Modular Body Groups

Body groups. What are they? In the realm of 3D media, body groups are a way of organizing and customizing your mesh, by grouping and controlling different components together, seamlessly switching mesh to create variations upon a selected object.

Put more simply, it’s a way of adding and removing objects from a rig through a UI.

You might have a body group for heads that switches in and out a number of ‘head’ mesh, one for clothing or whole body types. Outside of human bodies you might find use for body groups in setting up ‘destruction’ states, randomized variations or even setting up LODs.

What are the other practical uses? You can have different tyre body groups for your car, different car chassis, different architecture for your building (windows, escape ladders, doors, flower pots), different attachments to your characters (horns, hats, general cosmetics, backpacks, guns, belts, attachments to clothing, shoes, heads, hands and other appendages). Really the sky is the limit.

This way you can quickly generate many combinations by just utilizing these easy-to-use body groups.

Addon Versions

• Trial - 1 body group max, no dependent, no ‘freeze’
• Body Groups Light - 3 body groups per object
• Body Groups Mid - 10 body groups per object
• Body Groups Max - 100 body groups per object
• Body Groups Pro - Max version + functionality to animate body groups and turn them into Active animatable objects

Body Groups Pro - Separate and make body groups real, so they can be animated, modified while also retaining the functionality of a body group and the mechanism of switching between them. This way you can create gibbing, dismemberment, damage to the body and so on, while being able to have full control along the way and not needing to do circus tricks to achieve a simple thing such as this.

Below you can see the base model. When the character reaches for his hand, the body group is timed to activate at that moment, removing the base mesh of the original hand and inserting the separated hand, which can now be moved around. Then the hand is re-attached to the body and the same thing happens to the leg.

FAQ

The .zip doesn’t install in Blender

• Please un-zip the archive and install the .py script.

How do I activate an addon?

• Use this 20 sec guide – https://youtu.be/wOv4oHO5Kqg

DOCUMENTATION

Location

Panel

(Armature) Object Data‣ Body Groups

Actions

Refresh

Reset all objects set to be created by the body group as well as re-randomizing any ‘Random’ elements

Clear

Remove all objects created by this armature’s body group

Spawn Settings

Displays settings for all Body Groups in the armature’s active Body Group Set, depending on the spawn type it will act in different ways:
• Exclusive has a drop-down menu where one object is active at a time
• Inclusive is a set of checkboxes that can all be toggled on or off
• Dependent has no UI here; will be chosen depending on the target Body Group. Ensure the target body group comes before (above) the child in the UI
• Random has no UI here but will re-randomize upon Refreshing

Make Real

Makes the mesh no longer a part of the ‘body group’ that created it, meaning it’s no longer reloaded when ‘Refresh’ is used

Settings

Active

Body Group Targets the Body Group ‘set’ (collection of body groups) for this armature to use. Only one set may be used at a time. The target set is what defines the settings available to the armature

Freeze

Stops any random elements from being re-randomized when the Body Group refreshes. This only appears if you have a ‘Random’ element

Edit Body Groups

Body Group Set

A list of all sets of body groups available. This list is shared between any object in the scene, meaning all objects targeting the same ‘set’ have the same body groups and same settings

Body Groups

A list of all body groups available within the set. The body group is what contains the objects and settings which define how the body group works

Spawn Type

The logic used to choose which of the target objects to spawn or not spawn. See ‘Spawn Settings’ above for details

Object List

A list of references to objects which this specific body group may try to access