THREE.JS / FOUNDATIONS 91

Move the rig, not the vertices.

A glTF character exposes the full deformation chain: bones drive a SkinnedMesh, morph weights shape the face, and an AnimationMixer blends authored clips.

Initializing -

Preparing the renderer and glTF animation system.

Meshes: -
Bones: -
Clips: -
Morphs: -

Skeleton inspectionbone-local rotation

Selected bone

X 0° Y 0° Z 0°

Show skeleton

Pose mode (pause mixer for manual bone edits)

Morph targetsvertex deltas + weights

These weights are independent from the skeletal animation clips.

Loading morph targets…

Animation mixercrossfade actions

speed

Sample: —

Deformation lifecycle

load glTF->bind skeleton->mixer update->morph weights->render

The same loaded object can be driven by bones, clips, and morph target weights.

Drag to orbit · scroll to dolly · pose mode enables manual bone edits · add ?forceWebGL=1 for a WebGL2 comparison.

This is a selected deformation-chain study using the local RobotExpressive asset. The pinned webgpu_skinning source counterpart uses Michelle.glb and simpler lighting; whole-example fidelity remains separate.

Next: depth conventions ->

LAB 91 / SKINNING + MORPHS