PAINTING WEIGHTS HELP

# 1 02-10-2006 , 02:57 AM

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I dont know if its just me (pls tell me its not) But im having trouble learning painting weights correctly.

Is their a simple format to it??

Im creating a basic human cartoony character and find painting weights extremely frustrating. i am sure once i suss it out, it'l be just a matter of mastering it and i'll be fine!

But at the mo! arrrggghhhhh!

:headbang: :headbang: :headbang: :headbang:

those who succeed are only the failures that never gave up.

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# 2 02-10-2006 , 03:08 AM

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to be fair i havent spent hardly any weights on it, and have juts tried it. Im kinda getting it now.....just

However, any advice would still be much appreciated.

Thanx

those who succeed are only the failures that never gave up.

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# 3 02-10-2006 , 06:08 AM

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I'm new to this kind of weighting as well. I'm not exactly sure what specifically your having the most trouble with so.... Painting weights to get the correct deformation on your character is going to take some time. It sounds like your just now starting to spend some "quality" time with it and probably getting alittle more used to it as you go. The way I work with it for the moment, ( as I said.. newbie here as well..) I like to have my model in a static pose, and set the weight for each joint to full. This is very overkill..... then I move a joint to its extreme point, like an elbow from straight out, to fully bent, like trying to salute or something... you'll see how the mesh deforms or doesnt....you now select the elbow joint and start repainting the area affected by that joint to coreect the deformation....switching back and forth to the other joints that affect the same area. This will also let you see if you need to make adjustments to the mesh for better deformation. ( I dont make adjustments to the mesh with it bound to the skeleton... )Its deffinitly a trial and error type of process. But once you start understanding how the weighting works, its pretty cool to work with. Search for tuts on it, and and be sure to read the help files ( F1) I learned a great deal from a beginners book, but I have sen tuts for it as well here and other places. Take your time and have fun!
Almost forgot.. dont forget, the brush for painting weights has alot of adjustment, that property makes painting weights in Maya really awsome.. fine tuning withvery very soft brush and sizing helps soooo much.

Last edited by Blayd; 02-10-2006 at 06:11 AM.

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# 4 02-10-2006 , 07:03 AM

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thanx so much.

What confuses me the most is when u go to paint weights on the skin, selected area that u paint either turns white or black.

Does it mean when it goes black the skin moves and when its white the skin doesnt.

I think when i suss painting weights and deformations i'll be halfway there!

lol

Thanx user added image

those who succeed are only the failures that never gave up.

https://www.vimeo.com/7080130

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# 5 02-10-2006 , 07:04 AM

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u think this is difficult? i downloaded the Cmuscle plugin to create characters with muscles etc.

Painting weights is harder on that coz u have to paint weights for bones and muscles etc aswell as the skin itself.

All good fun though!!

those who succeed are only the failures that never gave up.

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# 6 02-10-2006 , 08:10 AM

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Yes, I play with that too. ( muscles) And yes, its good fun.. luv learning it through.

When the skin is white, the more solid the white color, the more influence that joint has on that part of the skin.. so... if say, the upper arm is all solid white, and you have the elbow joint selected, that joint has full control on that area, if you want some of the upper arm to be influenced by that joint, but the upper portion of the upper arm to be influenced some by the shoulder joint, you can start fading the white to varying grey, to black as you move up the arm by painting the white away, solid white nearer the elbow, fading to black as you move up the arm....then select the shoulder joint, and doing the same.. Just remember, the more solid the color, the stronger the influence from the joint selected on that part of the mesh...if the mesh is deforming wrong because it has too much influence from one joint, paint it down some, ( greying it ) A good example is a shoulder, it is influenced by the arm and the torso, so when you move it from the T position, to arms at its side, it could "fold" instead of looking natural. By painting how much influence the mesh recieves from that joint on the torso, and how much it influences the arm and shoulder, you can get a more natural look when its in the down position. I think you know what I'm saying here, Stark black is no influence, stark white is full influence. The greyer it gets, the less the influence on the skin at that place. Sorry for the long explanations.... user added image

Let me know if your still having problems getting the hang of it, I'll try to search for the online tuts I saw awhile back for it.. it wasnt very detailed, but did a better job of explaining and visualizing it than I can do.
Have fun!

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# 7 02-10-2006 , 11:43 AM

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wow!

thats very good. cheers

Im so so happy im chatting to someone else who knows about cmuscle coz im baffled.

Can you tell me what you know wiv that.

I tried to create an arm. just the arm, with 2 joints. I included 6 muscles. 2 for the upper and 4 smaller ones for the forearm. Can you explain how i paint it and get the skin to bind and deform properly, or know of any tutorials on Cmuscle?

ur a star

cheers

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those who succeed are only the failures that never gave up.

https://www.vimeo.com/7080130

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