Morpher modifier: mirroring

[foreverendering]

Good topic, I've been racking my brain thinking about the same thing.

If you animate with symmetry on your'e going to get completely symmetrical expressions which you don't always want (ie one raised eyebrow).

But if you collapse the model to ePoly after your'e done modeling it, then create asymmetrical morph targets (left eybrow, right eyebrow, left blink, right blink, etc), then when you animate both right and left eyebrow at the same time for instance, they might not be the same.

Is there any easy work-around for this? Maybe something I am missing? I wish there was a way to tell the morpher modifier to only affect my choice side of the symmetry, or affect both sides.

Hm..

[Schnupps]

I don´t know of any way of doing this with max standard tools.

Anyway there is a plugin which says to be able to do this, haven´t tried it though:

http://www.di-o-matic.com/products/Plugins/MorphToolKit/

Schnupps

[::r|[o::]

I know about that plugin. But come on, is this not one of the most basic features a morpher should have?? :hmm: Just a script that mirror-copy's the vertex location information and not the actual vertices themselves.

Man, if I could script, I had written one myself. I don't think it's that difficult... or is it? :shrug:

[Schnupps]

I can´t script either, but I think it shouldn´t be too difficult too.
Just assign the vertices of the mirrored numbers in the same way as the original, but adding the amount of the highest vertice number.
I would love to learn scripting, got so many ideas, but the problem is always the evil time ;)

Schnupps

[Cyberdigitus]

as pointed out on buzz and this thread here at CG talk (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69188) i have been working on just that.

[JennDowns]

I'd be interested in a mirror script for the morpher too. Please let us know when you complete it, Cyberdigitus.

Until then, what I do is model a symmetrical target, for example a big toothy grin. I then load that target into a morph channel and crank it up to 100. I then go back down the stack to the editable mesh modifier and soft select the verts on 1/2 of the head. Then I turn on the 'show end result' toggle. What happens since, I soft selected only 1/2 of the head's verts only that 1/2 is effected by the morph target i.e. I get 1/2 of a smile. I then take a snap shot of the mesh and rename this new mesh something like Right Big Grin. I then do the same for the other half of the head. Then it's just a matter of deleting the original symmetrical grin target and loading the two new targets back in.

[gjpetch]

You can also use the 3d snap tool to get perfectly symmetrical morph targets. But it is a bit slow and labourous.

[foreverendering]

Jenn,

Sounds like a pretty slick workaround. I will have to try that! I have never even messed with snapshot before but I'm reading up on it now and it looks like a handy tool.

Thanks for posting the tip!

[EricChadwick]

After mirroring, Reset Xform, Collapse. Then they should morph correctly.

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