I hate to keep posting so much lately because I like to give others time to post too. But admittedly Im impatient, stuck, and no where else to get answers regarding MMD as quick as here. So here I go!
I have a material morph that toggles lines on/off for closed teeth, similar to certain anime styles (Strike Witches). By default the morph is off, until turned on by the user. While its on, the closed teeth look nice as I intended! Especially with grinning morphs. But heres the issue.. once the morph is on, I want it to go away when the teeth are opened (whether using morphs or bones) and I want it to happen *automatically*. Why? I like having as much user friendliness as possible, while also having lots of customization. Btw, this also means no textures. Currently the morph toggles blackness on/off for certain faces of the teeth to make a "line" show when closed. When closed, the gaps peak inside which give off the illusion of a line. However, the black faces are visible when open due to this setup. Atm the material morph must be turned off each time the teeth are open (if using morph in first place of course).
Alternate idea was to add this to existing vertex morphs instead; have vertices slide into themselves (or hide) when teeth are opened, rather than toggling material of faces. But the issue still exists if opening the teeth with bones, so I feel it would be a waste of time to do this if it doesnt help completely. Yes Im anal about this stuff lol
Or add a "line" mesh that appears as its own vertex/material morph. But again I'd want it to go away automatically whenever the teeth open, and this wouldnt change much if bones are used.
Or should I redo the teeth mesh completely and attempt some sort of different approach?
Or let the user toggle the morph themselves whenever the teeth open, and not care about it?
OR am I just overthinking all this?
Either way, feel free to give opinions on these ideas. Also see more example pics here:
https://imgur.com/a/haFdCTo