#pmxe

1) select the parts of the vertex mesh you want to rig with the skirt plugin. i highly recommend enabling the wireframe or weight mode too so you can see better when placing the weight anchors later on

2) load the skirt plugin, and do your usual thing with it. (you can always apply the changes with [Initialize] even if you have already placed your weight anchors!)

3) head to [Advanced] tab, in [Face Setting], change from [Close Face] to [Open Face], after that apply the changes to start placing the weight anchors.

4) what you'll see after that is something like this (the weight anchors are all in straight line instead of 3d form if you get what i mean). you'll have 5 columns of the weight anchors.

5) when placing the weight anchors, despite choosing [Open-Face], you still need to think like 3d. so you'll have 1st and 5th columns being in the front, 2nd and 4th columns being in the sides, while the 3rd column being in the back.

you can arrange them like a star shape (you don't need to worry about the rotations, just moving the weight anchors is enough)

6) apply the arrangement and you should get sth like this!

also if you're a fool like me and somehow refuses to replace the broken plugin that comes together with Inochi-PM's eng PMXE, you can simply resize the horizontal joints with [Object Editor]

and if the rigid bodies also come out the same, just do the same thing too.

don't forget to make sure everything's properly connected!

8) and that's pretty much it! you still need to do your usual physics adjustments ofc, but that's how you can use the skirt plugin to rig meshes that aren't fully cylindrical!

To start of, add one bone and rig the parts that you want to spin to the said bone.

In the 'Bone' section, select the bone that you made (you can name it whatever you want, I named it 'rotate') and click CRTL+D twice to duplicate it twice.

Name those two bones as well, they shouldn't share all the same name! One bone will be the actual IK bone ('rotateIK') and one will be just a target bone for the IK bone ('rotate+').

Now into the each of the bones' settings:

For 'rotate' bone:

assign the parent bone (P-Bone) to the main bone (or a bone that the rotating bone should be attached to)

set 'Append' to 'Rot+', where parent is the 'rotate' bone (yes, the bone must refer to itself! in PMX info it will show up as an error but it will work either way)

turn on 'Axis Limit' and type in '1' in a box that refers to the axis that the bone should be rotating on (X, Y or Z)

For 'rotate+' bone:

assign the parent bone (P-Bone) to the 'rotate' bone

turn off the visibility for this bone (not neccessary for it to work)

For 'rotateIK' bone:

assign the parent bone (P-Bone) to the 'rotate' bone

turn on the 'IK' setting

in IK section, in the 'Target' box, type in the number of the 'rotate+' bone

in IK section, in the 'Loop' box, type in '100'

ik IK section, in the 'Link' box, add the 'rotate' bone (you can do it by right-clicking on the 'rotate' bone on the left side and select 'Copy Index (X)' option from the menu and then right-clicking on the 'Link' box and selecting 'Copy From Index (V)' option)

Now, you must move the IK bone ('rotateIK') along the same axis that the whole thing will be rotating along. Example: if you want the materials to rotate by the Y axis, move the IK bone ('rotateIK') by the Y axis.

An infographic(?) if you want to see the direction of the rotation of the axisses in PMXE:

Switching to the 'Morph' tab, add a new morph. Right-click on the area on the left -> New (N) -> Bone (B). Name it however you want.

Don't mind the other morphs on the screenshot, those are just pre-existing morphs I made and are irrevelant.

Add the bone that you rigged the materials to ('rotate'). You can do it with the same method as earlier with the IK settings ("Copy Index (X)" and "Paste From Index (X)").

In the 'Offset Amount' section and under 'Bone Rotation/Torque Impulse (X/Y/Z)' text, enter a number from 0 to 1/-1. This determines the speed at which the bone will rotate at:

0 = not moving at all

1 = moving quickly

-1 = moving quickly but in the opposite direction

Theoretically, you can enter higher number but it might result in the bone moving way too fast so I would just simply not recommend doing that.

And here you go! You've made a morph that makes a bone rotate on its own ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