Blend Shape Body Parts
 

I am not sure how one can do this so I thought I'd ask! Thing is I have noticed that when most people do blend shape they have modeled the head of their character in a fashion so that it can be a separate group of polys i.e. the head pokes out form the neck and the join is hidden by the collar.

So when you do blend shape all you gotta do is duplicate the head and create the morph and then blend shape them. This keeps the file size down and is easier to manage.

Now two of the characters that I have made in Maya are one object (they have no shirts on and are absolutely naked :D ) and I cannot separate the head unless I physically cut it off and then I would have to parent it with the rest of the body for animations. But I would be able to do blend shape in the manner suggested above.

Can anyone enlighten me on the best way to do this with naked characters - do you do it like I said above or is there another way?

Hi gazzamataz,
I've never constructed the head and body as one piece the way you did. I haven't tried to create blend shapes on a single geometry character. I am, however, familiar with the blend shape procedure. It seems to me that you will need to separate the head from the body in order to avoid the nightmare that you are staring down. The blend shape action is touchy in every software. You should create separate low res copies of each head and make very distict morph changes to each head. If you try to do the blend shape procedure with a single geometry, you will have to be sure not to change anything but the morph -- just as if the head were separate. The problem that you will run into will be when you go to deform and animate the rest of the body. It seems to me that those changes would interfere with the blends. Its just logical and I may be wrong but I don't know of any workaround to overcome that problem. I also have a totally naked character made from one structure with the exception of the head. If you are concerned about the seam that will occur where the head meets up with the rest of the geometry, you can handle it with the textures on the head and body and the filters that you can adjust to minimize the contrast. Trust me, depending on the tessilation, it shouldn't be noticible. Good luck, I hope this helps. Let me know.

skyzeyez

I am so sorry for not replying earlier! I kept saying I'll reply later and have been so wrapped up with this months challenge that I completely forgot - SORRY!

Once I have the contest done - deadline tomorrow - I will start to learn as much as I can about blend shapes. I am gonna try severing the head to one of my characters to make it work in the fashion you suggested. I have done it with one peice models but it makes the file size huge and anomalies creep in if you are not careful in manipulating CPs. You make him smile and his arm produces sudden peaked points - know what I mean.

I will keep you informed!