Tips for rigging and weight painting model with separated meshes

So I have this model that’s meant to be able to put on different clothes. It does this by having different meshes for upper and lower body e.g an upper body mesh that’s just skin, another one that’s a t shirt with skin on the arms, lower body mesh that’s shorts and skin etc.

However I’ve been having a lot of issues weight painting like this, as when the model bends or leaves down in animations the body parts intersect with each other a lot scene here. Do you guys have any advice on how to deal with this type of model with multiple meshes?

Hello,

:pray: Quads should be used for rigging whenever possible,
becomes nicer if the subdivision modifier is used also
artifacts during rendering can be avoided!

Otherwise you could start rigging and weightpainting with a lowpoly character and then copy the vertexgroups with datatransfer to the respective parts.
This is easier to weight and the later parts have the same values
at the cutting edge.

basic geo rigged

via datatranfer vertexgroup copied to the highdetailed geo copied

booth geo after transfer delete the lowpoly

On top I must say it again and again, after the Armature-modifier the Corrective_Smooth-Modifier,
most likely you have to use a weightmap here to exclude the effect because the parts are open otherwise there are usually unsightly results in this area.

Walt

Thank you for this! I also make a lot of use of shape keys, can you use shape keys with modifiers?

yes
this is sometimes the only way to create beautiful/good deformation
I’m talking about the Corrective Shapes
often it is possible to put this on a weightmap(vertexgroup) to change only certain areas.