Chain Shape & Proportions

Chain Shape holds the settings of the whole chain: its proportions, how softly its balls fuse, and the buttons that join chains or turn them into ordinary shapes.

Control	What it does
Readout	How many balls the chain has and how many shapes it makes; then its height, the active ball's link length, and the active limb's length — from the active ball up to the ball it branches from.
Head units	Eight bands over the chain's height in the Front, Side and Perspective views, numbered from the top: a figure eight heads tall.
Snap radius	[, ] and Shift+drag size the active ball in whole 5 mm steps.
Blend	How softly the balls and links fuse into each other. 0 is the exact hull, with a crease where links meet. A ball's Own blend overrides it.
Join Chains	Joins the other selected chains into this one (Shift+click them in the tree or a view): each hangs from this chain's nearest ball, as one skeleton.
Freeze	Makes the chain's balls and links ordinary shapes, to edit one by one. The chain stops being a chain; Undo brings it back.