Welcome to the Project

Remember when all Morpheus wore was that gray leotard? Let's get him into something a little more comfortable.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

lots of dust around here, but a brief answer to a F.A.Q.

It's been a while, but I was recently contacted by a friendly teacher who wanted to know: (paraphrasing here) 'How do I attach the clothes to Morphy?'

 The ECMWP ran aground after the end of that one semester and I was never able to revisit it. ( it's still my mad, fever-dream to revisit the project. ) Unfortunately as fall 2010 ( Morphy's birthday ) moves further in the past, the tools with Morpheus are more and more unusable. For example, Morphy's tongue skinning seems to fall apart in maya 2016.

There is a complicated workaround to getting the 'copy skin weight' tool to work. Funny enough, the map clothing button never actually worked for me. ( probably my fault. )

 Using a wrap deformer is a simpler solution.

There are a couple of tutorials in this thread here:
http://teatimeanimation.com/threads/how-do-i-add-clothes-to-morpheus.122/

 The last one is a bit long, but a bit more comprehensive.
https://vimeo.com/90906514

Wrap deformers are slow and can be a bit heavy, so I animate on a 'naked' morphy and just swap the reference when it's time to playblast. If you're looking at using the copy weight tool (called skin in a new body mesh) the workflow is as follows.


  1. Customize morphy to whatever character morph you want.
  2. Modify the clothing model to match (requires some modeling skills) Lattice deform tools for modeling help, or just old-fashioned pulling verts.
  3. Use the 'skin in a new body mesh tool' that comes with the morphy shelf and tools from Josh  
  4. Profit!


 hope this helps. Dave