A: Any user that needs to see the ‘result’ of StretchMesh will require a license. If the layout animator loads StretchMesh without a license, StretchMesh will operate in a “pass-through” mode. If they don’t really need to see the final look created by StretchMesh, this may be a reasonable workflow. Another option would be to create a geometry cache before another artist accesses the scene. Once geometry caching is created, you could remove StretchMesh or any other deformers.
A: StretchMesh is most effective with vertices that aren’t very “spikey”, that is, verts that aren’t very pointy relative to their neighboring verts. You can select those verts and then go to the paint stiffness tool and flood their stiffness value to 1.0 (Kickstand menu > Paint > Paint Stiffness). That being said, future version of StretchMesh will handle these types of vertices more effectively.
A: StretchMesh is most effective when used with low to medium polygon meshes. We recommend driving your high polygon mesh with a wrap deformer, or applying a displacement map to capture the high resolution details.
A: That’s the default behavior, but the user can modify the “collision step” attribute to force StretchMesh to only calculate collisions on every other iteration, or every third iteration, etc. This is primarily a performance feature, allowing the user to reduce the number of collision calculations performed. Collision calculations are computationally expensive and can slow things down significantly.
In general, I try to get the deformations as close as possible without using collision objects (I use attractors if possible, as they are faster to calculate). I try not to rely on collision objects for extreme deformations for the reasons you mentioned.
A: Yes, there is definitely an integrated solution to the scenario you described. You can paint out the influence of a StretchMesh deformer in two ways:
Select the vertices you want to remove from StretchMesh. Then under the Kickstand menu, select “Paint Stiffness”. Flood the selected vertices with a stiffness value of 1.0. This will essentially remove the StretchMesh effect from those verts.
Alternatively, you can set the weight value to 0.0 for each vertex using the component editor under the “Weighted Deformer” tab. This behaves the same as the weight value for other deformers, essentially letting you remove the influence of the deformer on a per-vertex level. This is the preferred method if you want to completely remove the influence of StretchMesh on selected vertices, since performance will be better than modifying stiffness. You can also set the per-vertex deformer weight using the following mel command:
percent -v 0.0 stretchMesh1 head.vtx[1247]
If you need support or feedback and cannot find your issue here, please try posting in the StretchMesh forums.
StretchMesh / FAQ
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Tutorial: Using Attractors
Tutorial: Using Colliders
StretchMesh FAQ
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If you need support or feedback and cannot find your issue here, please try posting in the StretchMesh forums.
Q: Does everyone handling a file with a SM deformer have to have the plugin? Or is there a way to somehow bake in the deformations?
A: Any user that needs to see the ‘result’ of StretchMesh will require a license. If the layout animator loads StretchMesh without a license, StretchMesh will operate in a “pass-through” mode. If they don’t really need to see the final look created by StretchMesh, this may be a reasonable workflow. Another option would be to create a geometry cache before another artist accesses the scene. Once geometry caching is created, you could remove StretchMesh or any other deformers.
Q: Sometimes Stretch Mesh seems to go wild and explode certain verts all over the place in a certain area. What can I do?
A: StretchMesh is most effective with vertices that aren’t very “spikey”, that is, verts that aren’t very pointy relative to their neighboring verts. You can select those verts and then go to the paint stiffness tool and flood their stiffness value to 1.0 (Kickstand menu > Paint > Paint Stiffness). That being said, future version of StretchMesh will handle these types of vertices more effectively.
Q: Great Plugin. I was just wondering if there were any plans to include an export StretchMesh weights function or add-on?
A: We definitely plan to include a utility that will allow the user to import/export stiffness values and other attributes.
Q: I’m using StretchMesh on high poly characters and the update time after applying the deformer is really slow. What can I do about this performance issue?
A: StretchMesh is most effective when used with low to medium polygon meshes. We recommend driving your high polygon mesh with a wrap deformer, or applying a displacement map to capture the high resolution details.
Q: When using this with a character, do you recommend using smooth binding first or rigid binding first then applying this afterward?
A: We recommend using a smooth bind. You can use either, but using a smooth bind allows you to modify weights after the fact if necessary.
Q: From the docs, it seems that collisions are calculated once per iteration of the solve. Would there be a way to improve the stability of the solve in tricky situations?
A: That’s the default behavior, but the user can modify the “collision step” attribute to force StretchMesh to only calculate collisions on every other iteration, or every third iteration, etc. This is primarily a performance feature, allowing the user to reduce the number of collision calculations performed. Collision calculations are computationally expensive and can slow things down significantly.
In general, I try to get the deformations as close as possible without using collision objects (I use attractors if possible, as they are faster to calculate). I try not to rely on collision objects for extreme deformations for the reasons you mentioned.
Q: At this point, our characters faces are controlled using the dpkBCS with many combination shapes and we’ve got many hours invested in getting those set up. When used in tandem, StretchMesh interferes with those specifically modeled target shapes, but does wonders to the rest of the mesh on a single mesh character. We would like very much to be able paint the weight of the deformer—is there an integrated solution to this issue?
A: Yes, there is definitely an integrated solution to the scenario you described. You can paint out the influence of a StretchMesh deformer in two ways:
If you need support or feedback and cannot find your issue here, please try posting in the StretchMesh forums.