Did you know: Ziva Attachments are non-destructible. You can freely adjust the attributes of your objects, such as its tet size, without breaking any existing attachments.

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Ziva Fixed Attachments are used to connect Ziva objects in a staple-like manner, where specific points of each object are connected. To create a fixed attachment...

1. Start with a Maya scene that houses the objects you wish to attach. (In the video example above, we started with a bone object and tissue object.)
2. Then, select the tissue vertices where you’d like the attachment to be located.
3. Shift+select the Ziva Bone object. **
4. Once both items are selected, go to the Ziva Menu --> "Add Simulation Component” section --> "Attachments”.

Immediately, this will identify the closest surface points on the target objects, based on the location of the Tissue vertices, and generate a fixed attachment between those points. Your new attachment will be marked by red draw points.

Once you’ve made all the necessary attachments, you can play back the scene and watch as the object droops or hangs as intended. In the example video, the bones are animated with an alembic, so the attached tissue swings and jiggles with the motion of the bones.

** You can also start by selecting the Ziva Bone vertices, if you prefer. The selection order will determine the “source” and “target” of the attachment - For Fixed Attachments, this may be an important decision only if your objects vary significantly in resolution.

How to Change Attachment Stiffness

To change the strength of the your attachment, simply go the new zAttachments Node. Here, you’ll find two “Stiffness” attributes – Stiffness & Stiffness Exp (exponent). These two numbers are multiplied to equate the overall stiffness level of your specific attachments. The default attachment stiffness setting is 1 exponent 10^8.

You can use the Stiffness Exp drop-down menu to quickly alter the stiffness strength. Reducing the stiffness exponent to, say, 10^4 will cause your attached object to hang with much less rigid of an attachment. Such extreme attachment results are not particularly useful when dealing with origins and insertions for muscles and bones. However, weak attachments can be useful in other rare cases – a topic we will delve into in the future.

How to Edit Attachment Locations/Areas

Once you’ve made the initial attachment, you can also edit the attached vertices by using Ziva’s intuitive paintbrush tool.

1. Right click source object --- > “paint” ---> “zAttachment”
2. Select the attachment you’d like to edit
3. Select the Artisan tool
4. Begin painting more attachments

The paintbrush tool allows you to attenuate your attachment strength by using grey scale values. The grey scale proxy pair will be multiplied by the transparency to inform the attachment stiffness.