I've been pulling out my hair ALL DAY long on this problem I'm having, with no solution in sight! Let me explain first. I have been using 3dsmax 8 for doing character animating for over a year now. Until today, I absolutely loved what I could do with it, and what it could do for me, but now I have become so completely frustrated, it may have caused me to ABANDON 3dsmax FOREVER!! In Max, there is supposed to be a way to morph materials based on morph targets you create for a model. It's called a "morpher material", and what it does is this: If I apply morph targets to a model, each target is assigned a number. Based on this, I can apply this special "morpher material" to the object, and put different sub-materials into various numbered channels. The numbers of the material channels correspond to the numbers of the morph target channels, and allow me to dial up a morph target on an object, and it's material will automatically blend into whatever material I had assigned to that channel. If no morph is actively dialed up, then the morpher material uses whatever "base" material you want it to. GREAT! In theory, that's an awesome idea, and VERY useful for animation!! However, in practice, it DOES NOT WORK on certain types of character assemblies, particularly the kind I have already rigged and prepared for my animation project!!! What this means is that if I wanted to use this special material, I'd have to COMPLETELY START OVER AGAIN, and hope and pray that I took the proper steps this time to allow it to work! Needless to say, that fried my egg, and I'm considering moving to another 3D package entirely now because of it! Before dropping any more MUCHO bucks on a "high end" package, and tackling a new learning curve all over again, I decided to take a peek at Carrara 5 Pro. What I need to know right off the bat is this: CAN Carrara do what I need done here?? If not, I'll just move on to Maya, which I have heard also does this type of thing well. I need to be able to automatically blend from one bump map to another as I dial up morph targets. I need it to be a PROGRESSIVE blend, meaning; I need it to look seamless in animation at high resolutions, and gradually blend into play as a morph is dialed up. I really don't want to hear things like I would "have to use an animated material", or "keyframe the maps to animate manually". Remember that I'm moving from a high end package here. All I want to have to do is link certain maps to certain morphs, and have them progressively blend to the base material whenever a morph is dialed up. Do-able?

I've not fussed with the morph tools in C yet but my gut reaction is no. Changing materials in animations is normally done through keyframes. If anybody else has done this, speak up now. -Kix

Thanks for the reply, Kixum, but someone over in the 3dsmax forum turned me on to a plugin this morning that solved my problems, and saved my arse!! Phew, what a relief. I was seriously going to scrap 3dsmax if I couldn't get this feature to work, but all is well now. Thanks anyway though. Sorry to bother.

I'd like to see the animation when it's done. I'm interested in doing it in Carrara.

Yes, you guys should definitely see if Carrara can do this. I personally wouldn't be without it for character animation, especially facial expressions. Think about it: some facial expressions in real life cause your skin to stretch, and some cause it to wrinkle more. If you could progressively blend different custom bump or displacement maps based on morphs, you have the ability to simulate real skin in animation much better. For example, when you pucker your lips, the cracks and bumps become much more pronounced, but when you smile, your lips get much smoother. Same thing when you scowl your brow. Some of these changes could be represented in the topology of the mesh itself, providing you have enough detail to allow for it in the morphs, but still, a bump map or displacement map isn't created to take these changes into account, unless you make several of them, and blend them as you morph. It just looks more realistic in close-ups.