Smooth Skin Attributes

Use Components

Specifies whether changes to the components of smooth skin influence objects can change their deformation effects on smooth skin objects. If Use Components is off (the default), changes to components won’t change the deformation effect. If Use Components is on, changes to components can change the deformation effect.

For example, if your smooth skin influence objects are NURBS surfaces and Use Components is on, moving the influence objects’ CVs can change the deformation effect.

Alternatively, if your smooth skin influence objects are polygonal surfaces (meshes), setting Use Infl Components on makes it possible for changes to individual polygons to in turn deform skin. Otherwise, with Use Infl Components off, the entire shape of the influence object influences the skin but changes to individual polygons can not influence the skin.

Use Components is off by default.

Use Component Matrix

Specifies that you can use a component-based influence object on a character’s skin that changes scale. Default is on.

Deform User Normals

When on, the smooth skinned geometry’s normals deform with the skin if the skin has user-defined custom normals. If the skin does not have user-defined custom normals, turning on this option will have no affect. Deform User Normals is on by default.

You can turn off this option to make the skin evaluate faster. For example, if you are animating a skeleton or viewing your character’s skin in wireframe mode, then you do not need the skin’s normals to deform.

Maintain Max Influences

Specifies that your smooth skinned geometry cannot have, at any time, a number of influences greater than that specified by Max Influences.

For example, if Max Influences is set to 3, and you then paint or set weights for a fourth joint, one of the weights of the other three joints is set to 0 to maintain the total number of weighted influences specified by Max Influences.

This limits the redistribution of weights to a specific number of influences, and ensures that the primary joints are the ones that receive the weights.

NoteIf you turn on Maintain Max Influences in the Attribute Editor, your skin’s weights will not be modified until you reassign the skin weights by clicking the Update Weights button.

Max Influences

Specifies the number of joints that can influence each skin point on your smooth skin geometry. Max Influences is 5 by default. The default Max Influences value will produce good smooth skinning results for most characters. You can also limit the range of joint influence by specifying the Dropoff Rate. See Dropoff Rate.

Update Weights

Updates your smooth skin weighting using the value specified in the Max Influences field. For example, if you change your skin’s Max Influence from 2 to 4, each of your skin’s points will now be influenced by a maximum of 4 joints rather than the previous 2.

Normalize Weights

When on, your smooth skin weights are automatically normalized. For more information on skin weight normalization, see Controlling smooth skin weight normalization. Normalize Weights is on by default.