Shrinkwrapping lowpoly to highpoly with linked vertex positions, is this a thing?
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I'm making game models for a hobby project. Some of these models is hard-surface armor. I'm making some of these armors different proportions to fit different sizes. The problem is, even with blender's shrinkwrap modifier the hard-edge outlines of the lowpoly will "slip off" the highpoly and they have to be meticulously reprojected again to the armor with the new proportions. Some suggestions I've seen is using the lattice modifier, but lattice is oftentimes not precise enough, the only way is often to make positional changes to the highpoly model.
It would save me so much time if I could just shrinkwrap the lowpoly to the highpoly, and the lowpoly vertices will just remember what vertices they were originally shrinkwrapped to on the highpoly and hug them to death. When asking around if there is a way to do this in any 3d application at all, I've come up short. Is there a thing like that anywhere at all? If not, why? Is it a technical limitation, would it be too performance intense somehow, or is it simply not as useful as I imagine it would be and my case is too specific? I feel like something like that would be quite useful generally speaking, but my perspective might be limited.
It would save me so much time if I could just shrinkwrap the lowpoly to the highpoly, and the lowpoly vertices will just remember what vertices they were originally shrinkwrapped to on the highpoly and hug them to death. When asking around if there is a way to do this in any 3d application at all, I've come up short. Is there a thing like that anywhere at all? If not, why? Is it a technical limitation, would it be too performance intense somehow, or is it simply not as useful as I imagine it would be and my case is too specific? I feel like something like that would be quite useful generally speaking, but my perspective might be limited.
Replies
what sounds a little odd about what you've described is that you make a high poly for the proportion changes and then want to conform a game res model to that? Seems much easier to make proportion changes on a low poly model and only use high poly for baking details.
Aren't blendshapes in maya similar to shapekeys in blender? I don't think I could do this with shapekeys, are you able to do more with blendshapes in maya?
Problem is the fact that the highpoly will often be using a subdiv modifier. So the hp vertices aren't "real". It would have to be applied which is a headache in its own right. However, it's possible the script could just apply it temporarily just to get the vertex order of the nearest vertices, then make the changes with the modifier, and apply it temporarily again to get the position data and snap to them from the vertex order. That might work.
recently there was a thread about retopology tools, and one i think called Wrap IIRC is shown, that conforms an existing base mesh to another model and you can designate matching vertices manually. Might check for that thread I think in general discussion
Surface deform modifier? I'll try it