Skinning And Normals

[user_deleted]

Having some issues w/ normals on a skinned character... at least I think it's related to normals.
Been trying to figure this out for a while but it seems to be beyond me.
Here is the issue:

(It's all WIP and the weighting isn't done so ignore the weird neck shape...)

The nasty "broken" shading is my problem... Of course in my bindpose the shading looks fine, it's when I pose the character that things go out of wack.

I've tried a bunch of stuff but I think I'm just patching up here and I'd really like some "real" advice. Here is my fix for now:

Select the vertices:

Edit Polygons --> Normals --> Set Vertex Normals , then "unlock normals", I get this:

Re-select the same vertices again, then Edit Polygons --> Normals --> Average Normals, now it looks better:

The problem though, is that if I now pose the character differently, the problem just re-appears:

I just have a feeling there's something I'm not getting here... can anyone help please?

thx

[drblacksnake]

use soften/harden normals and set its value to 180
on images it looks like there's badly designed texture or if multitexturing used - bad transition between textures.

[user_deleted]

I've used soften/harden set to "all soft", but the problem is the same...

The core of my problem is that when I pose the character, the lighting seems "baked" onto the surface.

For example: let's say I take my character in her bind pose, and light her from above. The palms of her hands are facing the floor and so therefore are dark, while the back of the hand is lit. Now, if I rotate the hands so that the palm faces upwards (and therefore should be lit), the palms remain dark!

It's as if the polygons are "frozen" to whatever light direction they had during the bind pose!

[drblacksnake]

have You softened normals after unlocking them? this is important.
also there could be a gfx-board/driver issue, so what videocard You are using?

[user_deleted]

I will try that and post back tonight.
I am using a Quadro FX 3450.
It would be surprising if it's a gfx board issue given that this problem also occurs when I render! Even with Maya Software.

[drblacksnake]

then it shouldn't be a gfx-board issue, at least Quadros are counted as reliable ones.
can You check this file on another computer? or can You post at least problematic portion of skin and skeleton to see what happens when it deforms. zipped MA file plz (not MB)

[joojaa]

OK this is your problem. your unlocking just a few normals, ALL your normals are locked (i guess you improted the mesh RIGHT? ) you shoudl unlock them ALL each and every one.

The seam acts as if its right becasue you avarage aginst that normal. but ists still not unlocked! So just unlocking afew normals wuill move the rpoblem forwarsd just as in your picture.

Anwyay just in case it dont work go back in history and delete all, unlock, delete all and rebind!

[user_deleted]

Thanks guys ... yes I did import the mesh
now a new problem appears, check it out:

First so you know how my character is built. I can't quite delete history as you suggest joojaa because of the following: (You're gonna probably cringe but this is my first time rigging a full CG human and I really didn't do it "properly"... sorry for the back asswards approach I took)

I worked on the head first, then the body. the two didn't line up, it looked like this:

I couldn't change the basic shape of the head because I already made a gazillion blend shapes for it.
So I did a blend shape on the head called "Neck_Extend" that when cranked up to 1, joins the head to the body. Like this:

(the tiny seam between head and body is a texture issue that I'll fix soon)

Now, everything looks fine but if I pose the character my normals are locked and I get bad shadows:

So, as you suggest Joojaa I unlock normals on the WHOLE mesh (Note that Head and Body are merged, and are thus a single Poly object.) And yes you are right, the problem of bad normals is gone, thank you!

BUT: I Get a SEAM now between my head and body! Look closely:

If I average normals again, then they get locked. If I unlock them, the seam comes back. I can't do a soften/harden because of the way I built the damn thing....

I guess this is because my head and body were two separate objects that I merged with "polygons --> combine"? So I guess Maya doesn't "see" those edges on the neck as being truly adjacent...

Am I doomed? I know this is NOT the way to go about this, but it's too late now... on my next CG human I will not proceed like this... but in the meantime I need to solve this.

Thx

[drblacksnake]

QUOTE(holographix @ 09/09/06, 01:09 PM) [snapback]247184[/snapback]
I can't do a soften/harden because of the way I built the damn thing....

Why not? What's the reason?
I guess You can. Afterwards You can delete all non-deformer history.
Also You can use vertexNormalEditTool to correct normals on seam.

[user_deleted]

I don't mean that I can't do soften/harden, period - what I mean is that doing so doesn't smooth out the normals on the seam.

I assume that's because Maya doesn't understand those edges are next to one another, since originally this was two shapes combined with "polygons --> combine" and so the vertex ordering is probably off...

But I guess at the worst I could use Vertex Normal edit tool, which I'd never tried so thanks for the tip.... however, when you edit normals with that tool, do they become locked again?