Use Selected Bones for Flexi-Binding - ??

[Jkoseattle]

In previous posts I learned that the "Use Selected Bones for Flexi-Binding" option is very useful. As I understood it, it limits the effect of flexi-binding to a single selected layer. But that's not what it's doing for me.

Say I have a head shape with face layers on top of it. I want some bones to change the shape of the head without affecting the face layers. I create a few bones, all children of the same root bone. At first creation, when manipulating one of these bones, the face layers flex as well as the head shape. So, with the head layer highlighted, I select the bones and choose the "Use selected bones..." option, there is no change. What am I doing wrong?

[Víctor Paredes]

In previous posts I learned that the "Use Selected Bones for Flexi-Binding" option is very useful. As I understood it, it limits the effect of flexi-binding to a single selected layer.

Not exactly. By default, all the layers are bent by all the bones. Using this option, you can tell the software that one layer will be bent only by specific bones, ignoring the strength of the rest of the bones.
This option only affects that layer, the other layers will still being affected by all bones, unless you use the "Use selected Bones for Flexi-Binding" option on them too.

[Jkoseattle]

Ok, so it limits the layers, not the bones. So if I have ten layers all sitting near each other, and ten bones in the same vicinity, if I want those ten bones to affect only one of those layers, and all the rest of the layers to ignore those bones, how do I go about that? And then later on I might want to create new bones that affect some of those nine layers, so I don't want the layers to be completely immune to bones at all.

[synthsin75]

Ok, so it limits the layers, not the bones. So if I have ten layers all sitting near each other, and ten bones in the same vicinity, if I want those ten bones to affect only one of those layers, and all the rest of the layers to ignore those bones, how do I go about that? And then later on I might want to create new bones that affect some of those nine layers, so I don't want the layers to be completely immune to bones at all.

1. Select all bones you want to have influence.
2. Select the layer(s) you want influenced.
3. Select Bone>Use Selected Bones for Flexi-Binding from the menu.
4. Select layer(s) you want ignored by these bones.
5. Select Bone>Release Layer and Points from the menu.

To add influence:

1. Repeat steps 1-3 above.
2. If you're just binding layers, select Bone>Flexi-Bind Layer. If you're flexi-binding points, you'll need to select each layer, select the points, and use Bone>Flexi-Bind points. You'll also have to reselect the bones for each layer while point flexi-binding.

[mmmaarten]

{explains workflow}

For who comes across this thread later when working with meshes/warp layers and it's not working:
This workflow didn't work for me because I missed something (which I just solved for myself); the warp layers. When you used a warp layer on an image, release layer doesn't work when selecting the image layer. Also 'release layer' doesn't work on the warp layer. You must select the warp layer instead of the image layer AND must be on frame 0 (makes sense, but is easy to forget or miss) AND instead of 'Release layer' use 'Release Layer and Points' instead! For me that did the trick.

Still one question for me left tho:
I feel like I would like it better to always need to add binding myself the way I need it, instead of needing to release binding that's automatically set. Is there a way to disable to behaviour to always start with binding applied?

Thanks!

[egypturnash]

I've been playing with this and it works a lot better for me than the "explode the entire character and use flexi-binding" workflow laid out in the tutorials.

I've been having a little trouble with getting it to work on a character who has her hands set up as switch layers, though - if I try setting the hand bone to flexi-bind with the switch layer, the hands continue to be influenced by all the other bones near the hands' starting positions. If I select each individual layer and set it to use the handbone for flexi-binding, it works. It feels like a source of problems just waiting to happen, though; I can easily see adding a new hand to the hand switch group and forgetting to bind it to the handbone, or only binding it to one handbone and forgetting to bind the flipped reference to the other handbone and discovering it several days later when I need that hand on the other arm in another scene.

Is this a place where nested bones might help? There's not much in the manual on that and the general sentiment I've seen on these forums regarding them seems to be "don't".