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I'm new to blender and trying to make a corner joint that I can set the angle of in Unity. Ideally if I set an angle like 45 or 90 degrees the bend would look uniform like this: enter image description here

So I set up a rectangle in blender and gave it some bones. And I can move them in pose mode and even in Unity when I import it.

enter image description here

If I bend it too far though, the mesh kinks like this. The inside bend looks more like I tried to crush a can than a smooth bend. I tried adding new bones but had the same problem. enter image description here

And for some reason the end bones don't deform the mesh when I move them. Almost like they aren't attached or something.

enter image description here

This is how it's setup:

enter image description here

So how do I make my mesh deform nice and smoothly like I'm bending a pipe?

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So how do I make my mesh deform nice and smoothly like I'm bending a pipe?

By spreading your rotation out over more bones:

enter image description here

A bone can only ever represent a single rotation, not a continuous set of rotations, and vertices interpolate linearly from the orientation given by one bone to the next. To make smoother deformations, sometimes we just need to use more deform bones. (We also sometimes just need more vertices. I wouldn't add more bones than the most shown here without adding additional vertices to my mesh.)

I don't know if Unity supports "quaternion skinning", but if it does, you can try enabling volume preservation, which will improve this kind of deformation at shallow angles, although at the risk of making it worse at sharper angles:

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ it doesn't look as nice as in his picture. the inner part of the bend is not a vertical line. probably bones will not make the cut? $\endgroup$
    – Harry McKenzie
    Jul 9, 2022 at 4:55
  • $\begingroup$ is there a difference between segmenting a bone or creating several bones, like you did? Are segmented bones compatible with Unity? $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    Jul 9, 2022 at 7:06
  • $\begingroup$ @moonboots bendy bone segments are not going to be compatible with anything but Blender. There can be differences between more bones vs bendy bones, depending on the values you pick for the bendy bones and the angles you pick for rotations of multiple bones; bendy bones look like spline controls and handles to me, where it's just a simplified interface to spline IK. $\endgroup$
    – Nathan
    Jul 9, 2022 at 8:36
  • $\begingroup$ ok thanks for the precisions ;) $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    Jul 9, 2022 at 8:48

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