Refinements to the Smoothing Modifier

hzr

Hey there,

first of all - I really do like the smoothing modifier. But I feel that it could use some refinements.

When youre using it for smoothing of clothing, which I guess is what most people use it for anyways, you usually only want it to work in a way that the silhouette of the item aligns with the bodypart below it.

Lets take a stocking for example. I take this one because it seems that this can cause alot of trouble depending on the pose. When you use the smoothing modifier for a stocking in default pose it usually works very well in almost all cases. But once you bend the legs so the shin and thigh intersect, you end up with ugly artifacts where the bodyparts intersect.

I dont know how the smoothing algorithm works under the hood but would it be possible for you to add a check into it that looks up to which bodypart the current polygon that will be smoothed belongs? This way you could use the bodypart groups so that only the parts that belong together will be smoothed accordingly. This would ensure that the thigh polygons of the stocking would only be aligned towards those on the thogh of the figure. You would prevent things like artifacts when an arm touches the leg while posing, which usually leaves some holes in the stocking or the smoothing even drags the stocking a bit over the fingers/hand in that case as if it would encase the hand.

Adding a checkbox or some value as to how much it should make sure to keep its base form or simply align just to the model that its derived from might really add an easy way to fix those artifacts.

I must say that those things really drive me crazy on stockings and other bits. The postwork and/or the polygon correction before rendering take alot of time so it would be great to have something that makes sure that those artifacts dont happen.

The attachment image shows all the artifacts I mentioned in this post.

Richard Haseltine

I'm afraid the image had to be removed because of the visible nipples.

One thing to avoid is over-smoothing - I think that was why the breasts were slightly exposed, the smoothing was pulling the mesh in too much in an attempt to flatten it out.

You are right that poses with body parts close or touching often fall foul of the smoothing, and that some more control would be useful for those situations.

Skiriki

You could use that SickleYield's new fancy "collision avoider" suit, or use basic Supersuit or some other bodysuit for the same purpose? Just turn it invisible, make it skin-tight, and collide stuff against it instead of Genesis.

Richard Haseltine

That wouldn't help so much with intersecting body parts, indeed by creating a stand-off it may make them worse.

hzr

Richard Haseltine said:

I'm afraid the image had to be removed because of the visible nipples.

One thing to avoid is over-smoothing - I think that was why the breasts were slightly exposed, the smoothing was pulling the mesh in too much in an attempt to flatten it out.

You are right that poses with body parts close or touching often fall foul of the smoothing, and that some more control would be useful for those situations.

They wouldnt be leaking out if the smoothing had worked! Hehe, just kidding, actually I did not use smoothing on that bit, the smoothing was mostly aimed at the legs and as you picked up well, especially the intersection of the bodyparts.

I would love to see that your coders could come up with a solution to that. This would be such a godsend for many situations where otherwise a massive amount of either fiddling with the mesh before rendering, or alot of postwork has to happen later on. Please be so kind as to bring this up to the guys in charge.

Thanks for listening, and keep it up DAZ. I really like the progress you have made so far.