Digital Art Zone

I’m having trouble with what I would call partial fit items. Things like a necklace with a gem. The chain needs to fit/conform… no problem, but the gem needs to be a hard object that does not conform. It seems I just can’t find the right tutorial to get to the bottom of hardening things like the ‘gem’. It keeps getting contorted. Anybody got a good idea on this? This would be under DS4. Hope DS 4.5 is better in this area.

I recall hearing mention of “rigidity maps” in a discussion of this sort of thing last year, but I don’t remember any real details.

Rigidity maps stop a part of the mesh from deforming in response to auto-generated morphs, but they don’t help with posing. If you want soemthign like a gem to move as a unit you need to make sure it’s weights are uniform across the whole part, so that there’s no partial bending - often people will give something like that its own bone so that it can be adjusted. If it’s actually attached to the clothing all around that may not be easy, or even possible, and you will have to strike a compromise.

I was hoping there might be some good video tutes on this. I worked with rigidity maps but seems I was doing something wrong. I have watched the ‘sash’ tutorial a number of times which is as close as I can find on the subject. I must be doing something wrong or missing some step. I have not tried adding bones and am now seeing perhaps 2 bones, one coming from the neck to where the ‘gem’ attaches and then another running inside of the gem itself. I’ll keep pounding on it to see if I can get the magic going.