Baking Deformations Into A Blendshape - Script

jengy

A wrote a mel script that bakes animations into blendshapes.

What you can do with this:
- Bake skeletal animations into blendshapes
- Bake Ncloth, deformer, and MASH animations into blendshapes
- Combine multiple skin mesh renderers into a single blendshape for Unity and other real-time applications.

I need people to test it so please check it out! We've been using it for effects and optimizing for VR.

There's still some bugs and inefficiencies which is why I need people to test it. 

If you have any questions please feel free to ping me.

How it works:
Select the objects  you want to bake.
Run the script.
It saves a temp file so you don't accidentally overwrite your rig file off in the default projects directory when you run.
A blendshape with the name "blendshape_geo" will be generated which should have a blendshape node attached.

Any feedback would be great!

Here it is:

//Last updated: 3/29/2017
// A script for baking mesh animations into blendshapes.

// Can be used to take skeletal animations and bake them down into in-betweened blendshapes.

// Allows for inbetweens to remain in blendshape for smoother animations.

// Written by J. Gomez and E. Arny

// Renames file to avoid overwriting original file. This saves to the default project in Maya, ovewriting itself as you use it.

file -rename "TEMP_BLENDSHAPE_BAKE.ma"; file -save -type "mayaAscii";

//Checks for and renames old blendshapes

string $attachedBlendshapes[] = `ls -type blendShape`;

int $bsArrayIndex = 0;

string $arraySizeBS = size($attachedBlendshapes);

int $arrayCount = $arraySizeBS;

print $arrayCount;

for ($arrayCount != 1; $arrayCount = 1; $bsArrayIndex++)

    {

        print $attachedBlendshapes[$bsArrayIndex];

        select $attachedBlendshapes[$bsArrayIndex];

        rename blendshape_old_1;

//        $bsArrayIndex++;

        print $bsArrayIndex;

    }

// Setting timeslider to 1

currentTime -edit 1;

// Delcares and sets ints that represent the start and end time slider values, as well as ints I need to reset later. The first couple stay the same; the next two store time values but need to change as frames are generated.                           

int $startFrame = `playbackOptions -q -minTime`;       

int $endFrame = `playbackOptions -q -maxTime`;

int $i = $startFrame;     

int $end = $endFrame;

// Takes the selected object and stores its name in a variable

string $polyName[] = `ls -sl`;                

string $frameName = "frame_1";

// A for loop to repeat the duplicating until the last frame; had to ad one to the arguments to get the last frame to copy. 

for($i; $i < $end + 1 ; $i = $i + 1)          

  {                       

      // Selecting the original object, renaming the currently selected object $frameName, going forward one frame

      select $polyName;                       

      duplicate -rr;

      rename $frameName;                      

      currentTime($i);                        

                  

  };

// Duplicating the first frame for use as the blendshape, and declaring a string that concatanates the name to form the last frame name.

duplicate frame_1;

int $duplicateFrame = $end;                         

$lastFrame = "frame_" + $duplicateFrame;     

// Resetting i to 1 for the first frame of the next for loop, then resetting the time to 1 for the loop.

$i = $startFrame;                                             

currentTime -edit $i;                               

// A for loop for selecting all of the generated frames. 

global proc SelectMeshFrames(int $i, string $frameName, int $end) 

{

  for($i; $i < $end + 1 ; $i = $i + 1)                

  {                         

      $frameName = "frame_" + $i;         

      select -add $frameName;

      currentTime($i);          

    };

}

    

// Setting the $frameName string to be frame_$i, Adds the duplicated first frame mesh to the selection

$frameName = "frame_" + $i;                         

select -add $frameName;                             

// Adding the blendshape node to the duplicated first frame, then clearing selection.

blendShape -tc 0 -ib -n "blendshape_01";                   

select -clear;

// Selecting the duplicated first frame mesh, then renaming the duplicated first frame mesh to a generic name, "blendshape_geo", then clearing selection.

select $frameName;                                

rename $frameName blendshape_geo;                    

select -clear;

// Resetting i to 1 for the first frame of the next for loop,  setting time to 1 for the for loop, then renaming the mesh.

$i = $startFrame;                                             

currentTime -edit $i;                              

$frameName = "frame_" + $i;

// Selecting all generated frames for deletion

SelectMeshFrames($startFrame + 1, "blendshape_geo", $endFrame + 1); 

delete;

//Trying to automatically select blendshape node and create a linear animation curve between $startFrame and $endFrame for easy export. 

//select -add blendshape_geo;

//Getting name together

//string $blendshapeName = "blendshape" + "_" + $endFrame;

//string $blendshapeProperty = "." + "frame" + "_" + $end;

//print $blendshapeName;

//print $blendshapeProperty;