Averaging Normals between at least two meshes
So, I am developing a rig that take full advantage of the Keymesh and AnimAll addons. A part of how I would achieve that effectively is by splitting my model into multiple parts. The only problem is that having the Normals at the seams look seamless is very difficult. A strategy I employed is that I used the Data Transfer Modifier to merge the two meshes together.
avastar.machinimatrix.org/279/knowledge/welding-normals/
While it works, the results are a little wonky. Also, like the tutorial mentioned, it merely copies the Normals instead of averaging them. Seeing how I need to rethink my strategy, I tried the Y.A.V.N.E. addon. Sadly, I had trouble getting it to work.
With all this in mind, I was hoping I could suggest to the developers to create a modifier that actually takes the vertices of two objects and averages them together to form the illusion of a whole mesh. Also, if possible, I'd like the addon to work on pieces of mesh that are flush with a solid surface. That way, I could have it look like the piece is part of the same geometry, even though the topology is different.
Update: It seems like the Y.A.V.N.E. does work, but only if the two mesh pieces are part of the same object and not two different objects. I'd like to apply this for two separate objects. That way, I'll have more than one origin to work with rather than having the two mesh peices share the same origin.
2 Comments
I had this problem a lot when breaking a mesh into separate objects. The solution I found is to use Mesh/Split commnad on the selection then Separate. This way the original normals are kept intact and the surface looks contiguous. I use Split also before deleting a selection from a mesh that has custom normals. Since some mesh operators can keep the normals developer.blender.org/rB93c8955a722ba3f2022b92a2f8befaadc467756a I think a proposal to use the same logic for Separate and Delete comands would be best.
You might be onto something here. While I am willing to try that, I just fear the Normals won't stay consistent in the way that provides seamless areas where the meshes join. I'm not just deforming the mesh through modifiers, but I'm also actually animating the vertices through the AnimAll addon and even replacing the mesh data on a frame-by-frame basis through Keymesh. A modifier that averages the Normals between two parts of the mesh is preferable as it automatically adjusts the Normals no matter what form the mesh takes.