Inflate a mesh in MAYA for use as cage?

ENODMI

What the best (or easy) way to inflate a copy of a lowpoly mesh for use as a cage when baking normal maps? Kinda like how extrude pushes away from each face...like a ballooning affect

Krynn72

You mean when using transfer maps?

If thats what you're talking about, then when you open up Transfer Maps, in your low poly object's entry you can adjust the search envelope, which inflates the low poly to encapsulate more space. If you want to actually see it, you can change the display to "envelope" or "both" and it will show you the envelope in a pink color.

ENODMI

Im using Xnormal and I wanted to import my own cage, but didn't really know how to go about making one. Any thoughts? I havent used transfer maps, how does it compare to Xnormal?

Krynn72

I find that sometimes Maya's normal maps come out better, and other times xNormal's does. Usually high poly hard-surface things that I actually modeled in maya come out really clean with transfer maps, while more organic stuff I sculpted in zbrush comes out better in xnormal. Also, importing million+ poly meshes into maya makes things go sloooow.

Im not sure if there is a way to import your own mesh for that purpose though. I'd be interested in seeing if there is. Until then, you could try using the Ray Distance Calculator and plugging those values into the corresponding spots on your low res' entry in xnormal. I think that has the same effect as expanding the envelope, just xnormal calculates how far out it needs to look based on the furthest verts, or something like that.

jogshy

Hmm.... I should write a script for Maya to generate a cage some of these days.
Added to the TODO list!

throttlekitty

Select the mesh object and do Mesh>Extract [], and uncheck 'separate faces'. This has the inflate as the envelope from Transfer Maps*.

*Actual results may vary, if you experience inversion, loss of breath/blood, please speak with your doctor immediately.

kodde

Another quite simple way to "inflate" a Maya model imo is the Mesh > Sculpt Geometry tool. Set it to pull (or is it push?) and then flood it. Will inflate/deflate your model uniformly.

Progg

kodde wrote: »

Another quite simple way to "inflate" a Maya model imo is the Mesh > Sculpt Geometry tool. Set it to pull (or is it push?) and then flood it. Will inflate/deflate your model uniformly.

It's pull.

ivars

Select vertexes, Edit Mesh > Transform component. To move component along their normal.

Malus

- Select Verts
- Hold W + LMB>Axis>Normal

(I prefer to gesture it though: Hold W + flick LMB bottom left to top left)

All you need to do now is just grab the 'N' handle and interactively drag back and forwards along the vertex normal to the distance you want.

Cool thing is you can do this to a single vert or groups of verts.

Frump

A couple easy ways are:

Select verts, Edit Mesh>Transform Component

and

Select verts and change the move tool's orientation to "normal"

mLink

Frump wrote: »

Select verts, Edit Mesh>Transform Component

Once you try this tool, you'll most likely end up using it all the time, I definitely did after I found out about it.

reeks

MLink is right - I'd been using the same technique as Malus for years (enjoying it as one of those Maya secrets). So long in fact, that I'd missed the point of [Transform Component] - it's just a much more accessible version of the same technique.

fantasymaster

When you set the cage in the SurfaceSampler, open up the outliner. Just take the envelope object out of your selected object, wich is its parent and use it as extra geometry.

Malus

reeks wrote: »

MLink is right - I'd been using the same technique as Malus for years (enjoying it as one of those Maya secrets). So long in fact, that I'd missed the point of [Transform Component] - it's just a much more accessible version of the same technique.

I actually find it way more cumbersome, although I can see having an input in history could be beneficial.
Still I think I'll stick to gesturing, much faster, same result for me.

ENODMI: I'd suggesting trying a few options and using the one you are more comfortable with. The beauty of Maya is you have options.

mLink

Malus wrote: »

..Still I think I'll stick to gesturing, much faster, same result for me. ..

.. The beauty of Maya is you have options.

Agreed. Find some tools that get the job done, and set up some marking menus. Anything can be a flick of the mouse away.
It's definitely great that there are so many different ways to achieve the same results.