[Bf-committers] Similar Surface modifier

[Charles Wardlaw]

Sounds a lot like Maya's wrap deformer. LW has a nice one too-- you  
can choose whether or not the deformer is calculated as hard bodies or  
as skinned meshes. This makes it easy to use a series of cubes to  
deform a set of high-poly train cars without the cars bending in the  
middle. (Think it's called HardFX Linker? It's been a while.)

It'd be an awesome addition to Blender, and not just for cloth. We  
used it on a project at my last job to transfer animation from a low- 
res mesh to a high res one, and also to transfer to a high-res fur cage.

~ C



On 2009-10-29, at 8:59 AM, Roland Hess <rolandh at reed-witting.com> wrote:

> Hi folks --
>
> With Durian in progress, I wanted to share a thought I'd had with both
> the artistic and development teams. Having tried to use the cloth  
> sim a
> number of times in a production capacity, one of the critical
> shortcomings I've identified (and one that I'm sure you'll run into)  
> is
> the deficiencies the system has with complex clothing designs. I don't
> mean high poly counts, but places where in an actual piece of clothing
> the fabric is layered: cuffs, the doubled ridge of cloth that runs  
> down
> the front of an Oxford, pockets, lapels, etc.
>
> Obviously, there are workarounds, but I have a solution that I'm not
> going to have time to implement myself. I built the modifier structure
> and basics, but once I realized I'd never coded with the modifier  
> system
> or dealt with mesh data directly I realized that it would require more
> time than I had, and would be fairly easily accomplished by someone
> already familiar with it.
>
> I think a good solution to this problem would be a "Similar Surface"
> (name for artists) or a "Hook Web" (name for devs) modifier. Simply  
> put,
> the modifier is a "bind" type one, a la the cage deformer. The user
> creates a fairly simple structure upon which to run a cloth sim (or  
> any
> other deform technique, actually). Then, the user creates their "high
> res" clothing, which includes all the nice things like buttons,
> epaulets, cuffs, pockets, layering, etc. Clearly that would never
> survive an actual cloth sim. When the user BINDS the high res clothing
> to the sim'ed simpler one, the following happens:
>
> 1. For each vert in the high res, a virtual hook is created. Within  
> the
> modifier, it would be an array of hook objects (obHook). Hook data
> structure is deprecated in favor of the hook modifier, but the DNA is
> still there.
> 2. Where does the virtual hook attach? The shrink wrap "nearest  
> point on
> mesh" procedure is used to identify. Then, the verts that make up the
> identified face of the underlying mesh become the vertex parents of  
> the
> virtual hook.
>
> That's it. This would allow complex, multi-layered clothing to be  
> driven
> by an underlying cloth simulation.
>
> From reading the DNA and modifier code, it appears that everything is
> already there. We need someone who is familiar with mesh coding and
> modifiers to put it together. Unless I miss my guess, the Durian team
> WILL be asking for something like this in the near future.
>
> -- 
> Roland Hess
> harkyman
>
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