Metasequoia 4

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Bone command tutorial - Exporting and importing anchors in [Closed region]

In [Bone > Anchor > Closed region], you can set effective region, weight, of each bones by placing objects as anchors.

You can edit an anchor by [Move], [Rotate] and [Scale] in [Close region] mode. And, if you want to set weight strictly, you can edit an anchor as normal object by exporting anchors.

(1) Exporting anchors

Click [Closed region] in [Anchor] tab after placing bones and setting skin.

When [Export] is clicked, current anchors are exported as normal objects.

*An object is overwritten if another object that has the same name is already placed. Change names before exporting anchors.

Anchors are exported as objects.

*In the right figure, exported anchor objects are applied a material whose [Alpha] is set low, to check objects under anchors.

(2) To edit anchors

Edit a exported object

An exported anchor can be edit by [Edit] command as same as a normal object.

Add vertex by [Knife > Continucal cut] and modify a shape of an object not to overlap anchor to ear and shoulder.

Use a [Primitive] object

You can use other primitive object after deleting faces of an exported anchor object.

Select all vertices in the object you want to change. Right-click an object on the object list and select [Select vertices/faces]. (Or click object's name with pressing Altoption key.)

Click [Selected > Delete] in menu and delete vertices. Then, Create new faces by [Primitive] into the same object.

Create a ball object and modify the shape by [Scale] command.

Placing anchor objects is completed.

(3) Importing anchors

Replace anchors of bones from edited objects and apply weight. Please click [Closed region > Import] in [Bone].

*Imported objects as anchors have to have same names with bones. If you changed name of an object or a bone, rename them to have the same name both.

Only importing, weights are not changed yet. When you click [Apply weight], weights are changed according to anchors.

After weights are applied, let's set pose in [Bone] tab.