Wrap deformer Usage common

[DarkBane]

I would also like to know this. I've been trying to figure out wrap deformers for a while now...

[Soeren Nielsen]

I cant say what other people do, but I use wrap deformers myself.
Simply because its easy to weigh the vertexes, and the speed is great.
I cut up the character to get faster deformations (if not turned off) and because of the limit in vertexes a wrap deformer can have.

I dont know about a definitive tutorial I'm sorry, I saw most of this on the gnomon skinning I,II videos.. There are 4 in the series. Definately worth the money, and Ill be getting the last two soon :)

Hope this helps

[Octagon]

Originally posted by Soeren Nielsen
I cant say what other people do, but I use wrap deformers myself.

Simply because its easy to weigh the vertexes, and the speed is great.

I cut up the character to get faster deformations (if not turned off) and because of the limit in vertexes a wrap deformer can have.

[...]



Soeren, I have a couple of questions.
Lets try to get a discussion here :)

What do you mean "weighting is easy"?
Working with subds or smooth proxy the weighting process is also easy and you get a smoothed weighting result after smoothing the lores skin (maybe comparable to the smooth skinning effects of a wrap)

And speed-wise, I'd be supriised if wrap skins are faster than skined lores geometries that are smoothed after skinning (or at render)

What do you mean by the vertex limit on the wrap? Please explain.

So what are the downsides and upsides if wraps?
ups: topology independant, geometry type independant, faster than skinning a hires model
downs: slower than skinning a lores model and smoothing it, more work to set up than regular skinning

any further ideas?

matthias

[Julez4001]

Great responses so far.
So is it slower to slin the wrap because they are other considerations to think about. I thought you would just do the same thing you would if you skin the hires one.

[Soeren Nielsen]

What do you mean "weighting is easy"?

I mean, its alot easier to weight map a lowres model, than it is to weight map a highres model.

Working with subds or smooth proxy the weighting process is also easy and you get a smoothed weighting result after smoothing the lores skin (maybe comparable to the smooth skinning effects of a wrap)

This is maybe more of a personal preference, but I tend to stay away from subd's because I cant render them in MR yet. Thats one thing.
I also like to use wrap deformers because I can make changes to the highres mesh without affecting the skin.
Also I can if I need to rig more than one character fast, use the same lowpoly wrap on multiple models.
I just like to keep my highpoly on one layer, and my lowpoly on another. Fast switching. :)

I dont know the exact number vertexes that you can wrap up.. But I know that there is a limit of vertexes that you can bind with a single wrap deformer. So cutting up your lowpoly mesh (in places where it doesnt deform) makes sure that you dont get over that point :)

[Julez4001]

Is there any tuts that kind afocus on little things like that (weighting) and not going over the limit. Its little things like that would probably make the difference in using this as a consistent choice for animating.

I am a lw user.
In Maya
I brought in my low poly object

I dupe it, and smooth it ro see my high res.
I want the low res guy to drive the high res one.

I bone the low version ..should I weightmap this thing?
Should I send the high res to another layer?

[Octagon]

Originally posted by Soeren Nielsen

I also like to use wrap deformers because I can make changes to the highres mesh without affecting the skin.


yes, that's great about wraps :)
thanx for you explanations, I appreaciate it!

matthias

[Octagon]

Originally posted by Julez4001
Is there any tuts that kind afocus on little things like that (weighting) and not going over the limit. Its little things like that would probably make the difference in using this as a consistent choice for animating.

I don't know if there's a wrap tut explaining the vertex count detauls. But Steven Stahlberg wrote one on the general use of wraps for skinning. Maybe it's on highend, don't remember where i saw it.


I dupe it, and smooth it ro see my high res.
I want the low res guy to drive the high res one.
I bone the low version ..should I weightmap this thing?
Should I send the high res to another layer?

Mayas SubDs are rather slow to animate/model with. There are ways to speed it up (theres a thread on that on cgtalk somewhere) but it's still slower than a fake SubD approach (low res mesh drives hi res mesh)
For the fake subd approach you model, texture and skin a lores version. The hires version is hidden most of the time (e.g. using display layers).
You should definately get Dirk Bialluchs connectPolyShape scripts. It's the first bunch of scripts worth checking out if you want to model with polys for fake Subd.

matthias

[Soeren Nielsen]

Stahlbergs 'tutorial' (http://www.androidblues.com/rigtut.html) on the matter

[mark_wilkins]

Interesting... I know a bunch of people at work who complain about aggressive use of wrap deformers because of how slow they are.

-- Mark

[Dazza]

Just wanted to say that the alverez vids i bought on skinning goes into fair detail on wrapping characters,and weighting probs,although it does help to have started your character in subds. Also the feed backtime was almost real time when he was useing blendshapes,a very good vid.

[Julez4001]

So you would textue the hires model and everything.....

Do you add lattices and other deformers to the low res model..if so How oes that relate to the high res ..is it fairly accuarate.

[Julez4001]

bump...

[Soeren Nielsen]

sorry for not relpying to this one earlier Julez, must have slipped away in the amount of email.
I usually just dupe the main model (before smooth), which I then cut up at places where there are no deformations, , and reduce the polycount on it. Then use that as the wrap deformer. Wont need much tweaking on the wrap deformer then.
I havent used lattices yet on the wrap deform, only thing I use it for besides modeling, is as an influence object.

As for texturing yes, the highres model is textured, and I dont have to worry about making changes to the highres mesh to get better deformations or something similar, cause I can do that on the wrap deform.

Ill upload an image later showing where I cut the wrap deform mesh up, gotta get out the door now, so I dont have time for it right now. :wavey:

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.