in another Max file, in case you wanna change them later.

For the separation thing, it's really a matter of modifier order...

Skin (bones animation)
Edit Mesh (attach body mesh to head)
Morpher (facial animation)
Editable Mesh (head mesh)

But that only gets you separate head and body. Can't really separate the hands this way. Although I think the hands are better as bones deformation than morphs anyhow.

I just wish we had no vertex-number and vertex-order constraints with morph targets.

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