Digital Art Zone

Searching for an answer or workaround…

Is there a way to import an OBJ mesh with deformations and morph it from a mesh without deformations inside Carrara?

For example a flat mesh plane in Carrara that can be morphed into a plane with a raised logo (imported OBJ mesh)?

Seems as if the new DCG Importer can import sequenced OBJ files and if there is a way to create your own sequenced OBJ files manually this can be quite useful for my purposes.  Any thoughts on this?

I believe the workaround is to do this using morph targets in Poser, save and import into Carrara but if there is a way to do this within Carrara I’d like to hear some ideas.  Thanks

Couldn’t you create morph targets in the vertex room in Carrara? You might also be able to make a Text object, convert it to a vertex model (will probably be a bit of a mess) and make your vertex plane and add the text model to it.

Evilproducer thanks for the suggestion… but I was looking more to create an embossed logo/text in a flat plane, I know I can do something in terrains like this but I want to take a flat vertex and have an animated morph to different words using pre-made OBJ vertex files (as target morphs).  I can probably figure something out eventually but wanted to tap into the experts here first!

You can do this with a shader.
First you make a Texture map in black and white with your Text. The Text should have soft border or vignette (I do not know exactly the english word)

Second you make a shader with a Multi Channel Mixer for your flat vertex plane.
In source 1 you make a Multi Channel and in its Color Channel you put your Texture map with the Text. This is only for controling. If the Text is on the right place on your plane, you copy the color channel and paste it in the bump channel. The bump should for controlling be very high, like 250%.
Then you can delete the Textur map from the color channel and put in color or want you want.
Make a quick render to see your text embossed on the plane.

Third you copy the Multi Channel from source 1 and paste it on source 2.
In the Multi channel of source 2 you set the bump channel to none.

Finally you set the Blender to Value and you can blend between source 1 and source 2.

Good Luck
Geli

LamaGeli - 04 December 2012 06:07 PM

You can do this with a shader.
First you make a Texture map in black and white with your Text. The Text should have soft border or vignette (I do not know exactly the english word)

Second you make a shader with a Multi Channel Mixer for your flat vertex plane.
In source 1 you make a Multi Channel and in its Color Channel you put your Texture map with the Text. This is only for controling. If the Text is on the right place on your plane, you copy the color channel and paste it in the bump channel. The bump should for controlling be very high, like 250%.
Then you can delete the Textur map from the color channel and put in color or want you want.
Make a quick render to see your text embossed on the plane.

Third you copy the Multi Channel from source 1 and paste it on source 2.
In the Multi channel of source 2 you set the bump channel to none.

Finally you set the Blender to Value and you can blend between source 1 and source 2.

Good Luck
Geli

 

Using your method, you could also use it as a displacement map. Might have to play around with the polygon count in the plane. Generally, you should get better results with a higher polygon count (with caution). The nice thing about using displacement is, I believe you can export the plane as an .obj with the displacement baked in to the geometry, though I could be wrong about that. Might have to test it.

Hi,

Gotta ask here..

What’s wrong with building or importing the full mesh into Carrara and then scaling it flat in the assembly room?
Simply scale back up for the animation.

Or if you don’t like that then add a morph target in the vertex room and scale that.

If you really don’t like that method then, yes, you can add a morph in poser and save it to the props library.

or, simply animate it coming out of a fixed plane.

There’s a few methods that you could use.

Sounded like a bit of extra work to me as well.