How do you add new meshes to an existing deformer with component tags active?

[adamgravois]

The Maya 2022 docs talk a lot about how to edit component tag membership WITHIN a given mesh, but I can't find any mention of how to add a new object to an existing deformer.  Used to be, you'd add it to the deformer set. How do you do it now? (I know how to roll back to deformer sets, but I want to use component tags & falloffs). 

[mcw0]

Create a component tag under the shape node of the mesh.  Then add that tag to the deformer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufa0kXdpioI

[adamgravois]

Thanks for the reply. I still don't see how to add a tag for a new object to an existing deformer. In the video, he adds a new deformer to the existing mesh, then creates a new component tag on the mesh. The deformer already has an entry for that geometry that can be updated with a new tag.

I'm trying to add a NEW object to an existing deformer. I took another look to see if there's some way to add a new geometry but I'm not seeing it. 

Items in the list above are all geometries selected when the deformer was created. 

What am I missing? Surely there is a way to do this... 

[adamgravois]

Surely this must have a straightforward and trivial answer?

Surely it cannot be impossible, or obscure, to attach a new geometry to an existing deformer?

[teddude75]

You should have this option. 

 

[adamgravois]

Thanks for the reply! I don't have that pop-up menu. I'm in 2022.4, is that perhaps a 2023 feature? (Or is my install broken, somehow? 🤔)

[teddude75]

Yes, I've checked it out and it's possible to add components through the node editor or even through a script in Maya 2022. It's much easy in Maya 2023.

[adamgravois]

ah, ok, thank you! So, it would be something like,

Connect the shape World Mesh output  to the Deformer's "Input[last number]" input and its Out Mesh to the "Original Geometry[last number]" input...

and then connect the deformer's "Output Geometry[same number]" to the Shape's "In Mesh" input... cool, cool.

...but that creates a Cycle, which is bad, right? So, maybe I just add some placeholder deformer to force-create a "ShapeOrig" node, and use that on the Deformer's inputs.

OK, that works! I'm not updating to 2023 mid-project, so thanks for this! 

[teddude75 · Accepted solution]

It's a little weird to do to it in 2022. You want to bind it to a whole new skin mesh with a new proximity deformer. Then go into the node editor and connect the new mesh out to the old proximity deformer.  All you want to do is make sure that you match the connections from the new deformer to the old. Keep the tweak node and than delete the new deformer.