The tyRelax modifier is an alternative to 3ds Max’s built-in Relax modifier, that is fully multi-threaded and ideal for use on high resolution meshes.
In 3ds Max 2022 and above, 3ds Max’s native Relax modifier has been optimized and may not require tyRelax as a more-performant alternative.
Position-based relax: applies a laplacian relaxation filter to the mesh, by moving vertices towards the centerpoint of all adjacent vertices.
Deformation-based relax: applies a “Delta Mush” relaxation filter to a mesh, by moving vertices towards adjacent vertices in order to match the distance between those vertices as defined in a specified resting state.
Time-based relax: applies a “temporal smooth” relaxation filter to a mesh, by averaging vertex values over time.
Since time-based relax relaxes the same set of vertices over time, the number of vertices in the mesh must also stay consistent over time. Trying to temporally relax a mesh with changing topology will yield unpredictable results.
Use position-based relax in order to apply a general smooth filter to a mesh, use a deformation-based relax in order to minimize artifacts in a mesh that may be the result of bad skinning/deformations, use a time-based relax in order to reduce vertex jittering over time, and use relax normals in order to smooth out visible differences between explicit normals on a mesh.
Amount: the amount of laplacian relaxation to apply to connected vertices.
Iterations: the number of successive relaxation iterations to apply.
Vertex filter:
Relax all vertices: all vertices and their neighbors will be relaxed together.
Relax verts on closed edges: vertices will only be relaxed towards adjacent vertices on closed edges (edges attached to two faces).
Relax verts on open edges: vertices will only be relaxed towards adjacent vertices on open edges (edges attached to one face).
Preserve borders: vertices on open edges will not be relaxed.
Preserve shape: when enabled, after each relax iteration is complete, all relaxed verts will be snapped back to the nearest location on the original mesh. This preserves the shape of the surface of the original mesh, while averaging the position of all affected vertices over top of it.
Preserve edges: when enabled, vertices on sharp edges (edges whose adjacent face angle is below a specified threshold) will not be relaxed. This prevents sharp corners on a mesh from being relaxed, thereby preserving those details.
Process invisible edges: when enabled, vertices connected by invisible edges will be considered adjacent. When disabled, only vertices connected by visible edges will be adjacent.
In most situations, “process invisible edges” should be left disabled.
Deformation ref from stack: the rest pose used to calculate deformation relaxation will be taken from a particular state within the object’s own modifier stack. The stack will be evaluated up to the select modifier in order to calculate the rest pose.
Deformation ref from node: the rest pose used to calculate deformation relaxation will be taken from a specified scene node.
Ref mod index: the modifier index to evaluate the object’s stack up to, when in “deformation ref from stack” mode.
Ref node: the rest pose node to use when in “deformation ref from node” mode.
Ref frame: when enabled, the rest pose will be evaluated at the specified frame, instead of from the current frame.
Deform bias: adds a bias to vertices during the deformation relaxation calculuation, so that vertices undergoing less relative deformation will be influenced by those undergoing more relative deformation less. In other words, vertices undergoing less relative deformation will “pull” other vertices more, towards the target rest state. When set to a value of 1-2, has the effect of retaining more volume/surface details in highly deformed areas of the mesh.
Press “Cache and smooth” to cache mesh data over the frame range and also smooth it. Press “Re-smooth mesh” to simply smooth the cached data. If data has been cached, “Re-smooth mesh” is a faster way to iterate results.