Maya: move component tool reorders verts...

fattkid

Hey folks,

I'm working in Maya (2014) and baking normals in xNormal - when I create my cage, I use the Move Component tool to inflate the mesh etc. When I do that, it appears to reorder vert numbers or some such thing, because xNormal tells me my cage doesn't match the low res. If I kick the cage out without inflating it with the move component tool, it works fine. Moving verts with the Move Component tool changes something.

If I triangulate the low res, create a cage from that, and then use the move component tool it works fine.

But I would like to be able to create my cages and bake without always triangulating everything etc. (which I know is the theoretical ideal etc.)

Any suggestions would be cool. Possibly different export types, or somehow using blendshapes to trick Maya or whatever?

Any help is appreciated.

MmAaXx

the triangles direction very important (even if you don't triangulate the mesh) my suggestion is to make a instance copy of the lowpoly and inflate the cage using a modifier. or to build the cage directly in xnormal.

Bartalon

What's happening when you use Transform Component on a quad mesh is your cage becomes stretched and compressed in some areas and the triangulation that happens behind the scenes tends to favor the shortest distance between vertices. The stretching and compressing of those faces will change the triangle edge's direction compared to your original mesh.

To guarantee you don't get any artifacts in your bakes, you should always triangulate before making your cage.

That said, triangulation shouldn't be an issue if you do one of the following:

• triangulate a duplicate and build a cage from that, which retains your original quad mesh
• triangulate your original, create your cage, export both (as LP and cage), then delete the polyTriangulate construction history node after the work as been done which restores your original quad mesh

Joopson

You could always duplicate your low before triangulating. That way, you'll have a non-triangulated mesh to use for presentation purposes, or whatever.

But keep in mind, the normal map might not look as good on the non-triangulated mesh, if it's auto-triangulation is different than the meshes you baked with.

fattkid

Thanks folks.

I'm aware of everything you've mentioned - I was just hoping there was some sort of Maya voodoo or trickery that I could use to keep the vert orders constant, or perhaps, reassigned if they do get changed.