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822 Chapter 8: Modifiers
selected points. If you select a single point, t he
numeric fields reflect its current parameter values.
If you selec t multiple points, 3ds Max displays
only those values common to all selected points;
param eters with differing values are blank. With
multiple points selected, changing a value sets all
selected points to that va lue.
Local S t r (engt h)—Determines the power and
direct ion by w hich the cont rol-object vertex affect
points under its influence in the base object. A
positive value pulls the points toward the vertex; a
negative value pushes them away. Default=1.0.
Local S ca le Mult(iplier)—Scales each selected
control-object vertex’s volu me of influence
uniformly. Default=1.0.
Usethescalesettingstoincreaseordecreasethe
area of the base object that the selected control
vertex affects.
Local X/Y/Z—Scales each selected control-object
vertex’s volume of influence along the indicated
axis. Default=1.0.
Change these parameters to produce a
non-spherical volume of influence.
Reset—Resets all control-object vertices’ local
values to 1.0 and resamples the mesh. It
recalculates the control vertices’ influence on the
base object using the current mod ifier settings.
Use Reset if you a lter a p arameter but don’t see any
change in the deformation. For example, always
use Reset after changing the Th reshold v alue. Or,
if you want the control object to affect a different
par t of the base object, move the former, and
then use Reset so the modifier accounts for the
change in positional relationship between the two.
You might also need to reset after changing the
topology of the base object or a control object.
Impor tant: Use Reset at a point in the animation where
no deformation is in effect; typically, frame 0.
Threshold—
Determines the distance in system
units that the software uses to find the closest
face to a control vertex. The greater the distances
by which the control object’s and base object’s
surfaces devi ate, the higher the Threshold value
needs to be. Default=5.0.
Note: Thresholdisrecomputedonlywhenyouadd
abasemeshorclickReset.
Wa rn in g : Be careful a bout increasing this setting.
High values can result in excessive computation times,
especially with complex base objects.
Weigh t Al l Po ints —
Forces all base-object points
to have weights. Each weight is calculated from a
combination of three factors: control vertex scale,
control vertex strength, and base-object point
position.
By default, not all base-object points are
necessarily influenced by the control object.
Turning on Weight All Vert ices causes all points to
beinfluencedbyoneormorecontrolvertices.Ifa
largenumberofbase-objectpointsareunassigned,
this can take a long t ime to calculate.
Co nvert To Skin—Applies a new Skin modifier
(page 1–791) tothebaseobjectthatreplicatesthe
animation in the Skin Wrap modifier. Using this
function requires that a Skin modifier already be
applied to each control object.
Basically, Convert To Skin intelligently “bakes” the
animation from skinned low-res control objects to
thehigh-resbaseobject.TheSkinmodifierthatit
createscontainsalltheboneassignmentsfromthe
original Skin modifier, but with completely rebuilt
weight sett ings based on the base-object weights
created by the Skin Wrap modifier.
This function is useful in game-development
settings where the game eng ine recognizes the Skin
modifier settings but not the Skin Wr ap modifier.