More Animation! - Introducing Maya 2011

Graphics Programs Reference

In-Depth Information

Figure 9.33

Rigid- and smooth-

bound cylinders.

The smaller cylinder

is rigid bound, and

the larger is smooth

bound.

D E TACHIn G A SKEl ETOn

If you want to do away with your binding, select the skeleton and its geometry and choose

Skin ➔ Detach Skin. The model will snap to the shape it had before the bind was applied

and the joints were rotated. It's common to bind and detach skeletons several times on

the same model as you try to figure out the exact configuration that works best for you

and your animation.

If you need to go back to the initial position of the skeleton at the point of binding it to

the model, you can automatically set the skeleton back to the bind pose after any rotations

have been applied to any of its joints. Simply select the skeleton and choose Skin ➔ Go to

Bind Pose to snap the skeleton and model into the position they were when you bound

them together. It's also best to set your skeleton to the bind pose whenever you edit your

binding weights.

a Modeling t riC k Using a s keleton

An easy way to create bends and creases in a model is to create the surface without the bend and use a skeleton to

deform it the way you want. You can then detach the skin and bake the history so that the surface retains its deforma-

tion but loses its connection to the skeleton. Bind your geometry to the skeleton chain using Smooth Bind or Rigid

Bind. Bend the skeleton to deform the geometry, and then choose Skin ➔ Detach Skin r. In the option box, set the

History parameter to Bake History, and click Detach. The model will retain its deformed state but will lose all connec-

tions to the skeleton. This is just like using a Nonlinear or Lattice deformer on an object and then deleting the object's

history to rid it of the deformer. With a detached skin, however, you won't lose any other history already applied to that

object as you would if you deleted history through the Edit menu.