Docs

Skinning

Skinning makes one long mesh (a strand of hair, a tail, a sleeve) bend along its length like a chain. Ayatsuri does it the way Cubism does: the mesh is cut into pieces, each piece goes on its own rotation deformer, the deformers nest root to tip, and glue holds the cuts together. The commands are in Modeling > Skinning.

Along a deform path

1. Select the mesh.
2. Pick the Deform Path tool (P) at edit level 2 or 3, and draw a path along the mesh from its root to its tip.
3. Modeling > Skinning > Use Deform Path for Skinning.

Every point of the path but the tip gets a rotation deformer, each the child of the one before. The mesh is cut midway between points and the pieces are glued. Each deformer gets a parameter from -45 to 45, named after the mesh (<mesh> 1, <mesh> 2, and so on), in a parameter folder with the mesh's name. The original mesh is hidden, not deleted.

The menu item stays grey until a mesh is selected with a path drawn on it.

On deformers you placed

If you'd rather put the rotation deformers yourself:

1. Make the rotation deformers along the mesh.
2. Select the mesh and open Modeling > Skinning > Skinning….
3. Tick two rotation deformers or more, root first, and press Skin.

Parameters for rotation deformers

Modeling > Skinning > Generate Parameters for Rotation Deformers… lists the model's rotation deformers: tick the ones that should get a parameter each. Angle range sets how far they turn (30 by default, so -30 to 30); Generate makes the parameters in a Rotation folder.

Exporting

The result is plain rotation deformers, glue and parameters, so a skinned model exports to every moc3 version. Physics can drive the parameters to make the chain swing.