‘Neck gaps’ are unsightly and can all but ruin an otherwise wonderful new hair mesh. Thankfully avoiding them is extremely straight forward and quite simple!

Please note: that this is not a full hair meshing tutorial, but rather a few simple steps those already familiar with hair meshing will need in order to have flawless meshes.

‘Neck gaps’ are unsightly and canall but ruin an otherwise wonderful new hair mesh.  Thankfully avoiding them isextremely straight forward and quite simple!  

Please note that this isnot a full hair meshing tutorial, but rather a few simple steps those alreadyfamiliar with hair meshing will need in order to have flawless meshes.

Program Used:

-Milkshape with Unimesh Plugins4.09

Step 1: Create your Style!

Create your new hair mesh as younormally would, making sure to avoid moving any of the vertices along the edgesof whatever ‘hair’ group you use.

Step 2: Bone Assignments

There are two parts to avoidingneck gaps in your new hair mesh, and both need to be done exactly right inorder to work.

Firstly, you need to make surethat the lower vertices where the head meets the neck are assigned to theproper bones: 50% Neck and 50% Head. 

For Adult and Teen Females, aswell as both genders for Children and Toddlers, the lower 5 vertices areselected:

 AdultFemale Head Example

TeenFemale Head Example

Child HeadExample, Both Male and Female

Toddler HeadExample, Both Male and Female

CorrectBone Assignments for Lower 5 Vertices

Adult and Teen males require thelower 7 vertices be assigned 50% neck and 50% head:

Adult MaleHead Example

Teen Male Head Example

Correct Bone Assignments for Lower 7 Vertices

Step 3: The ‘Comment’Section of your ‘Hair’ Group

Lastly, you’ll need to make sureyou have the correct information in the ‘comment’ portion of the ‘hair’ group.

The ‘comment’ for the hair groupmust be exactly as follows:

The ‘NumSkinWgts’ must be set to‘2’ in order for the mesh to animate properly and allow the mesh to begap-free.  The ‘Hair’ group is assigned to two different bones- head and neck–thus the number of skin weights is 2.  If it’s set to ‘1’ or ‘3’, the boneassignments get lost and the mesh no longer connects to the rest of the bodycorrectly.

Export and build your meshpackage as usual!