From Taron-Bone posing setup video

[crossbones]

I hope that at some point in the not so distant future we will have the documentation or tutorials will give direct answers to questions like this. Its really messiah’s biggest strength which is under played as many existing users can’t figure out how to do this as easily. My best suggestion is look at Chris Reid’s posts. He has this leg that when flexed triggers a displacement map. To localize the area you could easily use a metaeffector and just turn its values from 0 - 1 if you look on the messiah site i think they show Taron’s “mask” using a localized displacement via a meta effector.

[Taron333]

coolio, I had kinda thought about doing a similar thing but I doubt that I could even find the time to work it out.

Would there be a way of doing a similar thing with the entire body?..of course there would but I guess I’m asking whether it is possible to have say just 2 displacement maps for the whole body but just dial in the ones that are needed eg: when the arm bends it uses the relevent displacements for that area only, when the leg bends it dials in the displacements for just the leg area…etc.

The long winded way would be to create & save off a map for each region but the easiest way would be to create displacements for the whole body in ZBrush in one go for continuity.

…maybe use weights, alphas, bone influence?..I’ve only scratched the surface of messiah so I’m not sure how this might be achieved if at all.

That would certainly be a tutorial and not documentation, because it’s really just a way to use the tool, not the just the way it works. However, if you check out my little animation called “people”, it shows just exactly that, only used on a face. You could always do that, that’s not really the point of this clip. Yes you can use meta-effectors and alpha and anything that would give you a gradient at any local place to control the amount of displacement that any map or any shader for that matter contributes.

However, the point of this clip is much rather, that you can make your setup in messiah first and then export the post you’d like to paint a specific displacement on. It’s really a whole new ballpark for creating destinct deformations. You have to keep a keen mind on that, though, watch for what you’re doing, because the displacement really just displaces along the normals of the surface, so your animation setup should work well enough to support possible rotations and contractions/expansions, so that the displacement really just brings out the form and doesn’t look like it just blends.
My little arm there was just a sloppy quick little test and if you look at the big vein, then you can see that it just blends up for instance. I should have rotated the polygons a little to suggest a more complicated motion…but…it’s a brilliant way of doing this and with little effort you can get the most expensive looking deformations going!

I think that’s one for my Gnomon DVDs, if I want to cover things of that magnitude in tutorials. It well beyond the scope of what you need to know in order to accell into messiah! I hope you understand. :shrug:

[crossbones]

That would certainly be a tutorial and not documentation, because it’s really just a way to use the tool, not the just the way it works. However, if you check out my little animation called “people”, it shows just exactly that, only used on a face. You could always do that, that’s not really the point of this clip. Yes you can use meta-effectors and alpha and anything that would give you a gradient at any local place to control the amount of displacement that any map or any shader for that matter contributes.

I think that’s one for my Gnomon DVDs, if I want to cover things of that magnitude in tutorials. It well beyond the scope of what you need to know in order to accell into messiah! I hope you understand. :shrug:

taron, you are absolutely correct with your statements, it would be considered a tutorial. Most 3D/2D software, you purchase the training materials separately or read the docs. I.e if you want to learn photoshop, you can either purchase adobe’s training or someone elses.

Those quick tutorials you are making (once they are finished) for the messiah site on the basics of the render and how to get started experimenting with displacements,shaders, particles will be a great selling point to show people how easy it is to use messiah’s render.

[biliousfrog]

aah…sorry, I didn’t realise that you were showing off new tools as such I just assumed that it was an extension of your morphing head video. I understand that the process I asked about is quite involved, I just wondered how easy/difficult it would be & you answered that just fine…thanks.

Gnomon DVD would be great, it’s soooo much easier watching someone work than just following a load of instructions. Do you have any idea of when these will be available?

[Julez4001]

Greta tutorial but on to the renderer tutorials.

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