"Blender exploding shape key" advice.

Question

I've spent more hours than I care to admit trying to resolve the dreaded "Blender exploding shape key" issue. I see that I'm not alone. It's a terrible, big bad, no good, infuriating dilemma. It's much worse than the one the great, wise and all powerful Kent endures later in this series.
In my case we're talking vertex that exploded well outside and inside the face - all around the eye lids. The more you correct, the worse it makes everything. The back and forth of trying to smooth out the issue the more you realize it's completely futile.

Some tips:
1) Save... a lot. Keep back ups and rotate every half hour at least or have the auto save feature running.
2) After you've made changes to your blend shape, double check back and forth between your basis and your blend layer - perhaps more than once! Once the issues appear, they'll compound if you're not careful.
3) Finally and most importantly, I don't personally advise blending this early in the stage. I would put this as FAR off as you possibly can in this series, until Blender has resolved this bug.

After so much frustration trying to polish a turd, I decided it best to just skip the blend shape till the very end. So far, it's saving me a huge headache. While there are practical reasons for WHY Kent did it now, you may be saving yourself from tremendous time being wasted in constantly cleaning up a huge mess. Fidelity < Peace of Mind.

I would like to say that despite all this - I can't thank Mr. Kent Trammell enough for his well thought out series here. What an amazing inspiration and a great guy.

Answer 1 · 2022-07-21T19:42:40Z

Omar Domenech replied July 21, 2022 7:42pm

I would also like to thank Mr. Trammell for an awesome course. We've all have learned from him over the years, including Captain Disillusion, believe it or not. And I want to thank you Stuart, who has an awesome last name that I hope is real, for taking the time to write a great advice piece.

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Answer 2 · 2022-07-22T03:55:20Z

D

replied July 22, 2022 3:55am

Thanks Omar. I'm looking forward to posting what I've been working on in this course.
...and yes, Sparrowhawk is my real last name ^_^ Thanks!

👌

Answer 3 · 2022-07-26T13:24:24Z

Kent Trammell replied July 26, 2022 1:24pm

DDetcelfer It pains me to read about how persistent this multires bug was for you. I've definitely had experiences like this over the years where the bug continues to plague my sculpture...still, it's never been a showstopper. One thing that I learned is that fixing the exploded verts on each level of multires helps to prevent it from persisting. Fixing at the lowest level first and working your way up.

When I first experienced this issue, I would fix the exploded verts only on the level I was sculpting. Then eventually I'd switch levels and it would come back. Which makes sense because the sculpture's shape (including exploded verts) is represented at every multires level, so any artifacts need to be resolved at every level to completely go away.

If this helps it's probably too late. But thanks so much for sharing your advice and experience for others to benefit! 🙏

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