I want to morph a “long tube” to a “short tube” and at the same time deform it with bones.
( This is a good way to simulate a snail-tentacle etc )
In LW you just check “Use Morphed Positions” from the bone panel, but I can’t figure out how to do this in Messiah, have anyone done this in Messiah??
Here is a movie showing what I’m talking about
Thanks for any help!
/ Svante
It is possible to morph an object and deform it with bones. Just use MorphBlender on your object and add a Bone_Deform to the object. Click on the Bone_Deform under the newly added Skeleton and at the bottom you’ll see the Target Object Options. Make sure your object appears in the object list and activate the Use Pre-Deformed Points button.
Yes I know but my problem is not noticeble on objects with “small morphs changes” like face expressions. I have already tried “everything”…:shrug:
Can you or someone else “prove” it’s possible also in the way I described it:p , cause I doubt it’s possible? Make a long tube and morph it to a short one, bend it with a bone chain and let the morph “grow” along it, post the mpj to me please! 
/ Svante
heh i just shared a rigged cow/guy character with a morph driven face 
its quite doable.
you have to put the bone deforms above the morphs in the effects tab right? or something like that.
http://www.stooch.net/stuff/Bovis_Jumping2.mpj
in the animate tab, click on Cluster_ClusterSlider_1 and play with the wink slider
Stooch, have you read what I wrote? Have you loked at the movie sample?? I don’t think so…:wise:
However, thanks but bones together with ordinary face-morphs is not a problem here!
/ Svante
I don’t know how this can be done with morphs, but you can achieve such an effect with muscle bones, a curve, a slider and the ‘MoveToCurveParam’ expression.
Actually, I did try this. I may not have hit the right combo on Morphblender, but I was surprised that I couldn’t just “grow the shape” with the morph.
I could get it to resize, but it still took on the characteristics of the bone pose, as opposed to just expanding or contracting along the set of bones.
Maybe Fred or someone can explain it. I would have expected it to be easily handled. I would be surprised if it isn’t something simple I’m missing.
Best,
Rick
Wow, you took the time to test this, thanks!
I was also very suprised, Messiah seems to lack a “Use Morphed Positions” checkbox?
And thanks Suricate for that musclebone idea!
/ Svante
you can grow the shape, but not using bones. Messiah pre-calculates the weights every time you exit setup, which is why their bone system is very fast.
use non-linear deformer type effects; those that can re-calculate influences on the fly, such as Flex.
a flex curve can have as many points as you need to get the right curl, and all you have to do is scale the object on Z when you need to “grow” it. Best of all, that object can have bones on it… animating and warping together. just make sure that Flex is below the bone deform to work correctly.
here’s a hint on Flex : The Rail option on the Curve will allow you to go an extra 45 degrees past each curve point, if you overlap them on Y axis.
-JoeC
And that’s why Joe’s the man!
Just picked the MiniTuts2. Good stuff. I had done a dino tail a bit differently, but I liked your faked dynamics version. Lots of “small” suggestions that could be just the needed technique in a given situation.
Remind me…are you doing any new ones, or were you still too tied up making money on “real” jobs?
Thanks,
Rick
Thanks Joe, it works great to skip the bones and instead use a FlexCuve!
It would still be good if Messiah had a “Use Morphed Positions” checkbox in the BoneDeform effect.
How can I know if an effect is non-linear or not?:shrug:
/ Svante
Still working on tutorials… render will have to wait until I can update my computer.
they do take more time when you have a baby. oh yeah, and a full time job.
don’t give up on me just yet!!
as for the non-linear question, Bloat, spherize,bulge, flex, and Xform. all of these effects will allow you to distort a mesh through a volume.
as for morphs, wait till tomorrow when I can give a more complete explanation of the options.
-JoeC.
Has anyone actually gotten this to work? I tried for a couple hours with flex and flexmotion. Flexmotion just doesn’t work, because it relies on bones. Flex… kind of worked. It worked better if I had the morphed object as the base, and the base object as the morph (start with an elipsoid, morph it into a ball). However the morph would only grab a couple points, even with the flex set to dynamic weights.
Incidentially I kept getting twisting on the geometry between the curve points… I thought “use distorted tool shape” was supposed to fix that?
Try changing the type to “rail”…
(under the Flex_Curve item / Curve -> second at the top)
Thanks David! It’s too bad MorphBlender doesn’t take into account the morph target being deformed by bones, etc. Feature request? =)
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