Deform menu

(Located in the Animation, Modeling, and Rigging menu sets).

Create

Blend Shape

Creates a Blend Shape deformer on the selected object or group.

See Create blend shape deformers and Shape authoring for more information.

To open and change the Blend Shape Options, select Deform > (Create) Blend Shape > .

Cluster

Creates a Cluster deformer.

To open and change the Cluster Options, select Deform > (Create) Cluster > .

See also Create cluster deformers.

Delta Mush

Creates a Delta Mush deformer.

To open and change the Delta Mush Options, select Deform > (Create) Delta Mush > .

See also Create Delta Mush deformers.

Lattice

Creates a Lattice deformer.

To open and change the Lattice Options, select Deform > (Create) Lattice > .

See also Create lattice deformers.

Wrap

Creates a Wrap deformer.

To open and change the Wrap Options, select Deform > (Create) Wrap > .

See also Create wrap deformers.

ShrinkWrap

Creates a ShrinkWrap deformer.

To open and change the Shrinkwrap Options, select Deform > (Create) Shrinkwrap > .

See also Shrinkwrap deformer.

Wire

Creates a Wire deformer.

To open and change the Wire Tool Options, select Deform > (Create) Wire > .

See also Set wire deformers.

Wrinkle

Creates a Wrinkle deformer.

To open and change the Wrinkle Tool Options, select Deform > (Create) Wrinkle > .

See also Create Wrinkle deformers.

Muscle

Creates a Muscle deformer.

To open the Muscle menu, select Deform > (Create) Muscle > .

See also Maya Muscle.

Note: For information on the items and tools available from the Muscle menu, download the Maya Muscle guide at http://www.autodesk.com/maya-docs-archive.

Nonlinear

Creates a Nonlinear deformer.

To open the Nonlinear menu, select Deform > (Create) Nonlinear > .

See also Create nonlinear deformers.

Soft Modification

Creates a Soft Modification deformer.

To open and change the Soft Modification Tool options, select Deform > (Create) Soft Modification > .

See also Use the Soft Modification Tool.

Sculpt

Creates a Sculpt deformer.

To open the Sculpt Options, select Deform > (Create) Sculpt > .

See also Create sculpt deformers.

Texture

Creates a Texture deformer.

To open the Texture Options, select Deform > (Create) Texture > .

See also Create a texture deformer.

Jiggle

Creates a Jiggle deformer.

To open the Jiggle deformer menu, select Deform > (Create) Jiggle > .

See also Creating Jiggle deformers.

Point on Curve

Creates a Point on Curve deformer.

To open the Point On Curve Options, select Deform > (Create) Point on Curve > .

See also Create Point on Curve deformers.

Edit

Blend Shape

Opens the Blend Shapes Menu. See Shape authoring and Create blend shape deformers for general information on blend shape deformations.

Lattice

Reset Lattice

You can reset the lattice by choosing Deform > (Edit) Lattice > Reset Lattice from the Edit section. However, you cannot change the resolution of a lattice if the lattice points have been moved from their reset position or the lattice has history.

Remove Lattice Tweaks

If you want to change the number of divisions on a lattice whose points have been moved, choose Deform > (Edit) Lattice > Remove Lattice Tweaks, and then change the divisions of the lattice. If you want to change the divisions on a lattice with history, find the input lattice shape and change its divisions. You can find the input lattice by selecting the lattice and looking in the attribute editor tabs for the original lattice shape, which will typically share the same base name as the output lattice appended by “Orig.”

See also Edit Lattice deformers.

Wrap

Add Influence

Adds the selected object as a new influence for the specified wrap deformation.

Remove Influence

Removes the selected influence object from the specified wrap deformation.

See also Edit Wrap deformers.

ShrinkWrap

Add Surfaces

Adds NURBs surfaces to the existing deformer.

Remove Inner Object

Removes the connection between the inner object and the wrapper object without deleting the shrinkwrap node. When you remove an inner object, it no longer affects the wrapper object.

Remove Surfaces

Removes NURBs surfaces from the existing deformer.

Remove Target

Removes the connection between the target object and the wrapper object without deleting the shrinkwrap node. When you remove a target, it no longer affects the wrapper object.

Set Inner Object

Lets you reset your inner object after you've created a shrinkwrap deformer in your scene.

