Wrap Skining

[gmask]

Som ereasosn why an dwhy not..

why:

It's the best wap to bind complex patch models

You can edit the wrapped surface more easily unlike the bound low res version

why not:

Memory intensive

CPU intensive: to slow animate with a wrapped surface turned on

[Kaiser_Sose]

No one here uses the wrap deformer skining procedure Alex teaches ...

hmm ...

[RichSuchy]

Originally posted by Kaiser_Sose
No one here uses the wrap deformer skining procedure Alex teaches ...

hmm ...

I dont know what he teaches but I use wrap deformers for on my subd models and I use wrap deformers on my wrap deformer to derive a negative blendshape from a posative one, it cuts my blendshapes by a third when doing cartoony stuff.

[gmask]

Originally posted by Kaiser_Sose
No one here uses the wrap deformer skining procedure Alex teaches ...

hmm ...

It works but as I mentioned allready you have to be really effecient or it makes more problems than it solves. It is however a great way to allow the final model to be editted after binding which for the most part is a no-no with any of the other methods of binding in Maya.

[gmask]

Originally posted by Rich Suchy
I dont know what he teaches but I use wrap deformers for on my subd models and I use wrap deformers on my wrap deformer to derive a negative blendshape from a posative one, it cuts my blendshapes by a third when doing cartoony stuff.

I haven't tested it but wrapping a sub-d mesh with a poly mesh should be more effecient and less piggy with the memory than wrapping a large multi patch model if for no other reason becaus you will have fewer connection when there are two , meshes involved unlike a patch model with hundreds of parts to it. The density of the meshes should also make difference.

[loked]

Hey,

I use it very sparingly. Reason being that it really slows things down. I've seen Alex's way and it works, but Wraps just slow things down way too much. I prefer to use a proxy cage to control my smooth geometry. This requires me to take a slightly different approach in my pipeline, but it really speeds things up when loading my scenes and working within Maya.

I dont really do much patch modelling, so I cant comment on it's usefullness there, but I'm assuming it's the best technique for that. For Poly's I try and keep away from it.

Later:wavey:
loked

[Kaiser_Sose]

Originally posted by loked
Hey,

I use it very sparingly. Reason being that it really slows things down. I've seen Alex's way and it works, but Wraps just slow things down way too much.

This brings up an interesting question, Alex probably is using a very powerful computer, something most of us do not have for learning

Anyone know what he used

[RichSuchy]

Originally posted by gmask
I haven't tested it but wrapping a sub-d mesh with a poly mesh should be more effecient and less piggy with the memory than wrapping a large multi patch model if for no other reason becaus you will have fewer connection when there are two , meshes involved unlike a patch model with hundreds of parts to it. The density of the meshes should also make difference.

THe problem is is that sub-d models in Maya are really slow. Compared to XSI and Lightwave, sub-D models in Maya are orders of magnatude slower. So using a wrap has been essential so that animators can work with the responsive cage and enable the sub-d visability for rendering (using layers or whatever) Perhaps a widget attached to the view camera using set driven key... etc.

[gmask]

Originally posted by Rich Suchy
THe problem is is that sub-d models in Maya are really slow. Compared to XSI and Lightwave, sub-D models in Maya are orders of magnatude slower. So using a wrap has been essential so that animators can work with the responsive cage and enable the sub-d visability for rendering (using layers or whatever) Perhaps a widget attached to the view camera using set driven key... etc.

It's the same with patch models.. you have to aniamte with a low res proxy. But wraps build everytime you load the scene file an deven of a fast machine this can be quite slow even for a single character. What you really want to do is the script the wrapping so that you can enable and disable it when you need it so that it doens't build when you load the scene. I wrote a script for this but I don't have it handy. It's not very hard it's just a for loop that cycles through and toggles the enable value for each wrap node.

[loked]

Originally posted by Rich Suchy
So using a wrap has been essential so that animators can work with the responsive cage and enable the sub-d visability for rendering (using layers or whatever) Perhaps a widget attached to the view camera using set driven key... etc.

Hey Rich Suchy,

Dont you wanna just explain this method of using wraps on Sub-d's in a little more detail? I've never actually heard of it. It sound interesting. I know that a lot of people stay away from Sub'd's in Maya because of how slow it gets, but I've never heard of people using wraps to control subd's

Later:wavey:
loked

[loked]

Hey Gmask,

I remember trying to do this once and even though I disabled the wraps, it still took so long to load. I would disable them and save the scene, then when I would re-open the scene, they would still be disabled, but it would take just as long to open the scene as when they were enabled :argh:

Did it work well for you??

later:wavey:
loked

[gmask]

Originally posted by loked
I remember trying to do this once and even though I disabled the wraps, it still took so long to load. I would disable them and save the scene, then when I would re-open the scene, they would still be disabled, but it would take just as long to open the scene as when they were enabled :argh:

Did it work well for you??


It was tolerable for one character which is all I was using so..

It would also be easy to just add the wrap once animation is completed.

