Skin and Morph Angle Deformer

Morph angle gives us the most control over our deformation, but it takes some getting used to. In the table I have the instructions simplified, and following are instructions that are more detailed with screen shots.

Skin – Morph angle simplified

Go to frame where the limb is straight [or, into the position 1 that is not deformed.]

Select the vertices in skin that will be affected.

Under the gizmo rollout, add morph angle gizmo.

Go to the frame with the change, where the limb is bent and you need to deform it [position 2.]

Add an edit mesh modifier above skin and deform to desired shape.

Go back down to skin/edit envelopes.

Under the deformer parameters rollout, go add from stack.

The effect should double. Turn off or remove the edit mesh modifer from the stack.

Scrub to test results.

Detailed instructions

Frame 1 we are down ...     Frame 50 we are up:

 

Select the envelope for the forearm.  [the child bone envelope.]

Edit Envelopes/select some vertices that might share influence with the 2 arm bone envelopes:

 

Go to frame 50 ... add and Edit Mesh modifier ... use soft selection, deform the mesh to the desired shape ...

 

Back down to Skin, ADD FROM STACK ... the effect will immediately “double”:

You will have to turn off or remove the edit mesh to retrieve the correct target shape:

  

What is Add from node?

This uses another object as your morph target for this angle.

You can use Snapshot on the main toolbar to create a new target for morphing. Go tools/Snapshot and select Mesh. this creates a mesh that is not modified by skin:

Let’s say, I want an even bigger bicep and some tricep action:

Go forward a few more frames and make another rotation transform. It is important to establish another angle.

Add from node and select the target arm on the right. Now we are on steroids.