Global Stitch is useful for preventing adjacent surfaces from splitting apart during animation in situations where deformations could pull the edges apart. It works by automatically stitching two or more adjacent surfaces together. Even though the surfaces become stitched, they remain as separate entities. A Global Stitch node is created to maintain the relationship between the surface edges. Global Stitch can also close small gaps in adjacent surfaces as part of the stitch operation.
For example, if you create a human face from multiple surfaces, then use lattices to deform facial characteristics, Global Stitch can be used to prevent the surfaces from splitting apart as you deform the face.
To stitch surfaces together
- Model your surfaces so that adjacent surface edges and corners are touching. That is, ensure that edges have positional continuity across their shared boundaries as much as possible to ensure best results. Avoid overlapping corners with other surfaces. If necessary, you can have the surface normals face opposite directions.
- Select the surfaces.
- Select Surfaces > Stitch > Global Stitch >
. - Set the options.
- Click Global Stitch.
Global Stitch stitches the surfaces. You can adjust the stitch attributes in the Attribute Editor if you need to enhance or change any stitch settings.
Notes
- If the surfaces to be joined have position gaps or dissimilar tangency, the stitched surface might be wavy in the stitch region. You can also align the surfaces prior to stitching to minimize this.
- If the parameter range on surfaces is small, there may be problems when applying a global stitch to such surfaces.
Rebuild the surfaces to have a parameter range running from 0 to the number of spans.
You can “lock” certain surfaces so they won’t deform (the surfaces stitched to them will deform more to maintain stitching).
Lock a stitched surface to its original shape
- Make note of the name of the surface you want to lock.
- Select the stitch node.
- In the attribute editor, find the “input surface” number that corresponds to the surface you want to lock.
- In the Lock Surfaces section, click the checkbox for the surface number you want to lock.
