9

Flex Modifier 695
The flex effect increases as the distance between
the center and a vertex increases.
Edge Vertices—Select vertices in the viewports to
control the falloff and direction of the flex effect.
Selected vertices flex less than unselected vertices.
Weigh ts & Spri ngs—Use the W eights And Painting
rollout controls to select and deselect vertices
forsubsequentoperationsintheWeightsAnd
Painting rollout and the Advanced Springs rollout.
You can paint weights at any sub-object level, and
add and remove springs at any sub-object level (or
even at the F lex modifier object level), but while
a Weights & Springs selection is active, only the
selected vertices are affected.
Parameters rollout
Flex—Sets the amount of flex a nd bend. Range=0
to 1000; Default=1.
This value represents the amount of the flexed
animation that is used; the flexed animation
is determined by other factors such as motion
and vertex weighting. The default setting of 1
causes the flexed animation to occur unmodified;
higher settings cause unnaturally high amounts of
stretching, and lower settings cause diminished
stretching.
Strength—Sets the overall spring strength of the
chase springs.
A value of 100 is r ig id. Range=0 to 100; Default=3.
Sway—Sets t he t ime for the object to come to rest
for chase springs.
Lowervaluesincreasethetimefortheobjectto
come to rest. Range=0 to 100; Default=7.
Use Chase S pri ngs—When on, enables chase
springs, which force the object to return to its
original shape. When off, no chase springs are
used, and the amount by which vertices move
depends only on their weights. Default=on.
Typically, for soft-body simulations when you
wantobjectstobeinfluencedbyforcesand
deflectors, you would turn off Use Chase Springs.
Use Weights —When on, Flex recognizes the
different weights assigned to an object’s vertices,
applying different amounts of flexing accordingly.
When off, the flex effect applies itself to the object
as a monolithic whole. Default=on.
Typically, for soft-body simulations when you
wantobjectstobeinfluencedbyforcesand
deflectors, you would turn off Use Weig hts.
Solver Type—Choose a solver for the simulation
from the drop-down list. The three choices are
Euler, Midpoint, and Runge-Kutta4. Midpoint
and Runge-Kutta4 require successively more
computationthanEuler,butaremorestableand
accurate. Default=Euler.
Tip: In most cases, you can use Euler successfully,
but if unexpected object deformations occur
during a simulation, try using one of the more
accurate solver ty pes. Specifically, you mig ht need
to use Midpoint or Runge-Kutta4 with higher
Stretch and Stiffness settings.
Samples—ThenumberoftimesperframetheFlex
simulation is r un at equal t ime inter vals. The
more samples you take, the more accurate and