Mesh Cache Modifier

Mode: Any mode

Panel: Modifiers

Description

The Mesh Cache modifier is used so animated mesh data can be applied to a mesh and played back, deforming the mesh.

This works in a similar way to shape-keys but is aimed at playing back external files and is often used for interchange between applications.

When using this modifier, the vertex locations are overwritten.

Mesh Cache modifier

Format: The input file format (currently MDD and PC2 are supported).

Influence: Factor to adjust the influence of the modifiers deformation, useful for blending in/out from the cache data.
Deform Mode: This setting defaults to 'Overwrite' which will replace the vertex locations with those in the cache file.
However you may want to use shape-keys, for example, and mix them with the mesh-cache. In this case you can select the 'Deform' option which integrates deformations with the mesh-cache result.
Note - this feature is limited to making smaller, isolated edits and won't work for re-posing limbs, for example.
Interpolation: None or Linear which will blend between frames; use linear when the frames in the cache file don't match up exactly with the frames in the blend file.

Time Mapping:

Frame: Allows you to control the frames, which will ignore timing data in the file but is often useful since it gives simple control.
Time: Evaluates time in seconds, taking into account timing information from the file (offset and frame-times).
Factor: Evaluates the entire animation as a value from [0 - 1].

Scene: Use the current frame from the scene to control playback.
- Frame Start: Play the cache starting from this frame.
- Frame Scale: Scale time by this factor (applied after the start value).
Custom: Control animation timing manually.
- Evaluation Value: Property used for animation time, this gives more control of timing - typically this value will be animated.

Axis Mapping:

Forward/Up Axis: The axis for forward and up used in the source file.
Often different applications have different axis defaults for up/down front/back, so it's common to have to switch these on import.
Flip Axis: In rare cases you may also need to flip the coordinates on an axis.

Both MDD and PC2 depend on the vertex order on the mesh remaining unchanged; this is a limitation with the method used so take care not to add/remove vertices once this modifier is used.