I have a character that is skinned using a mesh deform modifier. I would like to convert the skinning/weighting to an armature modifier. Is this possible, and if so, how? Thanks.
It is not clear what you are trying to do. But if you have object with mesh deform modifier on it, and you like its shape, just apply the modifier. Deform modifier will be gone. Now add armature modifier.
Here is what I am trying to do:
I have a low res mesh skinned using armature. Then I have a high res mesh (hr1) “mesh deformed” to low res mesh to speed up skinning. The skinning works great. Then, I make clean copy of high res mesh (hr2) and skin it to same armature as low res mesh using an armature modifier.
Now…what I want to do is transfer the weighting from hr1 (mesh deformed) to hr2 (armature deformed). Mesh deforming the high res to low res speeds up skin weighting drastically with excellent results, but I need the high res mesh to be on an armature in the end so it can be exported to Unity.
Is there a tool/process to link the skinning on the vertex groups of an armature deform to the vertex groups being influenced by a mesh deform?
No, there not a tool/process to do this. Armature modifier deforms the mesh based on the weight of vertices in vertex groups. Each bone has a vertex group with the same name as the bone. The weight of the vertices in each group can vary from 0 (no influence from the bone) to 1 (100% influence).
Hmmm, and well, I can’t find the older blender release logs, but the mesh deform set up deforms the mesh differently. It uses some sort of harmonics to deform the mesh. The mesh is deformed by the cage, how the mesh is deformed depends on the cage. A hi poly cage, close to the mesh, will deform the mesh sharply, think like a human elbow. A lo-poly cage that isn’t close to the mesh will deform the mesh loosely, think like a bendy cartoon character’s elbow.
OK, found the page: http://archive.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-246/mesh-deform/index.html
Anyhow, you can’t get the smoothness of mesh deformation that you get using the mesh deform, by using armature deform. You’d have to weight the mesh to the armature and correct bad deformations by adjusting the weighting of vertices. You can gain additional control of the mesh by using blender’s driven shape keys, within blender, but I doubt those export to unity.
Randy