Skin wrap modifier "Convert to skin" causes mesh to distort horribly.... what gives?
triangle
Ok, Im not an animator.... Any hints or tips about why my mesh freaks out when I convert to skin? It seems to work fine with the bone based rig before conversion.
Replies
It's a max bug.
You fix it by going to 0 Frame, then un-checking, and re-checking 'Always Deform'.
@JacqueChoi Where is this awesome check box? I'm using max 2010 and its now where in the rollout
Beware to set a frame where your "unskinned" mesh is aligned with the rig (usually 0).
The skin pose for the bones, should match your bind pose, which should match your skinwrapping mesh. Skinwrapping to a mesh that doesn't share these same properties or has been moved or is animating is a dicey operation. It will almost always fubar the skinwrap if you do your skinning on frame 0 and then later change your skeletons position/orientation on that frame.
It will seem to continue working because it took a snapshot and is retaining it within skin, but once you edit that frame it becomes a ghost, not everything will see it and interact with it appropriately. Setting the skin pose will help bolster its presence but really with custom rigs you should always have a bind pose frame.
Other rigs like CAT and Biped get around this by storing it separately in a different mode, figure mode and setup mode. So with CAT and Biped you can do whatever you want with frame 0, nothing important is stored there. With custom rigs unless they are very advanced, just don't handle it the same.
(you can hold atl and right click to set/assume skin pose also)
The progressive nature of your problem may be because you're generating additional skin modifiers without disabling/deleting the old ones. Skin modifiers will act additively.