Rolo Kipp wrote...
Now, to be clear:
Animesh is sampled vertex (& tvert! Hooray! I can make a face scowl!) deforms done on linear keys.
Not quite. The best way my limited understanding permits explaing it is this: The vert and tvert position deformations don't involve linear keys like you might imagine. Those animation keys (for our purposes, at least) take place at the object level. An
object rotates or moves via those keys Vert/tvert movement occurs at the
sub-object level- though I'm labeling tvert movement like that, you can still move it around with a gizmo on another modifier in the stack and make keys for that) Whenever you click on the plus next to Editable Mesh and fiddle around with verts, faces, edges or those other things listed under that modifer in the modifier stack, you're working at the
sub-object level. This may not be universally true because there are some freaky things you can get up to in Max but generally that should be the case.
If you export an animesh object you'll notice that the animation slider does more than one scrub over the animation while exporting. I am presuming part of that scrubbing (moving the animation slider along the bar) process allows the export script to capture the position of individual vertices, which are always assigned a number (vertex1,vertex2 or something similar to that) so that their position can be recorded however many times, based on the # of samples you set in the animesh modifier.
So when you save it off the only keys you're going to see in Max are your regular keys while the real animation keys (the samples) for the verts/tverts are actually in your exported model.
Skinmesh is bone-influenced vertex deforms done on defined keys[/.
The whole defined key thing is a misnomer I think because the movements of the bones and their affect on vertices continue to occur be
tween the keys. This "tweening" thing is really important and I think you already know but I just wanted to make it clear if not. Otherwise you're right.
What are the pro/con's of each approach?
For the purposes of what we're talking about (her hair), I think you're still going to get the best deal by using Flex.
Flex = Less work, you weight the vertices and the engine takes care of all the influences (like wind or rotation of her head) automatically.
Bones = You rig her hair with bones and then you animate the bones from scratch or use some Max system like...I have no idea to be honest. Like Reactor or maybe an unusual use of the cloth modifier or something. Generates a heck of a lot of keys. If you try to chop out too many keys it starts not to look good because Max tweens between keys and the guesses it makes are not always the best.
Animesh = You make her hair strands (I'm thinking more like dredlocks) and then apply modifiers using modifier keys (they're like rotation and position keys but they affect settings on a modifier over time) to ape the movement you want over time. You basically snapshot every single vertex in her hair over the life of the model. I have no idea what kind of considerations you'd have to take into account trying to do that on a model. That's waaaaay beyond my experience to even guess at. I'm not even sure if the way animesh is set up if only those meshes with animesh modifiers or if every mesh in the scene during the animation selected in the animesh modifier is sampled. You would definitely want to experiment with that to find out before doing much work because although animesh has gotten a sort of unnecessarily bad rap, using it in certain ways is definitely going to expose the very worst drawbacks of it as a tool.
Maybe someone has input on how hair can be done like you would like, that doesn't involve Flex and is easier somehow...(?)
I *think* I want to set up bones and make Her hair swirl... but could I save the set up, using animesh, to just deform Her hair and then sample the deforms?
Maybe. You're probably going to be doing lots of deformations with modifiers of some sort so you'd need to look into what modifiers would do what you want. You can set modifier keys as I mentioned above so there might be some modifier which fits the bill.
The bones, I think, would give easier animation at the cost of set up.
Yes. Setup and animation. See, I think of you setting up your hair with the same level of detail that, say, the whip has. And that could get old really quick doing it by hand.
Animesh, I think, would allow me to heavy-hand the mesh and save it, but at the cost of ease (for other anims, particularly) and lots of data(?).
Yeah, that's basically my understanding too. Animesh can be tuned down and optimized but for some things it's simply not the best tool. Even with the granularity it captures, you wind up fighting that when the number of verts and samples involved starts going up.
What am I overlooking?
No idea because I'm sure I'm overlooking probably a dozen things, too.
Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 04 octobre 2011 - 06:05 .
