Thank you, Kircho, those are very welcome tips! I’ll check it out right way…
…for messiah answers, I think I will write a thing about this test on the CGtalk list for messiah…not sure if it’s really appropriate right here. But just real quick, I’ve used a combination setup out of bones, the blending displacement maps and textureDeform muscles. Later I even used a little morph on top…all no problem. Eyes are pinched with one bone and a little helper bone. As the “eye”-bone pinches (scales Y) I translate the value into a blend value for the opacity of the corresponding displacment map. However, if I were to use more maps, I would instead make an alpha construction that would blend in alternative displacement maps. I could for instance make just one additional map to cover all of the bulging wrinkles and then use an alpha construction (individual components that would be controlled by expressions) to reveal only the desired sections on the surface. Like when I lift the left eyebrow, an alpha that would reveal the left foreheads bulging skin would be faded up!
I will see to intergrating the stencils extensively in the next post to get into them a bit more clearly, heynewt, but I can assure you, they are extremely easy to use, there’s nothing to it.
Load any alpha or use any alpha and click on the “Make St” button. There is a stencil menue, from which I actually took out the buttons and placed them on my interface…these buttons are: Stencil on, Elv, Show and Wrap mode, because I use them a lot. Once you’ve activated Elv (elevation) you’ll see how the white cover of the standart stencil mode vanishes and only the outlines of the edges of your alpha remain. On the viewport itself you just hold down space to bring up the controller/pivot/ring (whatever that’s called). Where ever you are with your mouse, this is where it appears and this will also be the pivot for whatever operation you are about to make in order to place the stencil (position, rotation, stretch…). This stencil acts just like an alpha. So if you now select any of the transform brushes for instance and use it above the stencil, it simply goes by it’s alpha type business and your modify the model only at the transparent parts of the stencil (whites of the alpha that you made into stencil). If you switch the stencil off, show goes on as usual. The rest I said before…I believe there’s really not much more to it, still, I will show a practical application of it next time!
you re a master of 3D
