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Home : Animating : How do I? : Create animated deformed surfaces :
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A cluster is an entity that logically groups an arbitrary list of CVs and DAG nodes so that they can be transformed and manipulated as a single entity. A cluster can be viewed as a type of object that has no geometry of its own, but refers to other geometry.
To create a cluster, pick all the objects and CVs that you want to put in the cluster and choose
Animation > Create > New cluster. The CVs do not have to belong to the same piece of geometry. A cluster node is created with a DAG node above it. When this DAG node is transformed, each of the CVs in the cluster is transformed.
You can move the pivots of the cluster and then transform it using 
Transform > Rotate or 
Transform > Scale. The CVs of many objects can be transformed relative to a common pivot.
Note
A cluster cannot contain elements that do not have CVs below them. For example, if a camera or light is picked when New cluster is invoked, the camera or light will not be included in the cluster. This is because the purpose of a cluster is to create deformations on object geometry, and cameras and lights contain no geometry.
1 To create a cluster, first create two primitive spheres (
Surfaces > Primitives > Sphere).
2 Pick the spheres using 
Pick > Object, or pick some of the CVs of each of the spheres.
3 Choose Animation > Create > New cluster.
Note
Picking an object puts all of its CVs in the cluster.
4 Open the SBD window (Windows > SBD) to verify that the cluster has been created. It is displayed as a node with a DAG node above it. The DAG node box is highlighted and the cluster (an icon of a cluster of grapes) is in a box directly under it.
The geometry node (blue node) from which the cluster was assembled has an additional blue box placed around the geometry box indicating that some of the geometry is in a cluster that is picked. If the cluster is unpicked, the blue box around the geometry box disappears.
The new cluster DAG node will be the only item on the pick list after the operation is complete.
Note
The advantage of including a DAG node in a cluster rather than explicitly its CVs, is that adding a CV to the geometry under the DAG node later will also add the CV to the cluster.
You can select geometry in any modeling window to pick all the cluster DAG nodes whose corresponding cluster contains the geometry. Any cluster that contains a selected CV or DAG node will have its DAG node picked and highlighted. You can pick a cluster DAG node in one of four ways:
1 Choose Animation > Pick > Cluster, then select any CV that belongs to the cluster and the entire cluster is highlighted.
2 Pick the cluster DAG node in the SBD window as you would for any other object. If you pick the cluster in the SBD window by choosing 
Pick > Point Types > CV, all CVs in the cluster will be selected.
3 Pick a cluster DAG node by name at the information line.
4 Pick a cluster DAG node from the Cluster Editor.
Note
You can change the Members state once a cluster has been created in the Cluster Editor window (Animation > Editors > Clusters).
Limit transformations of face-surface CVs and clustered face-surface CVs along the plane of the face-surface.
Edit > Duplicate object creates a null node. Instead, create a new cluster and empty it.
Use the cluster editor to copy the cuts from the original cluster into a new cluster. This will preserve the cluster percentages. Reorder the clusters so that the new cluster immediately follows the original.
Edit > Duplicate object places the new objects in the same clusters as the original, it will not create new clusters. Instead, use Edit > Copy and Edit > Paste to create a copy of both clusters and members.
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