Manual · 01
Getting started
What Fleshy needs, how to install it, and a first shot in five steps.
Requirements
- Windows, 64-bit. This build is Windows only; macOS and Linux are not supported yet.
- Blender 4.5 LTS or newer. Tested on 4.5 LTS, 5.0 and 5.2 LTS.
- A mesh of four-sided faces (quads) once its modifiers are applied. Give it a Subdivision Surface modifier: after one, every face is a quad. Any rig, or none. Only the meshes Fleshy deforms need quads: a collider can be any mesh.
Install
Drag fleshy-*.zip into Blender, or use Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Add-ons ▸ Install from Disk.
The panel is in the 3D viewport's sidebar (press N) under the Fleshy tab.
To update, install the new zip the same way, over the old one, with Blender open or not. The new version works straight away; the old one's files are cleared the next time Blender starts.
Your first shot
Fleshy bakes at the subdivision level your viewport is showing, so set that to the level you render first.
1. Match the viewport level to the render level
On the character's Subdivision Surface modifier, set Levels Viewport to the same value as Render.
This is the step that matters most. Frames baked at one level do not play at another: if you bake with the two set differently, the render comes out with no deformation at all, and the panel says why.
2. Set Up
Select the character's body (not its rig) and press Set Up in the Object section. A collection called Fleshy Caches appears in the Outliner, under Scene Collection, holding one hidden object per set-up mesh: leave it there (see The cache objects).
3. Preview and tune
Pick a frame where something touches and press Bake This Frame. That solves the frame you are on and adds it to the cache, so what you see is exactly what will render. Change a setting and press it again: each press replaces that frame and nothing else. Bulge, Dent % and Bulge Width change the look most (see The settings).
To see every change at once instead, switch the object to Live (see Live or Baked).
4. Bake
Press Bake, whose button names the frames, such as Bake 1-250. It solves every frame and
adds them to the cache next to your .blend: roughly 50 MB for a 250-frame shot of a full
character at subdivision level 2, at a second or a few per frame. A box at the bottom of the
viewport shows how far it has got; Cancel or Esc stops it and keeps the frames done (see
Baking).
5. Keep animating
Once it is baked you can turn off the Subdivision Surface and Fleshy in the viewport to keep things responsive. Playback and rendering are unaffected: hiding something in the viewport does not change what renders.
The panel will say Hidden or simplified in the viewport. Renders are up to date: nothing to
bake. That is the expected message here, not a warning. While Fleshy is hidden, its check that
the animation has not changed since baking waits; it runs the moment you show Fleshy again.