Grouping and Measuring in Armorsmith

This quick tutorial is going to run you through all the basics of grouping objects as well as how to measure objects in Armorsmith Designer.

In Armorsmith Designer you can group parts together to make transforming parts easier. There's two methods to group parts together. The first method is to import the parts and choose to Import As Group, this will preserve their transforms in relation to each other and create a grouped set of workspaces so you can attach them as a single group of parts.

The other method of grouping is to select a number of parts that are already attached to the avatar and choose to group them. You can select multiple parts by holding down ctrl and selecting the parts you want. You can remove an item from the selection by holding down alt and clicking on it. To group these parts together Right-Click and select Group Parts. You can also group parts via the Keyboard Shortcut Ctrl-G. Parts must be attached to the same attachment point in order to group them.

If you transform multiple parts that aren't grouped they'll just transform in their own space around their center. For example scale, the parts all scale from their origin. Rotation has the same affect. Now if we group these parts together again, you can see that they transform as a single part.

For exporting you have the option of exporting each individual part, or you can export the whole group of parts as a single model.

The next topic we'll cover is measuring objects in Armorsmith Designer.

The measurement tool can be activated via the 'M' keyboard shortcut, or by right clicking and choose Measure. This tool can be very useful for fine tuning your avatar as you can measure specific points on the avatar and compare them to measurable points on your own body. From there you can make any adjustments to the available measurement options to get a perfect match. For example if you wanted to check the overall height of your avatar. First put it in the default T-Pose.

Another newly introduced tool for checking measurements is the calipers tool. You can choose to use it to measure Width, Depth, or Height of a body part or of an attached part. It can be activated by right clicking and choosing Calipers, and then the type of measurement you'd like to make. So here for example I'll measure the width of the head, and then I can switch over and I'll check the depth of the head. This was a user requested feature and I can see how it could be really useful for taking quick measurements.