AZ Curvenet Builder

Curve-driven deformation on top of the rig you already have: profile curves on the mesh, controls that bend them, and one sparse deformer that follows the skin.

Rigging
Version 0.6.0
Maya 2023 – 2027
Windows
Licensed
Plug-in: Curvenet Deformer (free)

Three profile curves from edge loops, four controls each. Moving a control bends its curve, and the deformer carries the surface with it.

The window: name the system, create the curves from edges, BUILD CURVENET, then the Controls and Weights tabs.

The built system at rest: the curves sit on the surface, the controls are pinned to it and follow the rig underneath.

What it does

Pick edge loops on a mesh, give the system a name, press BUILD CURVENET. The loops become profile curves, every curve gets controls, and the mesh is deformed by a single curve-network deformer whose influence you paint per curve. The controls ride the existing rig, so the layer works on a skinned character as well as on a static prop.

It is a shaping layer, not a replacement for the skin: wrinkle lines on a sleeve, the edge of a collar, the ridge of a brow, a muscle line on a forearm, anything that wants a curve the animator can bend and that must keep following the body.

Workflow

Type a Name for the system. Several systems can live on one mesh; the name keeps their nodes apart.
Make profile curves: select edge loops and press Create Curves From Selected Edges, or select NURBS curves you drew yourself and press Load Selected NURBS Curves.
Select the mesh (or only the vertices to deform) and press BUILD CURVENET. The driver curves are skinned to the controls automatically, so their influence stays editable.
Reposition controls: Create Setup Markers, slide their Slide attribute along the curve, optionally Merge Selected Markers, then Rebuild From Markers.
Start Paint to paint the deformer weights of a curve; Apply Weights commits them.

Build in the bind pose. The rest curves and the pins are created from the current shape of the mesh; a system built in a pose follows that pose as its zero. If a squash or a lattice under the system makes the rest and the driver curves drift apart later, Fix Rest Tracking re-skins the rest curves to the tracking joints.

The window

Create · System: Name of the system and the Systems list of the scene; picking one loads it, Refresh rescans.
Create · Profile curves: Create Curves From Selected Edges, Load Selected NURBS Curves, Shift Curves Off Mesh to push curves off the surface by a distance.
Create · Build settings: Controls per curve, Inner and Outer radius of the influence, its Falloff power, control Scale, Restrict to selected vertices, mirrored L/R orientation by curve name.
Create · Extend system: Add meshes to an existing system, transfer weights between meshes, add corrective curves.
Controls / Curves: Setup markers (create, add on curve, merge, delete, mirror L → R / R → L), control mirroring, control size, reset to bind, tag sides.
Weights: Paint the deformer weights per curve with the brush (falloff, smoothing, isolate, live mirror), Apply Weights; edit, apply and mirror curve weights.
Bones: Add Curve Bones: joints that ride the curves and skin the mesh as an export layer; game-bone baking to a skeleton.
Tips: Quick actions such as hiding and showing all curves.

How it is built

One deformer, many curves. All profile curves of a system are combined in one custom azMultiCurveDeformer node with an independent vertex weight array per profile. The node is the free AZ Curvenet Deformer plug-in, so a scene opens and deforms on any computer that has it.
Controls follow the rig. Every control is pinned to a pre-Curvenet copy of the geometry through one proximityPin node: skin the character, pose it, and the curves move with the body before they bend it.
Rest and driver curves. Each profile has a rest curve, skinned to tracking joints under the zero group, and a driver curve skinned to the controls. The deformer reads the difference, so a control that is not moved changes nothing.
Names are not identity. Controls and bones are named after their curve, but the tool finds everything through tags, sets and message links, so renaming never breaks a system and several systems can share a mesh.
Multi-mesh. One system can deform several meshes; weights are painted on the active mesh.

Good to know

The deformer plug-in is a separate, free package: install AZ Curvenet Deformer on every machine that opens the scene. The builder itself is only needed to create and edit systems.
A rebuild inherits the system's curves; load fresh curves only for a new system.
Painting works per curve: isolate the active one to see its influence alone, and mirror live across X while painting.
Curve bones start with zero skin weights on the mesh: they are a layer for export, painted on top of the existing skin.
An emergency Disable switches a system off without deleting it.

Availability

AZ Curvenet Builder is a licensed product of AZ Tools, in the Rigging category. It is listed in the AZ Tools Manager for every account and installs once a license key is activated. The deformer it drives, AZ Curvenet Deformer, is free for every registered account.

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