| Using Skin modifier
In This Tutorial, I will teach you how to use the skin modifier to bend
and animate objects:
Okay, lets start off by creating a cylinder with these settings:

Make sure it has alot of height segments, for a clean bend.
Okay, now create another cylinder, with a radius of 25.0, and a height
of 45.And move it so
it is centered at the bottom of the bigger cylinder, exactly in the middle.
Try right clicking
on the "select and move" icon
and change all settings to 0.0. You should end up with this:

now duplicate that cylinder 3 times (hold shift and click on it and change
the number of copies to 3),
move one of the copies up to the very top of the cylinder, exactly, and
spread the other two evenly
in between the one @ the top + the bottom ( there will be a gap between
all four small cylinders )
These smaller cylinders will be used as the bones to morph the bigger
cylinder:

Ok, time to add the skin modifier, click on the outer cylinder (the big
one), and add the modifier to it.
then, under the Parameters rollout, click on "Add Bone" and
then in the selection window, click on the "All" button, then
click select:

Doing this, adds the four smaller cylinders to be the controllable bones,
which you can use to manipulate the bigger cylinder... By moving one of
the smaller cylinders, you morph part of the bigger cylinder, By rotating
one of the smaller cylinders you rotate sections of the bigger cylinder.
To simulate how the bones should move, you will need to add actual "bones"
to them.
Hint: Before rendering, especially for animations, hide
the smaller type cylinders by either selecting the smaller cylinders and
right clicking and selecting the "Hide selection" option, or
by doing it the proper way.
I hope this tutorial has helped you understand how to simply use the
skin modifier. Thank you

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