Maya, duplicating head mesh after deforming it

John_B

Hi all, i hope i've got the right spot for this question, apologies if its not the correct forum.

I have a rigged head in Maya which has full face controls set up on it. What i want to do is move the controls so i have a facial expression and then make a duplicate of the head mesh to export as an obj/fbx which retains the expression but is disconnected from the face controls. I assume this is very doable i just cant figure out how to do it.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Bartalon

It should be as easy as choosing Edit > Duplicate after setting your facial expression.

John_B

Hi Bartalon, tried that and the exported fbx doesn't hold the expression when imported back in. It gives me the default one. Thanks anyways.

CheeseOnToast

you should just be able to delete history on the posed object, then export it. That'll "bake" the deformation into the mesh itself.

John_B

thanks toast, i was originally exporting as an fbx which was working but tried obj and it comes in great.

CheeseOnToast

That's because OBJ files don't contain any rigging/skin weighting data. It's purely format for models. FBXs do include that data.