Skeleton Layer

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Parameters of Skeleton Layers

The parameters of the skeleton layers are:

Name	Value	Type
Z Depth	0.000000	real
Amount	0.500000	real
Name	skeleton	string
Bones	list (Static List)	list

Summary

In the skeleton layer, each vertex is influenced by a weighted average combination of bones maybe from different skeletons?.

There are two ways to make a vector be influenced by bone(s). First is the Link to Bone action that would give a 100% of influence of one bone to one vector. Second is the Link to Skeleton that is a semiautomatic way to give weighted influence to a vector from all the bones that overlaps its influence area over the vector position. The more covered the vector is by the influence area, the higher is the influence weight. In any case you can manually specify the bone and the influence that you want by editing the values in the vector (sub)parameters. We need to modify the bone(s) with handles to perform the indirect movement to the vectors that are influenced by it(them)

Skeleton construction

Add a "Skeleton layer" :

• If your Canvas is empty you can do that from the main or caret menus "<Layer> → <New Layer> → <Other> → Skeleton".
• If your canvas is not empty, right clicking inside the Layers Panel.

Once you have a "Skeleton layer", the first bone appears. You have created the first bone of your Skeleton, this is your first parent bone.

Each bones have the following handles to control them : "Origin", "Angle", "Local Length Scale", "Bone Width" and "Tip Width". Take a look inside the Parameters Panel of the "Skeleton layer", those handles are relative to some of those values (with also some advanced parameters).

From the WorkArea, with the Bones handles you can easily move and adjust part of your Skeleton.

Now, you can had child bones :

• Right click on any handles of the parent bone you want and select "Create Child Bone".
• Repeat the operation, choosing accordingly the parent bone of your future bone (the parent of a hand bone is the arm, the parent bone of a finger is the hand bone...), to create your Skeleton.

When created, a "Skeleton layer", is Disabled from rendering : the layer is visible in the WorkArea but disabled in the final Render.

Parameters of a Bone

The parameters of a bone are:

Name	Value	Type
Name	Bone 1	string
Parent	No Parent	bone_valuenode
Origin	0.00000, 0.00000	vector
Angle	0.00°	angle
Local Length Scale	1.00000	real
Bone Width	0.10000	real
Recursive Length Scale	1.00000	real
Tip Width	0.10000	real
Z-Depth	0.00000	real
Length Setup	1.00000	real

Bone Width

Has "Tip Width", "Bone Width" is used to set the influence of the bone before the use of "Link to Skeleton" action. "Bone Width" parameter can be adjusted by the witdh Handle. When adjusting the "Bone Width", the bone's shape change accordingly.

Tip Width

Has "Bone Width", "Tip Width" is used to set the influence of the bone before the use of "Link to Skeleton" action. "Tip Width" parameter can be adjusted by the witdh Handle. When adjusting the "Tip Width", the bone's shape change accordingly.

Z-Depth

This parameter can be used to change the 'depth' (order) of a Bone in a Skeleton Layer.

Skeleton / Bones actions

Create Child Bone

When you add a "Skeleton Layer", only one bone is created. In order to create a usable skeleton, you will need to add more bones.

Right clicking on any handles of bone display a contextual menu. From this menu select "Create Child Bone" and a new child bone will be created. This child bone will move accordingly to his parent.

Link to Bone

"Link to Bone" link artwork, for example handles of a shape created with the Spline Tool, to a bone.

Select a single or multiple handles from your artwork, right click on a bone and from the contextual menu, select "Link to Bone". Now when you move the Bone, the selected handles also move.

See it in action in bones dev part 5

Link to Skeleton

Before you use "Link to Skeleton" you should adjust the "Bone width" and "Tip width" of each bones of you skeleton to set the bone shape.

Select one or more handles from your artwork, select the "Skeleton layer" right click on it and from the contextual menu, select "Link to Skeleton". All the handles covered by the bone shape will be automatically linked.

See it in action : Bones dev part 7

Disconnect

If you want to disconnect / unlink a bone from the part of the artwork it is linked to.

• From the Layers Panel, select the Skeleton Layer
• From the Parameters Panel, open the "Bones" list
• Select the corresponding "Item" (the according bone's handles will be highligthed whith red squares)
• Right click to open the context menu and select "Disconnect".

Change parent

You can also change the parent of a bone in the skeleton, even during animation.

• From the Layers Panel, select the Skeleton Layer
• From the Parameters Panel, open the "Bones" list
• Select the corresponding "Item" (the according bone's handles will be highligthed whith red squares)
• Click on the "Value" of "Parent" to change the parent or set the parent to "none".

See Also

• To deform raster images : Skeleton Deformation Layer.
• Basic Bone Tutorial
• A SIF-file of a rigged character using bones can be found here.

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