Questions about Maya weights...

[Elcura]

I'm fairly new to the whole process, but painting weights is nothing short of tedious, even more so that UV mapping (which by comparison, is heaven). My main issues noticing something I don't like and not being able to fix it without having to repaint my weights. Even when I paint my weights, I'm not able to mirror them successfully increasing the time it takes to paint weights on a fairly simple character (that's basically symmetrical).

So my questions are:

What's a good way to detach and reattach a mesh to a rig without losing all your weighting information (in that, even after you reattach it, you can still tweak areas without problems)?

Is mirroring/copying weights even a viable workflow? I can't seem to get it to work and I've tried all the options

Do you think it's better to weight characters via a proxy? Would this be a better method to weighting characters rather than doing it on my original mesh? If so, what kind of details would you need on the proxy to make it viable?

[Gossioii5]

I feel good that there are people like you too. Thanks for this great weblog of yours. Its surely going to get me to go to higher places!

[Elcura]

Wait... what? And here I was hoping someone finally could answer my questions, no such luck huh?

[Blenderhead]

haha I have no idea what is going on. Did he post in the wrong thread?

[blankslatejoe]

not sure..i suspect it's a bot, but he hasn't posted any spam links yet...so..I guess we'll have to wait and see!

As for your questions, I can't help you too much as I'm not much of a rigger..what software are you using though?

[Elcura]

I'm using Maya 2008 Unlimited. Anyway, I suspected not many people would be able to help me, so it's alright.

[Yung]

Painting weights is basically just assigning numbers :D. Think less of painting, but assigning task, but using a paintbrush or something. Really, its not hard if u break it down slowly.

Anyway what do u mean by attach and detach mesh. As in it's a separate piece? You can do that easily as long as u had a finished rig with complete paintweight and also the detached mesh is that emm, what do u say, different from the original. But if u can show me some pictures I can probably understand your situation more.

Mirroring and copying weights is of course crucial. No one paints everything symmetrically by hand, that's just inviting for disaster, from your computer and yer producer. When u mean try all the options I guess u meant Maya's default paintweight tools.

I don't understand what you mean proxy as well. As in something like Max's envelope weight system??

Anyway, while maya's default tool is good enough, I really can't recommend enough developing or using another TD's skill. If you search in Highend3d, there's lot of Mel scripts to help quicken the whole rigging and/or skinning process. I personally loves Michael Comet (http://www.comet-cartoons.com/melscript.php) set of Mel script.

If u ever encountered any maya issues, especialyl rigging, feel free to PM directly.

[Elcura]

Hey Yung, thanks for replying! Anyway, I'm using Maya's default tools and it hasn't been working out so far, but I'll certainly search for some mel scripts/plug-ins that will help.

Anyway, by proxy mesh (I heard some use this method) I mean you create a simple mesh with the topology that you want - like around the elbows/knees - and you paint weights for that mesh and then transfer the info over to your real mesh. The result should be that the mesh deforms nicely without having to navigate around a lot of vertices.

My issue with that is that Maya's tools for skinning aren't exactly reliable, so for the most part I end up having to paint weights individually for all parts of my character (which is fine on low poly, but high poly is a bitch).

As for the detach and reattach mesh, Maya obviously has the smooth/rigid bind options to attach a mesh to a rig, but sometimes I see a small mistake or figure I need an extra edgeloop midway through painting. Usually this would require me to start all over again in terms of weighting, but I heard that if you can detach a mesh you can save weighting information so you can redo some stuff on your mesh and then reattach it back to the rig.

My issue here is that when I do reattach it, if I try to paint weights again, it either doesn't work or acts completely messed up.

For the most part, I might just try those scripts you linked me to (again, thanks) and experiment around with those.

[Yung]

I never knew the proxy mesh technique, so I am guessing if it works , damn it will definitely hasten the skinning process. Just got to find a way to ease out the vertices in between. But probably my guess, the technique you use is a low to mid mesh is rig and skin, then the actual high poly will be 'wrapped' around the this rig. But this is my guess only so far.

Hmm, I haven't heard of this detach and reattach technique you said before. If you could ask the person who told you to further elaborate this process, please do Pm me the technique, as it seems powerful.

So far, I understand that Maya is a old female dog. Simple as that. Crude, harsh, and sometimes stupid. But once you understand how Maya works internally, everything is pretty simple.

Basically, what happened when you detach your mesh, the vertex order is changed, then when combined again, the vertex order is rearranged again. Maya's paintweight is assigned to the original vertex order, and hence, the paintweight for the arm could be affecting the leg, for example, cause everything has been re numbered.

One way around this is, before you detach the mesh to add the edge loop for example, you just have to save the vertex weight to a file based on world position, instead of vertex order. Then you can detach yer mesh, add the edge loop, and attach, and finally import the paintweight back, according to world position, and presto, you just have to touch up the extra edge.

Maya's default tool is capable of handling that just fine, but usually I use one of the comet tool for that. Still, I personally recommend just avoid trying to keep the poly count low, especially if you are not doing for game. Hope this is helpful :D

[Vailias]

You can save your weights. They are exported as image files using the model's UV's. So symetrical uv's dont work. Thankfully you can have more than one uv set for maya, and the second one can be a unique unwrap that is much less continuous than you would want for texture work, if all you are going to use it for is utility operations such as saving weights, etc. Mirroring weights works in a similar manner if I remember right.

Also I've been able to edit a mesh after its been rigged. Its not always pretty in the middle, but it should be doable.

Also the "freeze weights" button is your friend.