Skin Morph in 3ds Max

[@pandoramail8303]

Just had to login and comment: THANK YOU. This tutorial was my breakthrough in rigging, after 5 years of futile test I managed to get something that looks and works good! Again, thank you. :)

[@leandrotarsia7212]

Well. For me this is the next level. All those years of test in skinning are important to know the limitations of the modifier. Since I use it in-game in Unreal 4 implementation of morph targets adds an extra layer of programming.

[@AlekseiMaide]

Man of the Year! I have been stuck for so long with those deformations, now this solves it :)

[@crollwtide9452]

This is a great tutorial, but one very, very important detail about this process that must be pointed out is that the mesh representing the morph target must not be moved until its modifier stack is collapsed to the desired skin pose. I had discovered by chance that not heeding this screws up the pivot point of the morph target mesh, and this will show up as a "jumping vertices" mess when you apply the target to the morph.

[@Noder]

_"must not be moved"_ Oh god I'm freaking out now. Did you mean not moved away from its original location in its entirety or do you mean not to adjust the vertex positions. He moved the position of the mesh in this video so if I just do exactly as he did I'll be alright? or has something changed? EDIT: I get it, you're just saying basically that you should do everything in the order he does it. Clone, collapse all, move, edit. You used the words _"desired skin pose"_ which made it seems like you had to edit the vertices with the new mesh in the original location.

[@crollwtide9452]

IMO, the most important part of this is the collapse step, because morph targeting heavily depends on preservation of the topology of the mesh you cloned. 3ds max will also warn you whenever you attempt to modify a mesh in certain ways with a dependent modifier that is above another modifier through which you are applying changes to the mesh. In this case, waiting until you've collapsed the stack preserves the topology of the mesh you copied, which consists of the mesh's pivot point and original vertex locations.

[@KieranGatestormer]

This was a far, far better introduction than the 3DsMax help guide :) Thanks so much!

[@Charlie_Alpha_Lima]

Wow! Absolutel bloody excellent tutorial sir! Straight quick to the point. It didn't even occur to me that you could use dummy geometry as you would a traditional morph target. Thank you!

[@3DSgeek]

your the only teacher that knows anything at BPC

[@artnovikovdotru]

Very cool. I've never thought of using morphing and bones simultaneously.

[@philbertmill2]

2018, still refering to this video! thank you sir!

[@SahkanISR]

Do you know how to do it in a way that will be exportable to FBX? I need to import animations into game engines ( example: unity ) and i can't export the "Skin Morph" modifer, Only the normal "Morpher". Any idea how it can be done?

[@teamEP789]

as far as i know fbx exports vertex animation, not modifiers...

[@Hereford1642]

Thank you for this overview / tutorial very helpful for me

[@darkbf8493]

such a great tutorial. thanks.

[@baejunyoung9310]

Thanks!! IT HELPED A LOT!

[@RM_VFX]

Since the elbow is flexed by compressing the bicep and extension of the tricep, you'd really want to sculpt the entire upper arm as well.

[@tomeriluz9954]

Very Helpful Tutorial! , Thanks alot! ;D

[@vladimircools6967]

Super thx,.... Just what I needed

[@pat5225]

Now if you are already using a morpher for the character's facial animation can you use a second morpher on top of the stack to fix the model's joints? I'm guessing you have no choice to use a second morpher since the first morpher is before the skin modifier.

[@cecilhe6448]

Thanks, very good tutorial！！

[@-NOISE-]

hello! I have a question: create one morph to the feet ..all works, but for some reason when I rotate the lower back bone, my legs too morph effect, although I do not need this ... how to avoid this?

[@crickhiren1]

Great tutorial but need help furthermore. Suppose, I skinned the left hand with skin morph and it has only one side, right hand is not created. Now, I created one more hand with both side by using that left hand which I have already skinned. I want transfer the data from that old model to the new model with all skin morph data. How can I transfer that data and save my time to recreated all skin morph targets?I tried to copy paste skin morph modifier, its not working. I use skin wrap modifier, its not working. I use 3ds max learning channel technics that extracting skin data, its not working. Please guide.

[@Orcband]

Hi there, great video :) I have a question about armature pose(editable mesh pose) and the skin pose. I was curious are you able to re-save the editable mesh pose as the current rigged pose? For example say the editable mesh pose is a default T-pose, what I want to do is change that T-pose default to the current rigged skin pose. Is there a transform armature option or script to change it the editable mesh pose? Thanks in advanced! The type of rig is a FBX pose btw.

[@Ragidonne]

paste mirror is not doing anything for me! does it matter if the mesh doesn't have a symmetry modifier?

[@HellzMajik]

Hello and thanks for a great tutorial. Been following along and getting some great angle driven morphs. I have a few questions for you though. 1. When I tie in multiple morphs on more than 1 axis I start getting values on the morphs even when my character is in its default state. Shouldn't they all be 0? I can tie in multiple morphs on 1 axis and they zero out at the default state but when I tie in an additional axis the morphs all carry a small value in the default state. 2. I tried applying the same technique to facial morphs for my character and the morph is not going back down to 0 when at the default state, its staying at about 65 so the shape is still being triggered quite a bit at default. Not sure why it is doing that. The previous skin morphs were on bones that were generated with an auto rig. Is there something I need to do to the bone to prepare it for skin morphs? Like zero it out or align the pivot or something like that? In the meantime I just dialed down the influence angle until it looked ok but I was curious why it hadn't worked as well as the previous attempts. Anyway, sorry for long post and thanks again for a helpful tutorial.

