How to make a holdable UGC accessory work

Posted this as a reply to someone trying to make a “holdable plush” but it would make a good resource on its own.

Holdable ugc/accessory/item/plush tutorial:

You will have to know how to make layered clothing which is outside the scope of this post, but here is a good step by step guide I reference all the time: https://youtu.be/vxKg1btrRIQ?si=PBR47XfnJWTxcC1H

You can ignore the caging and weight transfer steps as they don’t apply here.

I made this model recently and it’s a perfect example!
image

After you have your model, parent the item to the armature like usual and align it with the hand.

I like to rotate the mesh forward to make it look more like its being held

Here is the crux of making the item move correctly. You need to weight paint the item to the correct hand its held in. Make sure none of the other bones have any influence.

Select your accessory and go into weight paint. Check every bone. Make sure none have any weight. Then select your hand bone. Here I used the right hand.


Then go into edit mode and select all your verts

Make sure the hand bone is still selected and that the weight is at least 0.1. Then click “Assign”.

Go back to weight paint mode. Your entire mesh should be painted to the hand. It maybe only a slightly lighter shade of blue. Double check none of the other bones have any influence!

There is no need to cage. After this step you can import your item in game. Make it a shirt

To make your item not distorted, make sure AutoSkin is disabled and this “Enabled” check box under the wrap layer is not checked.

Test in game! My avatar is a horrible example lol but it follows the hands correctly.
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Here is my example holdable accessory on a mannequin you can use to try it on. Just replace the accessory with yours and name it “Handle”. Good luck!
Try on Holdable Accessories! - Creator Marketplace (roblox.com)

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I would also reconmend copying the transformation from the grip attachment and offsetting it, it makes the position more accurate

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I copied the position of the “RightGrip_Att” from the rigs and attachments template. I made the origin of my item the same position as the attachment. Is this what you meant? Im not sure what you mean by offsetting it. I changed the origin in Blender but should I change something in Studio?

There is no noticeable difference from what I tried. The purple pony is the original item and the yellow pony is with the modified origin. Maybe it’s just my avatar and the change is too small of a difference to notice in this case?
image

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I meant offsetting it so it’s not intersecting the hand (because the item I used is quite big). It has more of a effect on different avatars; based on the reference cage the tool position stays more consistent. I might be a bit biased because the item I used is bigger though

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Ok, I get what you mean now. I was having this issue! My reference has this issue too so I didnt think anything of it. I assume plush items are made to work better with the woman avatar more than anything. I lowered the position and it helped a lot with other avatars. Here is one of the better examples.

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Could you fix the link? For me your roblox link is not working

I have enabled downloads on creator marketplace. I replaced the demonstration model with something different but it works the same
Try on Holdable Accessories! - Creator Marketplace (roblox.com)

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sorry for the bump,. but ive done with a few times following this but cant find out how to fix this error without making the mesh smaller or bigger

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You might be exporting the fbx wrong or modeling a cage wrong. Can you post a screenshot of your export settings and the model’s cage?

I already uploaded a smaller version but i still am struggling with the bigger ones so here

VERTEX

CAGE

EXPORT

also i cleared the extra merge vertices, it just might be that the position of it is too far from the center of the character or something