HOW TO RIG A MESH ATTACHMENT

WITHOUT A BLENDER ADDON

By austrinos [KUMA], October 6, 2021

This small tutorial is intended to enable new MESHBODY CLASSIC MESH KIT users for
creating their first mesh attachment (in this example a simple sleeveless top), to rig and
weight it in Blender without the help of a Blender addon and to upload it to Second Life.

Step 1: Align the MESHBODY CLASSIC to the X Axis......................................................................2

Step 2: Parent the Attachment to the Skeleton (Armature).....................................................................3
Step 3: Copy the MESHBODY Weights to the Attachment...................................................................4
Step 4: Remove all unnecessary Vertex Groups.....................................................................................5
Step 5: Limiting Weight Count to 4.......................................................................................................7
Step 6: Make the Bones to be weighted visible......................................................................................8
Step 7: Add the Armature Modifier........................................................................................................9
Step 8: Smooth the Bone Weighting of the Vertex Groups....................................................................9
Step 9: Export the Attachment to Second Life.....................................................................................10
 HOW TO RIG A MESH ATTACHMENT WITHOUT A BLENDER ADDON

Step 1: Align the MESHBODY CLASSIC to the X Axis

Rotate the body in the Z Axis in 90º degrees so it faces X+. It should look like this when
pressing keypad 3. You should also rotate your attachment if it is facing in another direction.

The creation of the attachment itself is not further explained here. Please refer to other
Blender tutorials, if required.

Important: DO NOT FORGET TO APPLY ROTATIONS ON BOTH AND THIS IS NOT

SOMETHING THAT MIGHT WORK ON ALL DEV KITS

For this purpose, perform in Object Mode the option Object / Apply / All Transforms.

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 HOW TO RIG A MESH ATTACHMENT WITHOUT A BLENDER ADDON

Step 2: Parent the Attachment to the Skeleton (Armature)

On the Object Properties context, go to the tab Relations and Parent to

<Skeleton_Meshbody_Classic>:

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Step 3: Copy the MESHBODY Weights to the Attachment

To enable the attachment following the movements of the body or to rescale it by the
appearance sliders, it is required to copy the body weights assigned to its bone vertex groups
to the attachment.

On the Modifier context, add a Data Transfer Modifier and select the body as the data source.
Check the Vertex Data box and select Vertex Groups. Hit Generate Data Layers and then
apply the modifier.

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Step 4: Remove all unnecessary Vertex Groups

All weighting information assigned to the vertex groups of the body has now been copied to
the attachment. In this case, however, not all of it is required for this top. Thus all unnecessary
vertex groups with a weight count of 0 shall be removed.

To ease this work, download this Python script from the net:
https://radeonoff.gumroad.com/l/Gxkbp

Install it under Preferences on the Addon tab:

With the attachment selected, run the script: On the Object Data Properties context, click the
[v] button right to the vertex group list below the plus/minus buttons to open the pull-down
menu and select Remove unused Vertex Groups:

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 HOW TO RIG A MESH ATTACHMENT WITHOUT A BLENDER ADDON

The number of vertex groups and thus the bones affecting the attachment is now much smaller
than before:

Crosscheck that all vertex groups from the list are deleted which are not directly neighboring
the mesh object, so that even just a minor influence might cause weird effects on the mesh
when moving limbs or changing the slider settings. When modeling a sleeveless shirt like in
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this example, the upper arm and clavicle bones needn’t to influence the shirt. When they
remain in the vertex group list after running the cleanup script, check their weighting and
remove them manually from the list, if needed.

Step 5: Limiting Weight Count to 4

Important: For the use in SL, weights should be limited to 4 before exporting. This can be
achieved in Weight Paint Mode in the Weights Menu by the Limit Total option. Look in its
operator and set the number to 4.

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Step 6: Make the Bones to be weighted visible

In Object Mode, select the armature.

On the Object Data Properties context, you can control the visibility of the skeleton’s bones
and handles. Just keep the bones visible you need for the subsequent smoothing of weights,
namely the basic skeleton (green), its joints (turquoise) and the volume bones (red), This can
be achieved by activating the layers as shown below:

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 HOW TO RIG A MESH ATTACHMENT WITHOUT A BLENDER ADDON

Step 7: Add the Armature Modifier

Before smoothing out the weights we need to add an Armature Modifier in the Modifier
context. On the Armature Modifier, activate all four view options (On Cage, Edit Mode,
Realtime and Render) in its right upper corner. Otherwise, you cannot check in Blender if the
smoothing works properly by testing different critical poses.

Step 8: Smooth the Bone Weighting of the Vertex Groups

It is recommended to check and to smooth the weighting of the vertex groups carefully. Move
the bones by rotating to achieve critical poses (e. g. sitting) to check the weighting. Use
Weight Paint Mode for general adjustments or Edit Mode for the fine tuning of vertex weights
(for the latter, the view option Edit Mode must be enabled on the Armature Modifier, see
above).

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 HOW TO RIG A MESH ATTACHMENT WITHOUT A BLENDER ADDON

Step 9: Export the Attachment to Second Life



In the File / Export menu, select the option Collada (.dae) and select this preset:

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In the mesh uploader of the viewer, check the settings for LODs (the two lowest can be set to
0 for rigged attachments) and if the tab Rigging includes all skin weights.

Inworld, the attachment should now look like this. Move your avatar and try the appearance
sliders if everything looks fine.

For now, you are done!

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