[@Doctorstew]

Thank you for this!!!

[@hynsxch]

Thanks for tutorial!

[@ChooperOnly]

A great tutorial just gutted they didn't let you keep the tony heart music during the speeded-up section.

[@tvortsa]

what about flip bend torso pose? (one bone not a symetrical two)

[@Skycube100]

I love this tutorial, but question, hope you guys could answer, Does Cinema 4d also have something like this? And can I actually export these sets of 3ds morph along with the object to other 3d softwares, or can cinema 4d objects with pose morph tags be exported to 3ds max? I know some of you may not be a fan of c4d, but yeah I hope that someone could answer one or some ^-^

[@zamiregizbekov4945]

I have a problem with the export of 3D max and imports in URIEAL this modifier (skin morph)

[@ranaumair100]

hi i am having a problem wih my influence angle value when i set my value to 1 its triger my morph 100% and on 0 its bacome normal i cant get the blending value of angle which i want plzz help

[@NVision4D]

Nicely done video. I have a question unrelated sort of. How did you make your panels wider? It's always bothered me that Max truncates so many things and they can't be made wider. It looks like you panels are wider than the default. I'd love to know how you set it.

[@antedoricic5646]

There are four views in 3Ds max (by default), if you want to maximize one of them place your mouse over one of them and press Alt+W

[@Stefenfruitbat]

very helpful!

[@Explore-Gobal]

Nice, thank you very much.

[@konraddobson]

Very useful. Thank you! I'm not entirely sure how this works together with a rig though, for example. Do you just add a rig, animate it, and while you're doing that use the skin morphs to apply local fixes?

[@KenPittsCGI]

Set this up prior to any animation, then every time you move one of the joints, the joint angle drives the morph target. You can add additional skin morphs during the animation stage though if you get some weird posture that isn't covered by your initial setup.

[@abeershaaban4145]

Great

[@GuzFreitas]

I'm trying to follow this, but when i click on the target external mesh, nothing happens. Max wont place the mesh there (as a External Mesh). Any tips?

[@KenPittsCGI]

Only reasons morph targets can't be selected is a change of topology or number of vertices. Usual issues are accidentally leaving a MeshSmooth or TurboSmooth on top of the target mesh, deleting polygons from the target mesh (i.e. instead of just hiding selected), or putting the Morpher modifier the wrong side of a Symmetry modifier. Let me know...

[@noahyen]

brilliant =)

[@fancart]

Thanks master!

[@TheGrafox]

Thanks

[@jerzyrota6360]

Hello! I have a question. I made a 3D model of human. I have already done UVW, textures, skin, controler rigg. I want to do today a face morphe but my model is not divided/separated on the face and the rest of the body. When I try to do face morphs all charcter model converted to standard model shape. How to solve this problem ? I'm working on 3ds max 2013. PLEAS HELP.

[@KenPittsCGI]

Make sure the Morpher modifier is below the Skin modifier in the stack otherwise it will override the skin modifier and move the entire character back to the original position

[@jerzyrota6360]

Thank You

[@asmodeodh]

Hi Mr. Ken. Thanks for this tutorial it helps me a lot. But i have a problem, how can i create a mirror from the skin morph?. I try with a lot of thing and i can't do it. Can you help me or give me some tips? Thanks :)

[@gilbertorocha4067]

+marco villacorta Hey man, do u find some solution i'm looking for this i'm not finding nothing that can help me

[@ClintHennesy]

Is there a way to apply Skin Morphs to its' symmetrical side? :o

[@GaneshJack]

👌

[@cheeztrap]

Does Skin Morph information get transferred when you export to a game engine such as UDK or Unity?

[@KenPittsCGI]

I don't think FBX supports skin morph. But once animated, you could put a point cache modifier on the stack as I believe point cache data does export via FBX. Can't be any more specific than that because I have never tried exporting to a game engine. Hope this helps.

[@tantra4ever1]

Ken Pitts

[@virgiltuser]

+Yaw Jr. Did you figure this part out? I'm having the same need right now and can't use point cache data :

[@KenPittsCGI]

Sorry, I still don't know the answer to this. I don't actually use game engines.

[@puntodeacopio3329]

you have to do this in every animation, right? is there a way to make the morph works for every animation i make?

[@KenPittsCGI]

No, you can make one model with skin morph and then import it into any animation you want.

[@natsumefirst7821]

so what if there's some angle change when we animate and things like that ? should we model and apply it again or we could just use one model eventhough the angle is different ? and is the morph only works in that designated keyframe ?

[@KenPittsCGI]

The skin morphs you set up on the model live in the skin morph modifier and go with the model to any animation you create. If you get a particular pose in your animation which is not covered by one of the skin morphs you have already set up you can add another any time in the same skin morph modifier. You can add multiple morph targets under one bone either in the same axis or in different axes. If you add them in the same axis, you need to adjust the angle of influence so that the morphs don't overlap each other too much. Hope this helps

[@natsumefirst7821]

thanks a lot. yea that helps

[@comics26]

song?????? i heard before!!!

[@cescsoo]

i like your voice :)

[@romulofranklin]

buena!!

[@IndustrialFX]

I have a problem, when i do these steps and pick an external mesh, that part of mody leaves eveything and going away. Any idea ? (i believe i have same number of verticles at both side )