Adding a polygon to another joint.

# 1 04-04-2006 , 04:48 PM

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Hello - I am having a bit of a problem using the Paint Weights tool, which I have just started using. Basically I am having problems adjusting the weight for the selected polygon. When I try to select joints in the influence box of the tool options I can only see joints connected to the arm. How do I add this shape to joints on the rest of the skeleton? I read on another post that I had to erase the weights by changing the weight value to 0, but that didn't seem to have any effect. Obviously when I move the lower leg, this piece doesn't move at all.

Any help is much appreciated. Cheers. user added image

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# 2 04-04-2006 , 04:50 PM

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oops. Here's the picture.

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# 3 04-04-2006 , 05:54 PM

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Ok - I think I have figured it out, so I will explain what I did in case anyone else is facing this problem.

I ended up looking under skin>edit smooth skin>add influence and then picked another one of his skirt slats which were behaving correctly. That gave me more options in the influence window to paint weights on the offending polygon. You only seem to be able to add other polygons as influence objects rather than other joints.

Not sure if this is the correct solution...

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# 4 04-04-2006 , 06:15 PM

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ok... now I am confused again.

When I added the second polygon as an influence object it worked fine. But when I went to adjust the weights on the polygon that I used as an influence object, a completely new polygon shaped exactly the same appeared underneath.

That can't be right. Am I supposed to just hide this new polygon as it is just an influence object? what am i doing wrong? There must be a way to add new joints to the influence box in the paint weights tool settings.

Anyone who knows what is going on please help. Thanks! user added image

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# 5 04-04-2006 , 06:28 PM

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Is your skeleton 1 piece or are you usiing a broken heirarchy (pieces of the skeleton that aren't attached to eachother)?

The option box under the paint tool will list all of the joints that you bound the skin to. If you choose the root joint (should be the base of the spine) then "select heirarchy" all of the joints will be selected when you bind the model to the skeleton. If you do this, all of the joints will show up in the paint window.

If your skeleton is broken into pieces; arm, leg, torso..., then each piece will have its own root joint. I'm not sure but I think if you "select all> joints" then ALL of the joints will be selected and you will be able to bind to all of the pieces at once. If not, then simply bind the model to each disconnected branch of the skeleton seperately.

If you're new to this then I doubt that you are using a broken heirarchy skeleton. They're a little advanced... If your skeleton is in 1 piece then you probably aren't choosing all of the joints when you bind the skin. Choose all the bones then choose the skin then go to the smooth bind menu.

One more thing; there are options when you bind the skin. You will want to bind to the entire skeleton with influence set to the nearest joint. There are other options that might work better for you so read about them. when you open the bind skin menu there is a help button that will take you directly to help on binding skin.

Go get 'em tiger!

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# 6 04-04-2006 , 06:39 PM

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I personally don't recomend taking the weights down to 0, at least, not for a lot of points at once as it can be a hassle to make sure that they all DO get weighted properly and not end up with just partial weighting.

If that kilt slat is moving with the arm joint then what you need to do is replace the weight that is influencing it with the weight of the joints you DO want to influence it.

So, for example, if you want the part of the slat near the belt to stay with the pelvis, select the pelvis joint in the paint weights options list and paint over those two verts with 100% weight to over-write any influence from other joints.

You'd do the same with the bottom two verts with the hip joint or whatever joint you want affecting those verts.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 7 04-04-2006 , 07:44 PM

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Hi, thanks for getting back to me.

Velusion: Yeah, it's a one piece skeleton. when I smooth bound the joints I selected the pelvis joint. I think it's just that the max influences was set to low. I am not sure if the option box lists all of the joints that bound to your skin or just the piece that you are working on. The slats can all be selected separately. I will try rebinding and have a look at some of the things you suggested. Cheers!

mtmckinley : thanks once again mate - you must be getting sick of seeing my poor excuse for silenus! I managed to paint the weights on the rest of the arm, it's just this one slat that doesn't show the pelvis joint when I select it and look in the paint weights options list. If you look at my second screen shot you can see the slat selected and in the option box there are only arm joints shown so I can't transfer the weight. Unless there is a way of adding joints to this list (is that possible?) I thought that that was what adding an influence did.

Thanks again for both of your help.

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# 8 04-04-2006 , 11:28 PM

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Oh sorry didn't notice that. I may be mistaken, but I think you'd need to rebind the slat, making sure the Bind To option is set to Complete Skeleton. It should then be listed.

-Mike
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# 9 05-04-2006 , 02:23 PM

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Thanks Mike. That helps a lot. I don't see a Bind To option for Complete skeleton, just Joint Hierachy, Selected Joints and Object Hierarchy. I am using 6.5 which might be the reason. I ended up using Selected Joints and it seems to work fine.

Cheers!

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