[RichSuchy]

Originally posted by gmask
It's the same with patch models.. you have to aniamte with a low res proxy. But wraps build everytime you load the scene file an deven of a fast machine this can be quite slow even for a single character. What you really want to do is the script the wrapping so that you can enable and disable it when you need it so that it doens't build when you load the scene. I wrote a script for this but I don't have it handy. It's not very hard it's just a for loop that cycles through and toggles the enable value for each wrap node.

that script is a nice idea. I hadnt thought of that... The build does take time, but once it is in a hidden layer it doesnt calculate.

[RichSuchy]

Originally posted by loked
Hey Rich Suchy,

Dont you wanna just explain this method of using wraps on Sub-d's in a little more detail? I've never actually heard of it. It sound interesting. I know that a lot of people stay away from Sub'd's in Maya because of how slow it gets, but I've never heard of people using wraps to control subd's

Later:wavey:
loked

Its my own little cluge.

Ill give you a little history so that you understand where I am coming from.

Once I was making blendshapes for a disney character who I am not at liberty to divulge. Because the character was very cartoony, blend shapes needed to be made for both sides of his head.

I figured that I could generate the other side with a -x mirror image of the model as a blend shape, then deleting history I would have the shape of the mirrored model with point order intact.

I got to thinking about automating this so I wouldnt have to do it target by target. and I was also thinking about the additive nature of blendshapes. In Lightwave 5.6+ morph targets were averaged. not additive... And I wondered what might happen between two wrap deformers in Maya.

I decided to try it. I used a simple sphere first

I coppied it a few times to use as a primary model, a negative and a posative wrap deformer, and then again for the blendshape to test.

THe primary model would be used as a wrap deformer to drive a NURB or SUB-D model.

It worked nicely. where the wrap deformers had to fight influences (Influences overlapped) it had an averaging effenct blending them nicely togather

SO there it was, as long as you set up this all last, it works great, as for rigging the model, I didnt do it but Im thinking you have to have your bones drive both the + and _ wrap deformers tagather. but at least you dont carry the geometry for as many blendshapes around... and if you dont care about that you can always just freeze out all the nagative blend shapes one at a time

[Kaiser_Sose]

I dont get it, all of you say you are getting slow performance using a wrap surfaces smooth binded to a skeleton and Alex says the great thing about them is the almost realtime performance benefit

hmm ..

[RichSuchy]

real time because you are working with the low poly model and hideing the sub-d.

[Levitateme]

kaiser, you have to realize that bind tape alex did, im guessing but its at least 3-4 years old. ... when i visitied gnomon 2 years ago taht was out. back thenmy machine was 400 mhz...so im sure whatever you have now is faster than what he had years ago.

[Levitateme]

i agree with rich, i thought the whole point of wrap deformer was to be able to animate like a low polygon mesh, and render out your sub d? i have a dual 2.2 ghz computer it goes without saying but if my wrap deforemr is like 1000 polygon total, it is going to animate very fast. so yah the performace is tremendous.

[gmask]

Originally posted by Levitateme
i agree with rich, i thought the whole point of wrap deformer was to be able to animate like a low polygon mesh, and render out your sub d? i have a dual 2.2 ghz computer it goes without saying but if my wrap deforemr is like 1000 polygon total, it is going to animate very fast. so yah the performace is tremendous.

Hmm it's just that loading the scene file can be time consuming so it's best to make the connection of the low res proxy to the wrap after animating.


One way to do this and I have gotten this to work is to have two character files. One that has the wrapped character and one that does not. Reference the one without the wrap and animate.

Actually the way I did it is that in each anaimtion scene I have a clean sketon with rig that gets animated. The reference character has another copy of the skeleton that after I reference gets connected via contraints to the animated rig via a script. This works well but you do end up with alot of skeletons.

You can also sub the wraped character file and it will load into the aniamted scene file in place of the low res proxy version.

[RichSuchy]

Originally posted by gmask
Hmm it's just that loading the scene file can be time consuming so it's best to make the connection of the low res proxy to the wrap after animating.




You have optimized the scene, gotton rid of any blind data nodes that dont belong, and all that right?

Sometimes I find that its good in the process to export my models in a diferent format... obj or dxf and bring them in again before rigging. It helps clean up needless information that gets saved with the scene and bloats the file. I also keep an ascii version of the file for trouble shooting and a binary for faster loading.

[gmask]

Originally posted by Rich Suchy
You have optimized the scene, gotton rid of any blind data nodes that dont belong, and all that right?

Sometimes I find that its good in the process to export my models in a diferent format... obj or dxf and bring them in again before rigging. It helps clean up needless information that gets saved with the scene and bloats the file. I also keep an ascii version of the file for trouble shooting and a binary for faster loading.

Yeah.. my data folder is usually clogged with variations of the model while from doing this and I almost allways save as ascii.

The delay while openign the file may not have been toobad but the problem was that Maya's renering layers aren;t very helpful and I had to save several copies of the scene to handle all the composite elements and openiong the scenes each was a cumulativ enightmare. I ended up writing perl scripts and manually cut and pasting revision to the scenes so that I wouldn't have to wait for them to open jhust to make a change in a few keyframes.

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