2009

Understanding Physique
Physique is a modifier that, when applied to a mesh, allows the movements
of an underlying skeleton to move the mesh seamlessly, like bones and muscle
under a human skin. Physique works on all point-based objects including
geometric primitives, editable meshes, patch-based objects, NURBS, and even
FFD space warps. For NURBS and FFDs, Physique deforms the control points,
which in turn deform the model. You can attach it to any skeleton structure
including a biped, 3ds Max bones, splines, or any 3ds Max hierarchy. When
you apply Physique to the skin objects and attach the skin to the skeleton,
Physique determines how each component of the skeleton influences each
vertex of the skin, based on settings you specify.
Physique affects a mesh after you click Attach To Node on the Physique rollout
and select a root node in the viewports. During the attach process, Physique
works its way through all of the children in a hierarchy, starting at the object
you select, and creates its own links with associated
envelopes on page 4628 for
each link it finds. The links created by Physique are referred to within this
documentation as the Physique deformation spline on page 7949. Vertices that
fall within envelopes are influenced to follow the links and animate the mesh.
Splines and 3ds Max bones can also be added using the Add button in the
Floating Bones rollout on page 4678.
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