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View Full Version : So what's your all's method for making blend shapes?

DanHaffner
05-18-2009, 03:06 AM
So you all stay in the program you are working in, such as Maya, XSI, 3DS Max, and make the shapes in there, or do you go to other programs such as Mudbox or ZBrush and create them in there and import them back?

Just curious how people go about making them. I am at that part for my rig and I didn't go into character modeling for a reason. Organic modeling annoys me, and these blend shapes are killing me. Making controls, GUI's, all that stuff is a no brainer, but these blend shapes are making me go out of my mind. I am currently using the Soft Modification Tool in Maya, and Soft Selection, but that isn't working out so well, so I think I am going to try and venture into ZBrush and see if I can get some better results.
theflash
05-18-2009, 07:02 AM
I believe it's an important part of the rigging process. The form and structure have to be understood well in order to define them in rigging.
The way I approach is first I create a rough blendshape using soft mod or clusters or joints to see what edges will be involved and how they could create a shape I want. Once I know what all edges I need to work on I either use the same rough model to refine it or create a new one and use cluster or joint to sculpt the blendshape. Joints give me flexibility because I can update the paint weights to get particular vertices move. Then ofcourse there is refining stage at the end.
toonafish
05-24-2009, 01:08 PM
I prefer making my blendshapes in Modo. The reason for this is that you can change the topology, add and remove edgeloops without losing your shapes because it uses "morph maps" that are embedded into the geometry.
With the symmetry tool, and easy way to copy, paste and combine shapes it's very easy and fast to create your shapes compared to a lot of other apps.
DanHaffner
05-24-2009, 05:27 PM
I'm finding Mudbox is working the best for me. Though I still haven't found a way to do morph targets like you can in Zbrush so you can make one blend actually be two, one for each side.
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