i have this model which i’m fighting with blender to get it to deform well and whenever i apply bone heat, i need to tweak some weights of vertices…
with so many bones in the mesh it’s hard to tell which vertex belongs to which bone, i have to select each bone and pray that it’s the one that’s affecting the vertex… is there a better faster way to do this?
Did you name each bone before making it the parent of the mesh?
How to view them:
You can see what is parented to each bone if you are in Edit Mode
and also have the Editing buttons visible (F9). On the Links and Materials
tab you should see Vertex Groups. In the 3D window press A twice (
or once) to make sure all vertices are unselected. Then from the Vertex
Groups dropdown menu (witch pops up when you click the tiny Up/Down arrow
icon) you should see a list of names. For each Vertex Group (after selecting one)
click the “Select” button underneath it. In the 3D View you should see all the
vertices become selected that belong to that group.
How to edit them:
Whatever vertices you would like to include in this group that are not already,
select them in the 3D View and then click “Assign” under the Vertex Group
in the Editing buttons window. In the same way, what you want exclude,
select in the 3D View and click the remove “Remove” button.
More Tips:
-If it’s set up right there is a group for each bone with the same exact name.
-Also, before parenting an object to the bones, it can be helpful to make all of
your Vertex Groups ahead of time and give each bone you want to control them
the same names. Then select the Object, select the Armature, press Ctrl+P,
selecter Armature, and finally Name Groups.
-You can always go back and edit the Vertex Groups and they should automatically
update so you don’t have to re-parent them to the Armature)
-If it all seems like a mess and you want to start over, select your object and press Alt+P
to clear parent. Then you can go back in and delete each Vertex Group (if you really want to)
and start over…(you don’t really have to delete them, but sometimes this can help you
stay organized if there’s too much going on at that point.)
Also check out this:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Advanced_Tutorials/Advanced_Animation/Guided_tour/Mesh/vg
wow… that’s what i call an informative post…
thanks a lot Ghost_Train… you’re right, being less lazy and more organized can pay off its benefits… i was doing this for the BWC contest and i didn’t have time to start over, but i’ll definitely keep this in mind when i rig characters in the future…
thanks again
Hey, it was a pleasure. I love helping people out.
I tried taking short cuts for a long time, but after all the extra frustration
I caused myself, I finally, some how, managed to get myself to calm
down long enough to learn up and understand. Now it’s finally paying
off.