Questions about Fat Meshes

[Scorpicus]

Hi guys, I'm back with another query :) I've finished editing my first bodymesh in Milkshape (using the unimesh plugins), but, before I exported it , I realized there was a second group - the "fat" mesh.

The fat mesh, of course, still looks like the original mesh without my changes. So I have two questions:

Firstly, in game, does the fat mesh show over the top of the normal mesh? Or is it seperate?

Secondly, is there anyway to replicate my changes onto the fat mesh faster then manually altering the fat mesh to look like the normal mesh?

Or am I completely confuzzled of how the "getting fat" process works?

Thanks for any help!

[WesHowe]

Well, if you aren't befuddled about it yet, hold on to your seat... :)

The game actually uses a set of vertex (and optionally normal) offsets for the morphs. Vertex off sets are data values that are added to the XYZ of the vertex to create a new position. MilkShape cannot handle these, so the UniMesh importer changes takes the original mesh, adds these offsets to it, and stores it as another group. It uses some data in the group comments, and the funny name to "remember" how to remake it.

The exporter knows about these MORPHMOD groups and converts the mesh back to data values my using what is basically simple math, delta=new_pos-orig_pos. These values are saved together with the vertex positions for the "base" mesh and all the other stuff as your exported GMDC.

As you can see, if any vertices were added or deleted, the entire scheme falls apart, so the exporter will not even try to export the mesh. Trying to edit the base and the fat morph in tandem is error prone and creates many problems. However, the optimum solution is pretty simple actually.

First, use Edit/Select None and then in the groups tab click on the base mesh (probably "body") and click on select. Then from the edit menu pick "duplicate selection". Go to the groups tab and you should have three groups body, ~00MORPHMOD.1 and Duplicate1 (or very similar). Deselect Duplicate1 and then click on the morphmod group and then the comment button. Copy these few lines to the clipboard. Close the window, pick the duplicate group, click comment and then paste all the data in, then click OK.

The last step is to make Duplicate1 the exact same name as ~00MORPHMOD.1 and then delete the original fat morph. Save as a backup. You now have a fat morph that is identical to your original group. What you need to do is start selecting vertices on the fat morph and use the "move" function to pull them to a fat position. You need only do this on the ones that need to change to make fat.

You can hide and unhide the base group to see how your work is progressing. When you are done you save and then export the file, with your new custom mesh and fat morph in it.

<* Wes *>

[Scorpicus]

Thankyou so much for your detailed help, Wes. Issue solved!