I am wondering if this is a possibility in 3d softwares.I feel a good number of animators especially from 2d animation backgrounds who are used to being in control of everything they animate will really benefit from direct vertex animation with the option of not using blendshapes or shapekeys for rigged characters.I understand there is an addon called AnimALL and its awesome.I played around with the a rigged character and I have realized u can switch to edit mode and tweak some of the armature modifier parameters to get the mesh in the edit mode to reflect its deformed appearance in object mode.But the problem is the manipulators stay exactly where they are even though the vertices are in their deformed state .This makes using proportional editing difficult to use.
There should be an option that should let u move and animate vertices of rigged mesh in object mode with all the edit mode tools as this will be faster as u move them and preview the animation without having to go to edit mode.
This is one of thous issues that’s better solved further up the production pipeline rather than making feature requests IMHO.
Ask yourself what you want to achieve and then think how you would do it with the tools at hand. Direct vertex animation may have its uses in some small niche that may be worth exploring but for 99% of the time there is a better way to do it that’s already been implemented.
I assume you have a character rigged and want to fix some deformation issue?
In this case you might be better off fixing the issue that caused the weird deformation, rather than trying to correct the deformation its self. Explore weight painting, bone heat and corrective shape keys, also look at adding deformation bones to emulate muscle flexing or skin folding.
Nope. I have no issues with deformation at all. I find simulating cloth and hair inefficient. So rather than simulate, I would animate the vertices for my charcter’s clothes and hair manually by animating the vertices using the proportional editing tool. This gives u precise control on how ur hair and clothes move with ur character and how u can animate fx using polygonal meshes. This is just the way one would animate in 2d,with precise control. No blendshapes or shapekeys. One might suggest why not use bones for the hair and clothes? because with them control is limited.
Being able to do this in object and pose mode, will enable one animate these things as one would animate in a 2d animation program.Most times, I have to use the sculpt mode as the meshes maintain their deformed state while I sculpt say a character’s skirt to flip in the wind.but with proportional editing which is only available in edit mode, its takes more time.
Is there anyway,this could be made into a script or addon.I am wondering if the guy who made AnimALL, could tweak this to work in object mode.
“I find simulating cloth and hair inefficient”… Well like I said it might be worth looking at the cause of your issue rather than trying to deal with the consequences. Whats wrong with the hair and cloth simulations that you are doing?
that said…
I don’t see why using a shape key is a problem then for cloth? just create a new shape key for each key frame of your animation. You would need to keep it tidy and manage your influence values but its totally possible.
Have a look at the anisculpt technique here, its built into blender now i think: Link