shape manager / morph targets

#1

hi there

im just doing some morph target stuff ( correctives over bone poses ) using the shape manager and everything is working fine.

I have 2 questions… well its actually the same one but for 2 different reasons

im getting lots of extraeneous green “affected points” showing in the manager. For example i ll have the ones i ve actually moved around the mouth and then the whole forehead will also have green affected status. When i know i havent touched those ones and they arent moving when the morph is called in.

So are these “ghosts” and when i get this stuff in game it ll be ok… so its just a display bug on xsi’s part. Or are they real and i ve made a mistake somewhere along the line and these are part of that? If they are real however ( and this is my question ) is there anyway to remove vertexs from a shape so they no longer count.

My second reason for asking this is that its quite possible we will change over to using just blendshapes, which i could then use zbrush to do ( as the shape itself will actually mean something visually - unlike it does in this method unless the enveloping is activated ). However i know that when you export stuff from zbrush its not exactly hugely exact for placement of vertexs and i was hoping to be able to remove anything wrong from the shapes.

Thanks for reading, hope it all made sense

#2

Yes Xsi will show points that were moved while modeling the Shape and lots others that werent…

Theres the XSI method of modulating the Shape with a Weightmap (too much work and not really a solution in my book ) and theres this usefull script:

http://www.xsibase.com/tools/plugins.php?detail=1123

Its not straight forward to use, but I cant seem to find the authors tread on XSI Base… (like always it never show anything we search…)

After instaling it (it appears on the on the Shape Menu as Reset_Points) do this:

  • Select the Points you want to remove

  • Select the Shape you want to remove the points but select it from the Explorer

  • Apply the script

Lets hope XSi 7 brings this MORE than BASIC function as part of the package… that and the hability to have more than one Shape Manager window open at the same time… its about time me thinks.

#3

Or you can tag the points you want to use for the blendshape,

Go into “shape modelling mode”, then animate - shape - store shape key.

That will store a shape with just these points in a cluster.

Now when you move those points into the new shape, you can select the object, go into “point component mode”, select the shape cluster (from the cluster menu on the right).

Shift select the points you want to remove from that cluster, then hit minus under EDIT in the MCP (bottom right corner of the interface).

Voila, the points will snap back to their original position (as they’re not part of the shape cluster anymore).

Hope this helps.

#4

awesome guys thanks a lot - i ll try those in the morning! :slight_smile:

#5

The shape manager is not your friend when it comes to corrective shapes (can’t create a shape from the result of several other shapes). Have to go back to the original xsi shape building workflow for that. :stuck_out_tongue:

They get it right, guys. Just be sure to make the dev’s aware of the issues. I hear they personally manage softimage|net.

#6

What? Maybe I don’t get what you mean by this but from the way I see it I don’t see why you can’t create a corrective shape from the result of other shapes… am I missing something?

#7

In fact, you can, it is just not well exposed, have a look in the cluster shape combiner, here you can see the resulting mixed shapes while editing a specific one

#8

Yes you can :wink:

I found it the hard way… try this for a simple example:

  • Make Sphere

  • Open Shape Manager and make TWO diferente shapes, nothing fancy

  • On the Shape Manager go to the Animation TAB and lets say put the TWO shapes sliders at 1

  • While on Shape Modeling Mode move a point slightly (almost imperceptible just for showing this)

  • Go back to the Create Tab, a New Shape will appear called something like Duplicate of Result

Theres your new Shape with a mix from the others :stuck_out_tongue:

I found this by accident while making corrective Shapes while in Animation TAB…

Now… what about having more than one Shape Manager Window open for diferent objects like any other Animation Window in XSi? Anyone knows a trick?

#9

Exxxxxxcellent. Thanks, guys! I’m very happy to be proven wrong here. :smiley:

#10

Maybe I am missing something, but no tricks are needed for getting the result shape from
the shape manager…
Go to the <animate> sliders, adjust them to the result you wish to “capture”,
go back to the <create> tab, now above the list of shapes, there should be
the word “result” highlighted… just right_click and duplicate…

for more than one shape manager, you could open four of those in the viewports
(select an object, and from the viewport select shape manager, then “restore” the horizontal window back to a square, and just resize the internal shape manager divison.
you the can also open a fifth one nomraly…

you can have more, if you use a dual layout… then you can have more shape managers
on the right monitor :slight_smile:

#11

Thanks for the tips :slight_smile:

I never open extra windows inside the main views so this one had completly escaped me, extremly thankfull for this one :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

#12

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