weighting a mesh avatar and solving the noodly appendage problem

[Fizz Savira]

I've been spending some time designing a mesh avatar, and one of the issues that is still causing me fits is getting the weighting right. Watching one of Gaia's tutorials (like this one: http://blog.machinimatrix.org/avastar-6-weighting/ ) has as usual been super helpful.

However, while I've managed to get the rump of my mesh avatar to not be terrible, the elbows are defying me. The arms end up looking rather noodly. I'm sure the knee joint has the same issue, just haven't worked on it yet :)

So, I'm wondering if there are some good tips and techinques for handling these traditional problem areas. I'm trying to understand what the limits of good weighting is versus how much mesh I need to get a good result.

 

[Nalates Urriah]

Noodly....nice word. :matte-motes-smile: Descriptive...

Since you have watched Gaia's tutorial... I would guess the problem is in how you have modeled the mesh more then in the weighting. But, I'm only guessing. 

Look at the model in this tutorial: 

. Notice how the mesh forms rings at the joints. This allows an accordion like effect when the joint bends. Another good example is: 

. Think of making joints out of clothes drier flex venting.

[Fizz Savira]

Thanks

I found after more experimenting that I was taking the wrong approach - I was blending too much influence from nearby bones which is what led to the noodly look. After I undid that, I start fussing with the mesh itself to get better bend lines and that helped a ton. Sometimes I got better results when I converted some of the quads to triangles and forced the quads interior edge to be along the bend edge.

Trying to sort out the weighting vs. adding in more mesh detail is quite challenging!

In the end, pardon the pun, I added more detail to the rump to get a better seating shape

Still struggling with the pelvic crease for when the thigh moves, but the overall shape is coming together

 

[Chosen Few]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Touched_by_His_Noodly_Appendage.jpg

[Fizz Savira]

He he. I wondered if someone would pick up on that when I named this thread

Congrats, you win!

 

[Fizz Savira]

Actually, I'm wondering if doing some quad to triangle conversion is considered "good practice".

What I'm really struggling with is how many quads to put into a joint. I'm trying to get my mesh avatars triangle count to stay under 10000 (the standard Ruth avatar is a bit over 7000 for comparison purposes). My design has feet with toes and toenails; the hands have proper fingernails, so as expected, it's using more triangles.

I've rebuilt the pelvis-thigh joint multiple times, and my current one is "pretty good", but I've resorted to turn quads into triangles to get the crease I want. Is this a bad thing? Or is this kind of pragmatism good?