Ep.6 — Skin Function · Weight Work Preparation & Data Management

Overview

The Skin tab is not a screen for painting weights — it is a management screen for bulk selecting, disabling, backing up, and restoring already-skinned meshes.

Skin Modifier = The skin modifier applied to a mesh in Max.
SkinLayer Studio = The layer-based skin tool from Ep.5 (similar name, but a different thing).

Prerequisites

• Meshes must have weights (skin) applied — work in progress or partially complete using SkinLayer Studio or similar

Skin Tab — Button by Button

All Mesh

• Selects all meshes in the scene that can be skin targets at once.
• Convenient when there are multiple pieces of body, clothing, and accessories.

All Skinned

• Selects only meshes that already have a Skin Modifier attached.
• Difference from All Mesh: meshes not yet skinned are excluded.

Enable / Disable Skin

When to use: If you changed a pose and the mesh looks strangely stretched → Disable shows only the raw mesh, making it easy to tell whether it's a skin issue.

Reset

1. Test after returning to the default pose (T-Pose, etc.).
2. With skin enabled, moving only bones can make the mesh look stretched — this is normal behavior.
3. Reset — restores skin and pose-related data to the initial state.

Delete Skin

• Deletes weights and the Skin Modifier from selected meshes.
• All Skin Delete — deletes everything with skin attached (difficult to undo).

Save · Load (Backup & Restore)

1. Save — saves current weights to a file (backup, or for moving to another scene).
2. Load — loads a saved file. Usually clears existing weights and applies new ones.
3. On success, the mesh display may change color or show a UI indicator (varies by version).

Recommended Order

Save in between work sessions (backup)
    → If you make a mistake, Load (restore)
    → Save before Delete as well

Rigging Info (Brief)

• You can access the Rigging Info panel via a nearby button on the Skin tab or a separate button.
• Mirror, reset, and custom controllers are linked to registration and Update here (Ep.10·13).

Notes

• Always Save before Delete All Skin.
• Disable/Enable alone does not erase weight values. Reset and Delete change the data.
• If the bone count or names differ from when you saved, Load may fail → Skin after Build/Figure is finalized.