3dsmax, What modifiers to use and avoid?

[shinyprem]

Hi..!

As you know "SKIN" modifier binds the mesh with the skeleton. Your "SKIN MORPH" modifer corects the deormation that cannot be achieved through proper weighting. The hierarchy in the modifier stack would be -->down....Bleandshapes,Skin,Skinmorph,Meshsmooth..on top.

Rgds,

[PeterOfEarth]

Well that is two people so far who have gone for the Skin Morph modifier.

Do you have any opinion on the angle deformers (joint/morph/bulge) that are hidden down the bottom of the options for the skin modifier? These seem very similar to the Skin Morph modifier.

[archanex]

Morph angle deformers are kind of outdated now, most of the time you'll want to go with Skin Morphs

As far as modifiers go, they all have a time and a place. See help file for details

Tools to avoid, hmmm, I personally avoid using the Cut and Quickslice tools under edit poly to avoid weird geometry

ah yes, SCALE is something I avoid like the plague, it's okay in a SUB OBJECT level, but not at the object level, particularly when rigging

Mirror is another tool I try to avoid because it basically just scales the object along a given axis -100%

As a personal preference, I use point helpers instead of dummys because you can modify their display properties

If you're new to modeling start with Polygons instead of Nurbs or Patch Grids

That's all I can think of for now. Good luck!

[EricDLegare]

As a personal preference, I use point helpers instead of dummys because you can modify their display properties

Whats funny with Dummies is that they have a property ".boxsize" that can be set by MaxScript, so there is only one case where Dummies can be usefull, when you need a point helper that has a non-cubic shape ^_^

I think it's very funny that this property is hidden from the ui o.O

[marktsang]

Whats funny with Dummies is that they have a property ".boxsize" that can be set by MaxScript, so there is only one case where Dummies can be usefull, when you need a point helper that has a non-cubic shape ^_^

I think it's very funny that this property is hidden from the ui o.O

you could also use point helpers and just set the objectoffsetscale to get non uniform shapes

mark

[EricDLegare]

you could also use point helpers and just set the objectoffsetscale to get non uniform shapes

mark

What !? Then I won't ever use dummies again ^_^ thanks to the "objectoffsetscale" ah!

So I guess the only thing left for the dummies is the "always on top" :S

else it's the end for the poor dummies :(

[marktsang]

hey eric - you do know that point helpers now also have draw on top parameter :)

mark

[labbejason]

Those poor dummies!

[EricDLegare]

hey eric - you do know that point helpers now also have draw on top parameter :)

mark

Oho, Guess I just made a fool of myself :D

I guess that in a couple of versions, the dummy will only be a memory, we'll say " Well in my time we didn't have those fancy point helpers, we used Dummies, good old Dummies ... " ah !

[IkerCLoN]

Autodesk kept the dummies in MAX as they were in the so old 3D Studio for MS-DOS... so seeing this I'm sure dummies will remain until the end of the Universe. Long live to the dummies! :-D

[PEN]

Ah dummies, I only use them for temporary things in rigging and animation. This way I know that I can delete all dummies in the scene and they will not directly effect anything. Points are the way to go as you can do more with them. Check out M Group on my site for a grouping tool much like Mayas but with more options.

As for modifiers in the stack, what shinyprem said was close. Skin is the way to go and far more powerful then Physique is. But the mistake is in suggesting meshSmooth. Mesh Smooth is still a good tool but had speed issues because of all the options and other factors. TurboSmooth was created to address this and should be used instead as it is much faster at calculating the topology.

Here is what you stack should look like.

TurboSmooth
Skin Morph
Skin
Morpher
EditableMesh

Notice that I have said editable mesh as the base object and not editable poly. While editable poly is a far better choice for modeling with it is slower to draw in a viewport then a mesh. Once your modeling is done and the character is unwrapped convert the base mesh to an editableMesh for better viewport performance.

Modifiers like turboSmooth and Skin Morph should get set to Off IN Viewport so they are not calculating while you are animating but calculate once render is hit. This again will greatly speed up performance.

[marktsang]

Notice that I have said editable mesh as the base object and not editable poly. While editable poly is a far better choice for modeling with it is slower to draw in a viewport then a mesh. Once your modeling is done and the character is unwrapped convert the base mesh to an editableMesh for better viewport performance.

hey paul,

i think its not this way. for turbo smooth the mesh is converted to poly before smoothing so that using mesh is actually slower as turbosmooth has poly output.

with meshsmooth having editable mesh was faster..

cheers,
mark

[PEN]

What I am saying is meshes are faster and turn off turboSmooth in the viewport. MeshSmooth is slower to calculate on any object then turboSmooth is in all my tests.

[yoshimitsu]

for mechanical modelling I still mostly use meshsmooth because it respects Vertex weights and edge crease values from the Editable Poly, allowing you to adjust tightness of edges without adding buttloads of microscopic polys. And I use the non-NURMS smoothing methods quite a bit as well.
Quad Output was helpful for prepping my last triangle-laden game model for Zbrush to get a good base transitional structure which would subdivide predictably while maintaining a tight fit to the LoPoly.
Classic smooth method can be used as a non-destructive and adjustable method of beveling a boxy, hard cornered object.

Long Liv3 teh MeshSm00th!

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