Edit wire deformers

You can edit all of a wire deformer’s attributes with the Attribute Editor.

Important: Do not use Freeze Geometry on wire deformers if you plan to move the base wire. Otherwise, if you have a wire deformer whose Freeze Geometry attribute is turned on and you move its base wire relative to the deformed surface (or vice versa), the deformation’s behavior will change the next time the scene is loaded into Maya.

To edit wire channels with the Channel Box

  1. Select a wire deformer node (default name: wiren).

    One quick way to select the wire deformer node is to select the object being deformed, and then select the wire deformer node in its history from the Channel Box (under INPUTS).

    Note that you can control which attributes are listed as keyable attributes (channels) in the Channel Box with the Channel Control Editor (select Windows > General Editors > Channel Control).

  2. In the Channel Box, click the name of the channel you want to edit.
  3. In your scene, middle-click and move the mouse to the left or right. By moving the mouse, you interactively change the value of the selected channel. As you move the mouse, note that pressing the Ctrl key will give you finer control, and pressing the Shift key will give you coarser control.

To edit wire attributes with the Attribute Editor

  1. Select the wire deformer node (default name: wiren).
  2. Open the Attribute Editor by selecting Windows > Attribute Editor or use the default shortcut Ctrl + a.
  3. Set the attributes.

    See wire.

To add a wire dropoff locator

  1. To select a curve point on the influence wire, right-click the influence wire curve and select Curve Point from the marking menu.
  2. Click the influence wire curve roughly where you would like to put the wire dropoff locator. The curve point is displayed as a small yellow box.
  3. Drag along the curve to adjust the point’s position on the curve.

    As you drag, you move the curve point. The curve point’s position is defined in terms of the curve’s U parameter.

    Now you need to specify the curve point as a wire dropoff locator.

  4. Select Deform > (Edit) Wire > Wire Dropoff Locator.

    The curve point is now a wire dropoff locator. For more information, see Wire Dropoff Locator Options.

  5. To add more wire dropoff locators, repeat steps 2 through 5.

To move a wire dropoff locator

  1. Do one of the following:

You can now drag the Show Manipulator’s handles to move the dropoff locator along the influence wire curve (changes the Param and Local Position attribute values) or scale the dropoff locator’s influence (changes the Percent attribute value).

To edit a wire dropoff locator’s channels

  1. Select the wire dropoff locator shape node (default name: locatorShapen).
  2. In the Channel Box, edit its channels.

    Note the wire deformer also includes Envelope and Twist channels for each wire dropoff locator. These channels correspond to the wire deformer’s Envelope and Twist attributes. See wire.

To edit a wire dropoff locator’s attributes

  1. Select a wire dropoff locator (default name: locatorShapen).
  2. Open the Attribute Editor by selecting Windows > Attribute Editor or use the default shortcut Ctrl + a.
  3. Edit the attributes.

    For more information on wire dropoff locator nodes, see dropoffLocator.

To smooth jagged effects

  1. Do one of the following:
    • Increase the wire deformer’s Dropoff Distance attribute. See wire.
    • Add more points to the object’s surface. For example, if the object is a NURBS surface, increase the number of control vertices.

Add and remove holders

Holders are curves that limit the deformation region. Adding or removing a holder can sometimes lead to unexpected changes in the deformation region. You can remedy these effects by editing and pruning the wire deformer set.

You can a holder to a deformer only if it doesn’t already have a holder.

To add a holders

  1. Select the curves you want to add to the deformer as holders.
  2. Shift-click on any wire in the deformer to select the deformer to which you want add the curve as a holder.
  3. Select Deform > (Edit) Wire > Add Holder. See Wire Add Holder Options.

    The selected curve becomes a holder for the wire deformer.

To remove a holder you must delete the curve. If you need the curve, first duplicate the curve then delete the original one (that serves as a holder).

To remove holders

  1. Select the curve that you want to remove as holder.
  2. Delete the curve.

Move, rotate, scale holders

Moving, rotating, or scaling holders can change the deformation effect and the deformation region. You can move, rotate, or scale a holder in the same way that you would move, rotate, or scale any object in Maya.

Edit the shape of holders

Editing the shape of holders can change the deformation effect and the deformation region. You edit the shape of holders in the same way that you edit NURBS curves during modeling.

Edit wire deformer sets

For more information, see Editing deformer set membership.

Prune wire deformer sets

Pruning is useful for quickly limiting the deformation region as you manipulate influence wires.

To prune deformer set membership

  1. Select a wire deformer node.
  2. Move the influence wire(s) so that only those points you want to keep in the deformer set are being affected.
  3. Select Deform > Prune Membership > Wire.

    The undeformed points are removed from the deformer set.

    Note: Prune Membership only removes points from the deformation if they are currently not affected by the deformer. Therefore, if you try to prune the membership of an object whose points are all controlled by the deformer, you will receive the error message “No components could be pruned.”

To delete a wire deformer

  1. Select the wire deformer node.
  2. Select Edit > Delete or use the default shortcut Backspace (Linux and Windows) or Delete (Mac OS X) key.

    The deformer nodes are all deleted. However, the object still has the tweak node as an input node, so any tweaks you might have made are preserved.

Parent topic: Wire deformer