weight painting issues and now shape key/drivers issues

[bacon_chaney]

Hiya.

Really running into some trouble rigging my character properly. I seem to be running into some kind of glitch in some areas. I have cleared the vertex groups out for the hands three or four times now but they still seem to have some weighting issues. The same can be said for the skirt and gown. The x axis mirror doesnt seem to be functioning properly either although im not sure whether it is a new problem with 2.62, Its leaving me a little frustrated at the moment. If anyone knows a way how to rig curves also i would be very grateful

can supply .blend if it helps

[revolt_randy]

Yea, looks like you have several issues there… For the hand, the armature modifier has a button to make it active in edit mode, right most button at the top of the modifier, enable that. In the pose pictured, select the mesh and open the transforms panel. Enter edit mode for the mesh and select the verts that are not working. In the transform panel, there is a listing of what vertex groups a selected vertex belongs to. That can help you trouble shoot that problem, looks to me like the offending vertices might be weight painted to the leg/hip bones…

The boot laces, are they a separate mesh object? If so, do they have an armature modifier on them and are they weight painted the same as the boot???

When I rig, I like to start with the basics, the basic mesh and get it working, then move onto other stuff like the cape later after the basics are working.

It’s late, for me, so if those pointers don’t help, maybe send me the file and I’ll look at it…

Randy

[bacon_chaney]

Thanks for the feedback randy. as for the laces, they are currently bezier curves. I havent converted them to a mesh as of yet. They have a mirror modifier applied also so i cant keep them independant lol. I will have to keep it in mind for next time. Its just really frustrating at the moment as the mirror group for weight painting doesnt appear to be functioning properly as it will copy some of the weight over but sometimes it wont copy at all and some other weird stuff lol.
The spine bone is a good example. I have cleaned the vertex groups several times now but when i select the vertex group in edit mode its still selecting vertices on the hands.

I tried following a similar logic though i set up the armature and thought automatic weight painting would get me off to a good start and in alot of places it did but something seems to be causing all sorts of headaches at the moment lol.
to be honest i think i need a fresh set of eyes to look over it at the moment as i seem to be going around in circles.

thanks again

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28892292/female%20base%20mesh/weighted.blend

[batFINGER]

Hi

Yeah your prob verts are under the fingernails. (found using the method outlined by randy) Having separate parts to a mesh often causes these hassles.

[bacon_chaney]

Thanks for that batfinger
any suggestions as to how to go forward and fix the mess i have created?

[revolt_randy]

Hey bacon_chaney,

The download link seemed strange, filled my browser with data. I managed to get the file, but it seems a bit strange, orange skin tone?
Anyhow, as I described, I select an offending vertex and see the only vertex group it is assigned to is ‘right’ -

the right vertex group, is the entire right side of the character -

So basically, those offending vertices are not assigned to any bone. The ones circled in yellow, could probably be weight painted to the finger bones and that would correct the problem. I’m assuming the other ones I didn’t circle, could be weighted to the thumb bone.

I’ll take a closer look at this when I get a chance, but I need to re-organize the file a bit to isolate the problems.

Randy

edit: as batFINGER mentioned those verts are under the finger nails, this can cause auto weighting to fail.

[chipmasque]

Here is a tip I used when stray vertices end up going rogue like you show.

In Edit Mode, select a vertex that’s going rogue. Then, Shift+select a vertex that is acting properly and which is immediately adjacent to the problem vertex. In the Properties panel of the 3D Window is a listing of vertex weights for the Active vertex, with a Copy button below. Click the Copy button. This assigns the weights from the good vertex (the last-selected, or Active, vertex) to the bad vertex. Bingo, another victory against the dark side! You can assign weights this way to any group of selecetd vertices – the last-selected, i.e., Active, vertex weight is what’s given to the selected group.

Since adjacent verts usually have close to the same weight values, this can at least bring the rogues in line enough to set them straight with further adjustment, and usually does the trick right off.

[bacon_chaney]

Thanks Randy,

That makes alot more sense lol didnt even think of it being an absence of bone influence lol. Its the first time i have used the autoweighting but i will have to keep it in mind on the next one dont worry about the orange material its just one of the material slots for the SSS, i think its the subdermal one but its the last one i had selected lol.

@chipmasque i will have to remember that one as it was getting really tedious correcting small parts

if anyone else can tell me about the mirroring in weight painting i would be grateful lol hopefully once its tidied up i can have a go at making my first animation

[gmendieta]

the mirror option in weight painting, sometimes for me works… uf. i usually remove half of the character and apply a mirror modifier with option ‘vertex groups’ enabled. it has some prerequisites --> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Modifiers/Generate/Mirror

[chipmasque]

X-mirroring in Weight Painting works OK as long as your mesh is truly symmetrical about the X-axis. It doesn’t seem to take much to throw that off, though. Try enabling the “Topology mirror” option, especially if Weight Painting while the mesh is deformed by the armature.

[bacon_chaney]

@gmendieta unfortunately i have gone too far in the process for it to be a viable solution lol. I would lose all my uv maps etc etc.

