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• Import the human version of the cloak model.
  • Human is typically the standard to start with unless your custom race has longer arms or torso; fortunately with cloaks that is not really an issue.
• Select the skinmesh and save the envelopes/weights.
  • The stock Bioware weights of bone to skinmesh are pretty good and don't need tweaking, so let's keep those.
• Delete the skinmesh modifier from the actual cloak mesh.
  • Deleting the skinmesh modifier deletes the envelopes and weights from the actual mesh, allowing us to scale it properly.
  • If you don't do this, the weighting will "remember" the old scale and you won't be able to resize it properly.
• Scale the whole model by the anim scaling factor or adjust it by hand.
  • The quick way is to grab the animation scale from the base model if it uses pmh0 as the supermodel.
  • If you don't have that, write down the first one by hand and use those scaling values for the remaining 6 cloaks for consistency.
• Adjust the bones if they clip your model.
  • If your modeling program didn't preserve the IK chains, add them from the top to the bottom to keep the bones positioned well relative to each other.
• Adjust at the vertex level to get the fit.
  • In the case of kobolds, the digitigrade lower legs make it so that the legs clip through the cloak when it is positioned properly on the neck, so some adjustment is required at the vertex level.
  • Don't delete or add vertices or go too crazy on moving so that vertices swap positions in any axis.
  • ResetXForm or apply transforms when you're done with this.
• Add the skinmesh modifier and load the envelopes you saved.
  • This is why we don't want to delete vertices in the step above – we want to reuse the stock asset skinmesh envelopes and weights.
• Select the model base, rename it to your phenotype, and change the supermodel to the correct phenotype model.
  • The If you've created a new phenotype model you create , it must have the 17 cloak bones with animations (or refer to a higher level model with animations) for it to work properly.

3ds Max example

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