I have a high-poly, high-detail model. I found that it was easier to construct it in parts. So I made the arms, legs, head, torso, etc… seperately, and then stitched them together. Only problem is, now he is standing with arms very stiffly out to the side and back very straight. I’d like to pose it, but last time I tried posing a high-poly model, I used armatures and the results were not too great. Anyone out there have any tips for posing very high-poly models?
sounds like you need to get used to the weight painting tool
[dont worry, it doesn’t bite]
http://download.blender.org/documentation/html/x5248.html
that is the old doc, paint buttons show up in edit buttons, you choose the vertex group in the edit buttons too, and you enter weight paint mode with the object selected and the menu on the 3d window header [it is a drop-down menu, with images, not a text only menu like the file or view menu]
so, red is 1.0, blue is 0.0, and orange yellow green whatever is in between
also, weights may not add as you think, if a vertex has a weight of 1.0 in three groups each of the groups affect it the same amount.
WHOA! that is cool! I never knew about it before. Thanks man!
ok… this weight painting is not working out too well for my model. with simple models it wasn’t too bad, but this is too complicated.
Everything is blue! even the edges and faces (it doesn’t draw edges or faces). I can’t tell what part of the model I’m painting on. Is there any way to have weight paint in one 3d window, and object view in another 3d window,so I can have a better idea of what’s going on?
and one part of the model is bright red. not sure why…
In weight paint, weight is shown with a color scale
Red: 1.0
Green: 0.5
Blue: 0.0
values between 1.0 and 0.5 will be orange-ish and those between 0.5 and 0.0 will be yellow-ish.
Martin
I’ve noticed that. I guess I wasn’t clear:
The model’s arms hang in front of the area I’m trying to weight paint. But before I paint anything, the arms are blue, and the body behind it is blue, and I can’t see clearly if I’m painting the body or the arm. sometimes I get the arm, sometimes the body. If I try to rotate the view, I can’t paint the part of the body I wanted to. Also, It seems that if I exit weight paint mode, I can only undo the last paint action. Which means that if an earlier paint isn’t quite what I wanted, I have to reload the model from disc. Is there any other way to remove weigh-paints? or clear them? or reset them all back to whatever the default was? i tried painting with the “sub” button selected (instead of “add” or “mix”) but it didn’t seem to work.
Is there any way to have edges be drawn in weight-paint mode? I think that would help greatly.
Painting with weight = 0.0 erases weight. For the rest, I can’t really help you.
Martin
I am in blender 2.33a and painting with weight (i.e. colour) = 0.0 does not do anything. actually, setting the colour sliders has no effect on what gets painted. the only slider in that panel that seems to affect the weights is the Opacity slider. There is no “weight” slider in the weight-painting mode. :-?
Of course there’s a weight slider, right under the Vertex group pop menu in the Editing window.
Martin
no there’s not… because… wait… hmm o i see it. ok i was only looking at the Paint panel. 
well I guess that’s the end of that…
Also, press F7 to bring up the constraints/anim panels. Under draw extra, select wire. If you have subsurf on, go back to Editing (F9) panel and turn it off, or at least click the Optimal button under it.
That’ll get the wire of your mesh to draw over the blue which makes it much easier to see what you’re doing. Although if your mesh is really dense it might not help that much.
Maybe this tutorial can help you out:
http://www.illusion-digital.com/tutorials/weightpaint/weightpainting1.html