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Surface Project

Surface Project

Project and blend geometry onto another mesh's surface, transfer normals and UVs for a seamless blend.

  • Surface Project 1
    Blend a mesh object to others. Multiple other mesh surfaces can be specified.

  • Surface Project 2
    Project mesh as a "Decal" other objects. This flattens the geometry but keeps the original normals.

Open Edges

This modifier works best on meshes with "open edges" i.e. non-solid objects. These edges are used as the base for most masking methods

open_edges

Examples

Examples can be found in the Surface Project/Insert scene in the example file

examples

Options

Transfer Objects

Choose which meshes to project to.

  • Object Count. How many mesh objects to project to.
  • Objects. Choose individual mesh objects to project to.
  • Collection. Choose a collection containing mesh objects to project to.

Shrinkwrap

Define how mesh is projected to surfaces.

  • Wrap Method. Method for vertex projection:
    • Nearest Surface. Move vertices towards the closest point on target surface
    • Project. Project rays to collide with target surface.
    • Project Decal. Project rays to collide with target surface and flatten geometry while keeping normals. (Excludes projection masking options)
  • Surface Offset. Move projected vertices a fixed amount towards or away from the target surface.

Projection Settings

  • Projection Direction. Define direction to project rays.

    • Object Direction. Direction in object space (default is -Z).
    • World Direction. Direction in global space (default is -Z).
    • Surface Normal. Surface normal of the closest target surface.
    • Mesh Island Normal. Use the average normal of each mesh island.
    • Surface Tangent. Direction of surface at edge boundaries.

  • Ray Length. Maximum distance target surface can be collided with.

  • No Hit. Change behavior of vertices when projection rays miss:
    • Unchanged. Do not move vertex.
    • Closest Surface to Max Dist. Move vertex to the maximum distance in ray direction then snap to closest point on target surface.

Masking

Control how projection is masked. See Mask Falloff

falloff

  • Vertex Group. Choose a vertex group to project.

Normals

Define how normals are transferred from target surfaces. This uses Normal Transfer under the hood. Normals are transferred after vertex projection using the closest target surface.

  • Normal Domain. Whether normals are stored on points (smooth) or face corners (allows sharp edges).
  • Use Shrinkwrap Amount. Use the same mask used for vertex projection.
  • Amount. Specify a Vertex Group or single value to choose how much normals are transferred.
  • Automatic Masking. Use mask falloff settings to make a new mask for transferring normals.

UVs

Transfer UVs from target surface.

  • Transfer UVs. Turn UV transfer on/off.
  • UV Map From. Which UV Map to transfer from the surface.
  • UV Map To. UV Map to write to on this object.

Selection

Limit UV transfer to specific faces

  • Selection. Which faces to modify UVs for. Defaults to "on", applying to every face.
  • Material. Limit UV modification to a specific material.
  • Invert Selection. Inverts the selection to modify UVs on every face that isn't selected using the above options.