Unreal Engine 5 Character Creation, Animation, and Cinematics

Chapter 12: Alien Plant Skinning in Blender

In the preceding chapter, we created a skeleton armature for our Alien Plant. Using a skeleton with a 3D model, you need to tell the 3D software what part of the model needs to follow which joints. You also need to tell the 3D software how much it influences that part of the model, particularly the blend between different joints. This process is called skinning. It is much like the way your forearm skin follows your forearm bone and the elbow skin is a blend between your forearm and upper arm bones. Skinning is also commonly called skin deformation.

All this might sound very complicated to do. Indeed, to do the skinning of a full human or animal character, for example, can be very challenging and time-consuming. ...