Maya - How to: Blend Vertex Normals via Paint Transfer Attributes Weights

Polynaught

Hi,

I am currently trying to mix vertex normals of an object A and an object B.
This is how I try to do that:
- select A followed by B
- Mesh -> Transfer Attributes (Normals only, World)
- select B
- Mesh -> Paint Transfer Attributes Weights Tool []
- paint the desired weights on B

While transferring the normals from A to B totally works painting the weights does not - does not in that it does not change the vertex normals. They stay the same as if the Transfer Attributes ignores the weighting completely.

Is there something wrong with my approach? With Maya (2010 x64)? Any better ideas to accomplish my task?

I appreciate any hints

Polynaught

Just giving this one a little bump.

I managed to adjust the normals somewhat by making a copy of B (B') before transferring any attributes from A to it.
This way I could average the normals of B and B' - though I do not have the ability to finetune the results.

Maybe Maya does not allow this kind of operation in the first place because it does not know how to rotate the normals when applying a weight factor to the Transfer Attributes operation.
After all it could rotate the normals about the smallest angle or the other way around. It could try rotating the normals in a way that they always conform to the surface - or it could simply ignore that fact and create backfacing surfaces.

But in the end: shouldn't Maya just tell me to be aware of these issues and do one thing or the other? Guess I'm expecting too much of a 4k software

antweiler

I see no reason why this shouldnt be possible. It would be very useful indeed. Please log a bug at Autodesk

Polynaught

Ok, done that.