@chipmasque, thanks dude will have to give it a try lol i will no doubt keep this thread alive with my frustrations lol

knew it wouldnt be too long lol. Are there any methods to make it easier copying bone weights to other objects? I am just trying to save myself the tedious task of going in and editing everything vertex by vertex till they are close enough to match without clipping

[gmendieta]

there is an script named ‘copy bone weights’. it works finding the nearest vertex of each vertex. you could achieve to not lose the uv mapping. http://blog.machinimatrix.org/bone-weight-copy-in-blender-2-52-6/
in your situation, i’d make a copy of the mesh, delete the right side, use the mirror in order to copy the bone weights, and then use the script with the two right sides.
hope useful

[bacon_chaney]

@gmendieta thanks dude that worked like a charm lol. Just need to weight paint the gown now and start cleaning up the deformations

lol in need of more advice head in hands. the mirroring trick worked perfectly but i have noticed when lifting the leg to around 90 degrees from the hip odd vertices seem to shoot off in random directions. Is this a know problem/ whats the best way to fix it.

Another issue i have seem to run into is I have set up bones and drivers for the shape keys but the shapekeys no longer complete the full transform. So for instance where the eyelids should meet in the middle of the eye both of them are only reaching 50%. its the first time i have used drivers so im not sure if its something obvious i am missing.

thanks again

[bacon_chaney]

hullo again,

so i dont edit the last post again is there a way to alter the curves on a shapekey? I have created a shapekey for the hood to go down but i have created a transition shapekey as a way of correcting the first so it doesnt clip the skull. Ideally i would like to have both the controls on a single driver but change at what point on the curve it comes into effect. For the transitional shapekey i only need it to come into effect in the middle 50% of the action. I just thought it would be cleaner to have it on a single driver if i can get away with it

Thanks again

[revolt_randy]

Huh… I could have swore I asked you to re-post up the new & improved file you’re working on so I could take a look at it again since it has changed since the last time I looked at it…

To answer your question… watch this video posted below. In it, I used 2 shape keys to close the eyes of the character 2nd one builds on the first one and both are controlled by a single bone. It’s not even noticeable that there are 2 shape keys in use. Basically, IIRC, it’s 2 drivers and custom shaped curves (well maybe not custom curves, but I changed the slope from the default).

https://vimeo.com/18880739

Randy

edit: if you are still having problems with stray verts, post the file… otherwise, no need to

[bacon_chaney]

Randy you legend!!!

I am just watching the video at the moment but i can reupload the .blend for you its through my dropbox so it uploads a bit quicker and you dont have to sit through adverts is all I can pack the blend file for you but its about 500mb? otherwise if you dont need the textures its 20mb lol, I am still having problems with the deformations and during a couple of transforms the verts jump out in random directions so if you dont mind giving it a once over i would really appreciate it

[revolt_randy]

textures not needed, haven’t used dropbox before, prefer to stay away from anything I have to sign up for…

Randy

[bacon_chaney]

you shouldnt have to sign up for anything with dropbox should just be able to click on the download link in the big blue button and thats all I have just added another couple of bones for teh front of the coat just so it doesnt cause any confusion as nothing is weighted to it at the moment looking at your video I may need to redo the hood shapekey as i created them both based on the base
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28892292/female%20base%20mesh/Evalyne-263.blend

thanks again randy

[bacon_chaney]

Here you go randy. Hopefully will give you more of an idea of what i meant. I thought i had fixed the fingers also but apparently not lol. she is in need of some tlc

Thanks again to everyone who has helped me iron out the bugs

[revolt_randy]

OK, took a look at it, somewhat, didn’t do a thorough inspection…

Tried a pose like the first pic, and found some verts shooting off like in your pics. see here:

There are 2 different parts of meshes that are shooting off in weird directions. The skin that is stretching at the neck, I figured that one out via the method I described previously in this post. Enable the armature modifier in edit mode, enter edit mode for the mesh…etc…blah…blah… The one vert I looked at was assigned to ‘right’ vertex group. Thinking it was assigned to another vertex group - ‘chest’ - maybe with a weight of 0. Follow chipmasque’s excellent tip on correcting that.

BTW - @ chipmasque - thanks for the tip, never used the fix you mentioned about copying weight from vert to vert… good tip, thanks!!!

Now, the gray spikes, I traced that back to the solidify modifier on that mesh object. It appears to be a bit buggy (or as the classic blender joke goes: it’s not a bug, it’s a feature hahaha ) Didn’t look too deep into it, but basically, moving the solidify modifier to the top corrects the problem.

Modifiers are evaluated from the top down. Rule of thumb is to place the armature modifier first, so it works on the base mesh, then subsurf modifier next so it subsurfs the deformed mesh. Gives you a smoother mesh and the armature has 4x less verts to work on. So I don’t understand why the solidify modifier needs to be first, maybe I should RTFM… or maybe it’s a feature :spin:

Two tips for you, and anyone else who might read this thread. First, my preferred workflow is to rig the basic mesh, get that to working, then worry about uv-mapping, additional meshes (corsets, cloaks, armor, etc…) and rigging them. Rigging is hard enough, without compounding the problem with extras… Second is that I’ve never left the solidify modifier on a mesh, I’ve always applied it. It can create bad geometry that needs to be corrected. The bad geometry that it creates could very well be the source of your problems, moving it to the top and applying it might be a good idea (keyword here is - might - I don’t know) and you might have to fix geometry, which might f~(k up uv mapping…

Randy

edit: two other thoughts… I noticed the lace at the back of the corset isn’t working as the character is posed… Also, the body mesh passing thru the clothing might be solved via the mask modifier…