Set Target

Lets you reset your target object after you've created a shrinkwrap deformer in your scene.

See also Shrinkwrap deformer, Edit Shrinkwrap deformers, and Shrinkwrap Options.

Wire

Opens the Wire Menu.

See also Edit wire deformers,

Edit Membership Tool

You can directly edit deformer set memberships by selecting deformable object points with the Set Membership Tool.

See Edit deformer set membership and Paint Set Membership Tool.

Prune Membership

Opens the Prune Membership menu.

You can remove unaffected points from a deformer set based on which points the deformer is affecting. Use this to avoid unnecessary calculations for points that are not being affected by the deformation. Prune Membership is available for only Cluster, Lattice, Sculpt, and Wire deformers.

The pruning operation considers only the current position of each component in the undeformed and deformed versions of the geometry affected by the specified deformation. If you have animated attributes of your deformation, the pruning operation is performed based only on the current attribute values. This means that components that are potentially affected at other frames of your animation might get pruned out if they are unaffected at the current frame.

Since a typical blend shape operation has weights of 0.0 for some target shapes at any point in time, this operation is especially dangerous when applied to blend shape deformations. For this reason, there is no menu item provided to prune membership for blend shape deformers. However, you can access prune membership for blend shape deformers through the command line.

See To prune Cluster deformer set membership.

See To prune Lattice deformer set membership.

Mirror Deformer Weights

Mirrors deformer weights.

Select Deform > (Edit) Mirror Deformer Weights > to open the Mirror Deformer Weights Options.

See also Mirror deformer weights.

Display Intermediate Objects

Turns on the visibility for the current object’s original (prior to deformation) shape. You can use intermediate objects as points-of-reference when deforming objects. For example, you can compare a deformed object and its intermediate object to determine how different the deformed object is from its original shape.

See also Displaying and hiding intermediate objects.

Hide Intermediate Objects

Turns off the visibility for the current object’s original (prior to deformation) shape.

See also Displaying and hiding intermediate objects.

Paint Weights

Blend Shape

Opens the Paint Blend Shape Weights Tool options.

Cluster

Opens the Paint Cluster Weights Tool options.

Delta Mush

Opens the Paint Delta Mush Weights Tool options.

ShrinkWrap

Opens the Paint ShrinkWrap Weights Tool options.

Wire

Opens the Paint Wire Weights Tool options.

Nonlinear

Opens the Paint Attributes Tool Options.

Jiggle

Opens the Paint Jiggle Weights Tool options.

Texture Deformer

Opens the Paint Texture Deformer Weights Tool options.

Set Membership

Opens the Paint Set Membership Tool options.

Weights

Export Weights

Opens the Export Deformer Weights Options, where you can set the options for exporting deformer weights as an XML file.

Existing nodes

Lets you select from a drop-down list of the deformer nodes in your scene.

File name

Enter a file name for the weight map.

By default the weight map is saved to your current project directory. Click the folder icon to browse to a different directory.

See also Export and import deformer weights.

Import Weights

Opens the Import Deformer Weights Options, where you can select a file containing the deformer weight map you want to import.

Deformer node

Lets you enter the name of the node where you want to import the weights. You can also select the node from the Existing nodes list.

Existing nodes

Select from a drop-down list of the deformer nodes in your scene.

File name

Enter the name of the XML file you want to import, or click the folder icon to browse and select a file.

Mapping Method

This drop-down menu lets you select from the following options:

Index

Replaces current values on the skinned object with the imported values taken from the XML file, overwriting values only for vertices that match between the mesh and imported weights file (for example vertex1 on mesh to vertex1 of the imported XML file.)

Select this option if you want the import to rely on the index of the vertex in the deformer. This is useful for getting a perfect match between shape nodes and deformers.

Nearest

Select this option if you want Maya to determine which point gets what weights based on the proximity of the point in the weight map. This can be useful when the index numbers have changed but the topology is very similar or exact.

Over

Replaces current values on the skinned object with the imported values taken from the XML file, overwriting any default values for weights.

Ignore names

When on, Maya ignores the names of the deformer nodes when trying to import weights.

Normalize Weights

When on (by default), Maya completes an extra normalization pass while importing the weight values in order to prevent jagged artifacts from appearing on the target mesh. In some cases, these artifacts can occur after weight values are rounded on export.

See also Export and import deformer weights