The Maya Muscle plug-in provides a way
to easily generate locators stuck onto the surface of NURBS or polygon mesh
objects, even if they deform. This lets you generate a regular object
that is effectively always on the surface point of the mesh as it
moves. You can use these objects to parent muscle controls to, or
when specifying the Attach object in the Muscle Creator or Muscle Builder windows.
To generate an attach point for a NURBS
muscle or object
- -click
a NURBS object or muscle and select Surface Point from
the marking menu that appears. (For polygons, select Polygon
Faces instead of Surface Points.)
- Select one or more surface points to
use as the attach point(s). (For polygons, select a polygon face,
or two opposing edges.)
NoteYou can also select
two opposing edges to manually select which edges the attach locator
uses. If you have selected two edges, you get one attach locator
between them. If you select four edges, you get two locators, one
for each pair in the order they were selected.
- Select
Muscle > Bonus Rigging > Surface Attach.
A Muscle Surf Attach
node is created, and you have color-coded locators for each surface
point. These locators stay attached to the surface of the NURBS
object even if it deforms.
- You can adjust the u
Loc and v Loc attributes in the Channel Box or Attribute
Editor to change the u/v location of the locator on the
surface of the object.
NoteIf your polygon attach
locator appears to flip or move diagonally, select the locator and
set the Fix Poly Flip attribute to
on in the Channel box.