Rigid or Smooth?

# 1 28-10-2002 , 06:00 PM

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No I'm not talking about chat up techniques (somthing that can be saved for a later threadperhaps) but binding choices / preferences.
If anyone has somthing to say about either techniques then I'm all ears - personally I usually use smooth skinning for most things, but I've recently experimented with rigid and found it a little faster for general deformations.
So guys - which do you choose and why?

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# 2 28-10-2002 , 06:33 PM

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With polys I'll generally tend to use Rigid, as I like being able to control the weight on a per-vertex level. Also like the Flexor controls. For nurbs, though, smooth is what I usually go for.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 3 28-10-2002 , 07:02 PM

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dont like smooth, too hard cos there are so many different values you can paint and its very confusing
still reckon there shud b an envelope feature user added image

- Simon

My Website: www.Glass-Prison.com

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# 4 29-10-2002 , 09:49 AM

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personally i prefer smooth coz you can paint a lot of different weights on the and you can also add influence objects under the skin which you can't do in Rigid

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# 5 29-10-2002 , 01:41 PM

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It all depends on what your model is. For poly usally smooth, sub-d can go rigid or bind the poly proxy mode. Binding poly proxy makes the model a little less heavy to animate and you can still use flexers, you just hide the sub-d surface and animate the proxy mode. At rendering time hide the proxy bring back the Sub-d

Kurt

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# 6 17-11-2002 , 02:03 PM

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re rigid or smooth????/

Hi there,

Ahh summer is just around the corner here in Australia. Ha ha.

I have been researching deformation processes in Maya for a while now.

my latest techinque is to use smooth binding (minimum weight painting) on SUBD geometry (poly's and nurbs same) with wire deformers to control muscle,bone and ligament deformations.

It is quite simple to setup:

smooth bind the character
make the character's skin 'live'

draw nurbs curves where you want to control the deformation, ie. around a joint (elbow for example)

create falloff curves by same method away (say up the arm near armpit and at forearm) from elbow joint.

duplicate the original curve at elbow and move away from geometry.

create a wire deformer using the created curves (with holders option using the falloff curves)

parent the wire curves to the appropriate bones

select the duplicated original curve and then the original curve (at elbow) and create a blendshape deformer from this.

Using Set driven key create deformation effects for when the arm is straight and fully bent (connect blendshape with rotation of elbow joint). The moved cv's on the blendshape curve will effect the area of the elbow joint creating nice muscle, bone and ligament deformations.

for added realism

select the characters skin and create a jiggle deformer to create secondary motion when the arm moves (upper arm flab moving around etc..) paint where you want to jiggle deformer to be (helps speed up interaction) and also the jiggle weight.

A dodgy Arm example link:

Hope this helps

re Jim

Mayan elder......only in years.....

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# 7 17-11-2002 , 08:40 PM

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nice example jim.. I was just reading about a similar method in the A|W character rigging book - good job on the avi too user added image

will have to try that out sometime.

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# 8 21-11-2002 , 01:22 AM

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it depends upon what you are skinning onto... i personally like the rigid more... and in someplaces the smooth is better

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# 9 21-11-2002 , 12:26 PM

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Jim,

What do the nurbs curves look like that you used to create a wire deformer around the arm?

Are they radial curves "around" the elbow or are they lateral "along" the outside of the elbow?

Could you perhaps illustrate what they look like in wireframe?

This looks very interesting but I want to make sure I understand exactly what you mean.

Thanks

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# 10 24-11-2002 , 07:00 AM

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re rigid or smooth????/

Hi there,

I used radial, but you could try either or both. the main advantage I see for using 'wire' deformer is that you can utilize blendshape and model the arms deformation procedurally without having to model the 'actual' arm while it is bent. also the wire seems to be quick for updates so as to not slow down performance when moving your character.

re Jim

Mayan elder......only in years.....

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