Rigs, Shape Keys and Vertex Colors

The crushed copy keeps what the original carried per vertex. You don't need to re-rig, re-paint or re-bake anything. This happens on every crush, LOD and Budget part, with no setting to turn on.

What carries over

  • Vertex groups (skin weights). Every group of the original, with its weights.
  • Armature modifier and parent. The crushed copy gets the same Armature modifier (same rig, same options) and the same parent as the original, so it poses, animates and moves with the rig.
  • Shape keys. Every key with its value, slider range, relative key and vertex group mask.
  • Vertex colors. The active color attribute: scan colors, ZBrush polypaint, AI-model colors.

Each new vertex takes its values from the nearest point on the original's surface, so weights, shapes and colors stay smooth across the crushed mesh.

Crushing a posed character

You can crush a character in any pose, or with shape keys dialed in. The add-on reads the original in its rest shape (the Armature modifier and the shape key mix are switched off for a moment and restored right away), so the crushed copy is made from the rest mesh and its own rig poses it. The pose is not baked in twice.

On a test character crushed from 18,000 to 3,000 triangles mid-pose, the crushed copy stayed within 0.1% of the character's height of the original on average, in every pose tested.

Limits

  • Shape keys need the same vertex list. If a modifier changes the vertex count (Subdivision, Mirror, Remesh, Boolean...), shape keys can't be matched and are not carried. The current shape key mix is then crushed into the copy as it looks. Weights, the rig and colors still carry over.
  • Vertex colors on huge meshes. Sources over 3 million triangles skip the vertex color step, and the report says so. Bake Base Color instead (see Bake Maps and Auto UVs). Rigs and shape keys are still carried at any size.
  • Envelope-only rigs. An Armature modifier that deforms by bone envelopes, with no vertex groups on the mesh, is not carried: the crushed copy keeps the pose it had at the time of the crush.
  • Very low targets merge nearby details, so weights at tight spots (fingers, eyelids) follow the coarser mesh. Check the deformation at extreme poses.