CompuServe Messages

Ernie, I'm sorry, I just assumed that you were pretty familiar with metaballs. Here's the scoop: Metaballs can be used in two different ways – First is by creating reference spheres that are used to generate ONE mesh in the 3D editor through the use of a .PXP routine. the mesh that you get from this is treated just like any other mesh (cubes, spheres, etc.) you can optimize it, scale it, rotate it, etc. as a mesh – without affecting the reference spheres. This mesh is stationary. Second, there is the ability to animate your reference spheres in the keyframer and a NEW MESH is created through an .AXP routine EVERY FRAME. This procedural geometry is only created at render-time, so you can never see it in the 3D Editor, or do anything with it – except for what the .AXP routine lets you do. So if you want to have a mesh that you will paint in MeshPaint, then you would create your reference spheres and generate one mesh in the 3D Editor that you would apply mapping coordinates to and paint on. << …but that a Metaball model that has it's balls move around and is morphing over time will not be paintable because it's shape is changing and it can't really be mapped by traditional means?>> Correct, to a certain extent. Texture mapping metaball geometry in the keyframer IS possible. IPAS lets the software engineer generate mapping coordinates and apply them to a procedurally created mesh. the problem with this is that since NEW geometry is being created every frame, there is no way to "stick" the texture to the ball (yet <g>). And because the geometry never exists in the 3D Editor, how would you paint it??? <g> Mostly, I use Metaballs to create character mesh objects that I can Optimize, paint, and animate with Bones Pro. I hope this clears things up for ya 🙂 -Kyle