After you have created a wire deformer, you can edit a wire deformer’s effects.
If a wire deformer does not deform an object when you manipulate the influence wire(s), the influence wire curve(s) may not have been placed close enough to the object when you created the wire deformer. You can get deformation effects by moving the base wire(s).
Moving, rotating, and scaling influence wires
You can create deformation effects by moving, rotating, or scaling the influence wires individually or as a group. You can move, rotate, or scale an influence wire in the same way that you would move, rotate, or scale any object in Maya.
Moving, rotating, and scaling deformable objects
You can also create deformation effects by moving, rotating, or scaling the deformable object(s) through the influence wires. You can move, rotate, or scale a deformable object in the same way that you would move, rotate, or scale any object in Maya.
Editing the shape of influence wires
You can create deformation effects by editing the influence wires. You edit the shape of the influence wires in the same way that you edit NURBS curves during modeling.
Moving, rotating, and scaling base wires
You can move, rotate, or scale the base wires to create various deformation effects.
The base wires are hidden by default. However, you can select them in the Outliner, display them, and then directly manipulate them.
Note that you cannot edit the shape of the base wires, though you can edit the shape of the influence wires.
Otherwise, if you have a wire deformer whose Freeze Geometry attribute is turned on and you move its base wire relative to the deformed surface (or vice versa), the deformation’s behavior will change the next time the scene is loaded into Maya.
After you have created a wire deformer with one or more influence wires, you might decide you need more influence wires to get the effect you want. See To add an influence wire.
You can remove influence wires from a wire deformer. Note that removing all of a wire deformer’s influence wires also removes the wire deformer node from the deformed object’s history. See To remove an influence wire.
Controlling the effects of crossed influence wires
If a wire deformer includes more than one influence wire, you can create interesting deformation effects by positioning the wires so that they cross. When two wires cross, you can get an additive deformation effect where the wires cross. This is because both wires are influencing some of the same points.
Getting an additive effect where wires cross
You can control to what extent the deformation effect is the sum of the influences of both wires by editing the wire deformer’s Crossing Effect attribute. The Crossing Effect attribute can have a value from 0 to 1. A value of 1 makes the total influence the sum of the influence of the two wires, creating an additive deformation effect where the wires cross. A value of 0 smooths out the deformation, so that there is no additive deformation effect where the wires cross. By default, Crossing Effect is 0, resulting in a smooth rather than an additive effect. You can edit Crossing Effect from the Channel Box or the Attribute Editor.
Localizing the influence of crossed wires at different distances
If the wires are at different distances from the deformed object, you can control which wires influence the deformation effect more by editing the wire deformer’s Local Influence attribute. The Local Influence attribute controls how localized each wire’s influence is. The greater the Local Influence, the more the points closest each wire are influenced by the wire closest to them. You can edit Local Influence from the Channel Box or the Attribute Editor.
You can reset an influence wire so that it does not create deformation effects. By resetting an influence wire, you put the influence wire in the same position as the base wire.
When you create a wire deformer, another curve, called a base wire, is created for each influence wire.
Creating wires groups that parent influence wires to base wires
After you create a wire deformer, by default the base wire will not move when you move the influence wire. Since the deformation effect is based on the relationship between the influence wire and the base wire, when you move the influence wire you get an effect that always originates from the base wire’s location. This is useful for creating effects that always originate from the same place. However, you can have the base wire move with the influence wire.
Using wire dropoff locators for localized deformation effects
You can vary the deformation effect at specific points along an influence wire by using wire dropoff locators.
Wire dropoff locators are locators that you place along an influence wire. Each locator has attributes that you can then edit to create localized deformation effects. For each influence wire, you can add as many locators as you like.
To add a wire dropoff locator, identify a curve point on the influence wire curve and then set that point as a wire dropoff locator.
In certain situations, a wire deformer can produce an undesirable jagged effect along the surface of an object.
An influence wire placed diagonally along a NURBS surface can create a jagged effect if the spacing between the surface’s control vertices is too large for the value of the wire deformer’s dropoff distance attribute.
In general, the spacing of a deformable object’s points should be at least twice as dense as the Dropoff Distance.
Limiting the wire deformation region
To limit the deformation region, you can use a wire deformer with holders, edit the deformer set, or prune the deformer set.
Holders are curves you can use to limit the deformation region. To create a wire deformer with holders, see To create a wire deformer with a holder. To add or remove holders, see Add and remove holders. To edit how the deformation region is limited by holders, you can move, rotate, or scale the holders. To move, rotate, or scale holders, see Move, rotate, scale holders. You can also edit the shape of holders. To edit the shape of holders, see Edit the shape of holders.
A wire deformer set includes the points of a deformable object that are influenced by a wire deformer. To limit the wire deformation region, you can edit which points are in the wire deformer set. To edit a deformer set, see Edit wire deformer sets.
You can also prune all of the points that are not currently being deformed from the set. Pruning the set is a quick way to limit the deformation region because you can do it as you interact with the influence wires. To prune a deformer set, see Prune wire deformer sets.
