Anim8or Community

General Category => General Anim8or Forum => Topic started by: haiku on February 25, 2009, 06:06:10 pm

Title: once you've grouped something how do you use the modifiers
Post by: haiku on February 25, 2009, 06:06:10 pm

hi again
i know i ask a lot of questions but ....
ive made this shark model and i want to give it a bend in the tail so it doesnt look rigid but when i go to bind modifiers my object dissapears. it seems to becos ive grouped the fins seperately to the body. is there any solution to this. p.s ive read the manual and it doest answer my question.

thanks for all your replies

Title: Re: once you've grouped something how do you use the modifiers
Post by: ENSONIQ5 on February 25, 2009, 08:45:46 pm

Unfortunately Anim8or won't let you apply a modifier to a group, only a single mesh.  There are a couple of possible work-arounds, however (as there almost always is).  One is to ungroup your objects, and combine them into a single mesh using the Join Mesh function.  Once this is done, the modifier will work, but it won't be possible to un-combine them afterwards (at least, not easily).  An alternative would be to ungroup your objects and apply the same modifier to each object separately, using Ctrl+C to copy the modifier itself so it can be repasted (Ctrl+V) for each object.  Some experimentation should give you the result you want.  Ideally, the fins should really be part of the shark body mesh, rather than separate parts, unless you have a specific reason for keeping them separate.

Title: Re: once you've grouped something how do you use the modifiers
Post by: rctmonger1108 on February 26, 2009, 04:49:28 pm

or you could go the really tough way, and use morph targets, setting one for each side the tail bends to. of course, that would entail moving AND rotating every ring of vertices around the tail. there's really no truly simple way to accomplish this.

or you could rig the shark with 10 or so bones from the point where you want it to bend and then use weights (maybe) or influences (probably better) to bend the shark that way.

once again, no easy way to accomplish it.

Title: Re: once you've grouped something how do you use the modifiers
Post by: headwax on February 26, 2009, 09:22:38 pm

from animanon

Quote

hello

what ensonique said was right on the other forum

if you want to keep the fins and body seperate but still use modifier

give the fins and the body fifferent materials

then build.join meshes

then use modifier

then use select by material

then use edit> detach faces

that will give you your sperate meshes back

by the way

your shark is a good start

maybe it needs teeth? teeth are what most people see when you say 'shark'

rct mongers idea is good with boning as anim8or's modifiers are always hit and miss in  my opinion

.....you really need a real time modifier for it be a useful tool for more complicated tweaking

Title: Re: once you've grouped something how do you use the modifiers
Post by: ENSONIQ5 on February 27, 2009, 04:51:43 am

IMO the advantage of bones over morphs is the fact that bones rotate about a point, whereas morphs change from one morph to another in a linear way.  A shark's spine does not change length as the tail swings, and even with a series of morphs the mesh will not maintain its overall length over the series.