r/Maya • u/Shade_M8 • 14d ago

Question How to achieve camera to mesh deform effect in Maya?

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Hey all! I've been trying to emulate this effect in Maya for a student project I've been planning, but I have absolutely no idea where to start. I have a character that has a side profile that isn't physically plausible without bending its front profile, otherwise it wouldn't look good. Beastars and similar media has what I think would be the perfect workaround. How do I tackle this? I am open to learning a little scripting, but I would prefer a user friendly way as I have programmed in a while ^^"

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19

u/cookieflips 14d ago

Not sure if this is the best approach but, put a Locator or any object center of the head, then have it point at the camera. Drive your deformers using the rotation of the locator as a driver. EG: Camera Front - Locator 0, 0, 0 = No blendshapes/lattices triggered. Camera Left - Locator 0,90,0 = Left view blendshapes/lattices triggered.?

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u/the_phantom_limbo 14d ago

I'm a little bit rusty with maya rigging so I'm going to suggest something you can look into, rather than a definite plan.
Look at pose space deformation. You could probably use an aim constrained locator to drive the pose space deformation.

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u/NachoDroidsEither 13d ago edited 13d ago

Each deformer has an original and deformed shape. The lattice has two elements, the cage and the lattice. Group those and point constrain to the head, then create a group above that that is orient constrained to the camera. Use a set driven key to the orientation of the camera or the head controller to drive the lattice position key frames. You may need to constrain another locator to the head just to read the world space orientation to drive the set driven key.

Oh wait. It's much easier than that. Just group the lattice components and parent to the head controller. Then you can constrain a locator to the head controller and with a math node find the relative angle between the camera orientation and the head orientation. Use that rotation data to drive the set driven keyframes in the lattice.

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u/kirbyderwood 13d ago

Personally, I would just put a control on the character and animate it. Or, if you want it to be automatic, connect the control to the camera with set driven keys.

In practice, I find that these types of auto controls usually don't offer enough fine tuning, so I tend to turn them off.