Rigged clothing needs to be ripped off by a spinning object

[whitneydigital]

I need to animate several layers of clothing getting ripped off a rigged character and then wrapping around a large rotating piece of machinery.  Is there a way to animated a piece of geo unbinding from a skeleton and then into a bend deformer?   If I could animate skin weights I could imagine having the geo "peel" off the rig, but I don't think there is a way to animate skin weights.  Any other ideas before I try a full-on cloth simulation which I expect to be an endless time pit.

[mspeer]

Hi!

skinCluster -> Deformer Attributes -> Envelope

bend -> Deformer Attributes -> Envelope

[whitneydigital]

Thank you. Pardon my ignorance, but I’m not sure where to find your suggestion in the menus. I see “cluster” in the deformers menu, and I see “smooth bind” in the skin menu which creates a skinCluster. But I cannot find envelope bend anywhere.

[mspeer]

Hi!

Check the Attributes of these nodes in Attribute Editor.

[dinofiguera]

Sometimes it is very handy to use the good old trick of show and hide.
I'm not sure how your scene looks like but what I do very often, instead of trying to change the rig is
to rig a separate copy of what I want to detach, and then show the new detached part and hide the original one in the right frame, in order for the animation to be seamless and smooth.

Cheers,

D