swapping shape and base shape

[druitre]

Is it possible to swap a models' shape and its base shape?

For instance, a face that has its mouth open in the base shape and closed in one of its shapes - I want it to have its mouth closed in the base shape and open in a shape. Preferably without messing up any other shapes I have on the same object.

I couldn't find info on this in any of the tutorials, so any help pointing me in the right direction is appreciated.

[septopus]

2 words. gator

[druitre]

Those are kind words, but they're not enough!

I've tried Gator for this and although I can pretty much do everything described for Gator in the manuals/tutorials, I don't see how I'd have to use it to do what I asked above. Please give me some more?

[Sarford]

Well, you propably know this...

Save your scene under a different name, just in case. Make sure no shape or deformation which alters the base pose is active on your object. Select the mouth close shape and apply it. Freeze your object (select Freeze, not Freeze M). Select your mesh and export it as an .obj file. Reload your scene (don't save it!!). Import the .obj file and make a model of it. Select it and select Gator. Pick your original mesh, transfer everything and delete it (or hide it).

That should do it. Your BaseShape will now be with the mouth closed and everything should still work, even your animation panel and deform keys. You propably have to tweek some shapes though.

hope this helps.

[DAVID:-D]

Why do exports and so on................. Just Duplicate head and set your base pose then freeze. Then pick shape keys from your original model.

[druitre]

Thanks Simon and David,

first I had to slap my forehead for not thinking of how to apply a shape to the basemesh (freezing! Of course!) but still: I did everything as explained by Simon (and also the faster route as David said) but I get an unwanted result.

For clarity's sake i'll give a simplified example - a cube, with as shape1 the top poly shifted 1 unit up on Y.

I duplicate, freeze with shape1 selected, so now my baseshape is the top poly 1 unit up on Y.

I gator the shapes from the original object back to the duplicate, now I got a baseshape still with the top poly 1 unit up and a shape1 with the poly 2 units up. I don't get a shape with the poly back to zero, as in the original baseshape.

I tried this with not only freezing the duplicate, but deleting the clustershapes and cluster shape combiner as well, and with the various options for shapes (local, object, absolute) on the source as well as the target, with the same result in all cases.

What am I doing wrong?

[pooby]

If that gator stuff doesn't do it, you can always duplicate your object, then Freeze your original after applying the correct shape.

Then use the duplicate as a shape key. Then just morph it into whatever shapes you want, and your original will emulate them.
Then as your original emulates them you just store them one by one.

It works for sure because I just did it.

[DAVID:-D]

I said "Then pick shape keys from your original model." not use gator.

Animate - Deform - Shape - Select Shape Key

Perhaps I had to be more clear

[druitre]

Aha, that's it. 'Select shape keys', thanks for the info, it wasn't clear to me what that did. I just tried it and indeed it works.
It seems a pity you cannot open two shape managers at a time to drag and drop shapes over, that would feel intuitive. (Have it give a warning when using meshes of different pointcount, for instance).

[pooby]

I said "Then pick shape keys from your original model." not use gator.

Animate - Deform - Shape - Select Shape Key

Perhaps I had to be more clear


Either that or I should pay more attention instead of skimming posts :)