Costume Skin Requirements

Costume Skin Guide

• When dealing with costume skins, it's crucial to modify the scale value of the custom bones to accurately depict various body types, as illustrated in the image below.

Tips for Creating Costume Skins

1. Reset X form

• Before you start implementing the skin, be sure to Reset X Form and Collapse All on the costume polygons.

2. When you do SkinWrap (the same applies when working with skins for the first time)

• Set Biped to figure mode and proceed with SkinWrap using Face Deformation.

• Falloff 1.0 ~ 9.0, Distance Infinit: 0.1~ 1.0

• Threshold < 0.1 cm

• Do not tick Blend To Base Mesh. Tick Weight All Points.

• To implement the skin on your own, start by excluding Bip001 from the Skin-Bones Add and switch

• the required Export Bone Add SkinWrap to Skin.

• Then adjust the Bone Affect Limit value to 4 and select all the vertices you intend to work with the skin.

• Next, modify the Remove Zero Limit to 0.01 and proceed to press the Remove Zero Weights button. Finally, turn off Figure mode.

• Vertices situated in the center of the polygon mesh should be influenced by the left and right bones equally, with the same percentage (an error of 0.001 - 0.004 is acceptable).

These vertices are positioned at 0 on the X-axis, which represents the center of symmetry. For simplicity, let's refer to it as the center vertex.

It's crucial to understand that while the center vertices initially have identical weight values assigned to the left and right bones, using Mirror Mode to mirror the left or right skin weight values will alter the weight values of the center vertices. Hence, when you've completed your work with skin weights in 3ds Max, make sure to verify the weight value of the center vertex before exiting.

3. Skin Bone

Skin works should be conducted on the Export Bone, not the Biped. In the Layer Explorer, ensure that you utilize the bones located under the Body_Skeleton and Customize_Body_Bone, which belong to the layer labeled Export_Bone.

List of Used Bones

1. Body_Skeleton

   : ball_r, ball_l , foot_r, foot_l, hand_r, hand_l , finger bones, CA_head (required)

2. Customize_Body_Bone

   : Select all bones in the list except C_wrist_l_scale and C_wrist_r_scale.

   (select all before implementing skin)

4. For skin weight

• The selected vertices in the image below should have a skin weight value of 1 assigned to the CA_head bone.

5. Differentiating the upper body based on gender

• Depending on the clothing, begin by selecting a base body type (male/female) and then craft a skin that aligns with the specified body type.

The distinction between masculine and feminine lies in the chest and waist size. For tops only, it's necessary to create separate skins for each gender. You should have a costume and a base body (with vertex colors applied) in the final Max file.

3. Working with skin weights based on mesh parts

• Depending on the mesh, begin by selecting a base body type (male/female) and then craft a skin that aligns with the specified body type.

The classification of men's and women's upper bodies is determined by the shoulder line and navel line of Body001_01. Take this into consideration when using Skin Wrap.