Problems with Vertex groups on Blender 2.6

[LisaMarie McWinnie]

So, thanks to really helpful people on my last post,I discovered what is probably wrong with my rigged mesh.

I checked the Vertex Group´s on Object Data, and I only have 9,and it should be 21 right?

I don't know what I did wrong,but how can I fix it?

 

Thank you in advance!

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

yes all the major bonegroups must be there.

It's hard to tell what went wrong. maybe you accidentally deleted them or didn't copy them properly (in case you copied the weights from a default avatar) or other things.

But if you only have 9 groups that means your Rig or model is only weighted towards 9  bones.

As far as i can read from your former Post it's a dress you are attempting to make. So probably you only weighted it towards the bones that you thought should influence it.
In this case you have to manually add the missing vertex groups, with the propper naming into the model.



These are the needed groups

• mPelvis 
• mTorso 
• mChest 
• mNeck 
• mHead 
• mSkull 
• mEyeRight 
• mEyeLeft 

Arms

• mCollarLeft 
• mShoulderLeft 
• mElbowLeft 
• mWristLeft 
• mCollarRight 
• mShoulderRight 
• mElbowRight 
• mWristRight 

Legs

• mHipLeft 
• mKneeLeft 
• mAnkleLeft 
• mFootLeft 
• mToeLeft 
• mHipRight 
• mKneeRight 
• mAnkleRight 
• mFootRight 
• mToeRight 
  
  One of some possible solutions: What you can do then is to add a single vertex somewhere insides of your model and weight it with 1.000 towards
  all missing groups / groups that shouldnt influence your dress. make sure the vertex is unconnected or its something hidden, so that it doesn't build a polygon/face.
  
  
  

[Gaia Clary]

---

Codewarrior Congrejo wrote:

 

In this case you have to manually add the missing vertex groups, with the propper naming into the model.

 

 

 

---

You can make this easier:

Regardless whether your mesh is already parented to your armature or not, the following will work:

 

• Go to object mode
• select your mesh
• SHIFT+RMB select your armature
• Object -> Parent -> Armature deform -> With empty groups

This will add one vertex group for each bone unless the vertex group already exists. Thats all you need to do. See my next comment below.

---

One of some possible solutions: What you can do then is to add a single vertex somewhere insides of your model and weight it with 1.000 towards

all missing groups / groups that shouldnt influence your dress. make sure the vertex is unconnected or its something hidden, so that it doesn't build a polygon/face.

---

You do not need to add any vertex to a vertex group. The SL Importer only wants to see the vertex groups and it will accept if they are empty.

 At least that was the case when i checked the last time a few months ago. But things can change fast ;-)

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

that works too =)

I obviously love extended ways by controling everything manually.

PS: I actually had recently some troubles when no vertice was assigned to to one of the groups. But may have been the Betagrid having a hiccup again. Could never figure why it would denie to upload in those cases and in others it worked with basically the same situation. 

[LisaMarie McWinnie]

Thank you so much!

 

I followed Gaia's instruction,and new vertex groups were created.

But now there is 26 groups,is that bad?

 

Also,how do I reset the armature to the default pose?

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

But now there is 26 groups,is that bad?

 It's 26 bonegroups. When you count the ones i posted you, you can see it. So that's abolsutely correct : )

Also,how do I reset the armature to the default pose?

Unless you didn't move the bones in editmode,
just go into Posemode, select one Bone,
then press A to select all.

And do these 3 Keystrokes:
- ALT+R  (resets all rotations)
- ALT+G (resets all movements)
- ALT+S (resets all scalings)

You can also call under the Pose Libary (Properties Panel > Armature) the default pose by selecting all bones in posemode (A) and then pressing the lil magnifier button in the libary when the default pose is selected.

Cheers.

[LisaMarie McWinnie]

You are a life saviour!

 

Now with the new vertex groups the rigging changed a bit,and when I try to edit it in Weight Painting,its not easy as before.

Its like pretty drastic,I can't make it fit right.

When I try to edit it,if I don't substract all of it,it looks like this:

Its like there is no mean.

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

it can be a few things being wrong here.
From the weighting view i can tell that weights are changing from weight 1 to around 0.5 / 0.25 in an almost vertical manner from one vertex to the next.

So could be your brush strength is too intense and when you apply weight its either too and thus that single vertice jumps already very far off, due to the incluence which makes it often hard to reach other vertices inbetween. 

It can also be hard to edit if the mesh is too dense. Or if it has only a few polygons and you paint on single vertices with different weights they easily jump all into different positions based on their weights.

What you could do when its too messed up, is unparent it from the armature, delete all vertex groups. And simply parent it newly with automatic weights. And then tweak those with a very low weightbrush strength to carefully remove wrong influences or add more when needed.And add possibly missing groups at the end with 'empty weights' again.

You can also send me the file and i'll have a fast look if there is anything wrong with it. (I'll send you my mail address in a private message)

[LisaMarie McWinnie]

It would be great if you could take a look at it,please IM me your email

Also,I make all my mesh clothing using the same avatar and armature from this file,so I want to know what I can do about the vertex groups before rigging the mesh.

Again,thanks so much for your help!

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

No problem ^.^
I have sent you my mail address a few hours ago as private message here in the forum. so just check your inbox here and you'll have it.

Send me your file. and don't forget to write me in the mail which Blender version you are using. I'm sure that way we'll figure soon what the troubles are. =)

Cheers, Code.

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

ok here we go, 

I received your file and was checking out it's problems and fixed these things to a certain extend. (the final work and tweaks you will have to do on your own =))

 

Let me show you the issues I have found:

- Rotation / Location / and Scale issues:

- All objects like armature, avatar and the dress mesh had different scales and rotations and locations.
- you can first have these while working, but you need to 'apply' those (CTRL+A > location / rotation / scale) at the
  end, or your mesh will drill and flip in all directions when being worn in the game.
- And the armature and parented objects should have also while working in best case the same rotations to avoid
  computational errors with certain methods when being applied.
- Since I finished everything so far I applied and corrected all these wrong locations, scales and rotations for them and
  brought them all to ROT 0,0,0, SCALE 1,1,1, LOC 0,0,0.

- In addition I made sure all objects origins where snapped to perfect center. And thus for everything the same position.

- The weights on the dress' mesh:

- the weights had been only assigned at arms and chest and have been (as you recognized by yourself already very
  messy)
- After fixing the above problems (rot,loc,scale etc)
- I don't know 'how' you put those weights on. Means: if by painting - then the brush settings might have been wrong. (too
   small brushtip, and / or too much /or not enough strength ). If they have been copied from the avatar it would also be no
   wonder if they appear wrong because the topology of the dress is very different from the avatar. (we will come to that a
   few points later *)

- I did a Test-Stroke to see if the mesh is now okay and responding orderly to adding weights:

- with the above shown brush-weight settings I could clearly draw / add a straight weight line (red)
- just to assure it's taking the weights now correctly.

- The dress' Topology and weighting-methods:

- * As mentioned above the topology of your mesh is very different from the avatar's. So copying weights from this leads
   to very disadvantageous results. And is no option at all. Unless you are up for a lot fixing and know where to put what.
- But in those cases I start with fresh weights, the following way:

- Deleted all vertex groups, unparented the dress, and freshly parented it with automatic weights:

- this gives you way cleaner results in such a case to start with and then do your tweaks  from there, by painting add  or
  subtract weights from certain parts to refine the results.
- Did some rough manual tweaks to it already.

- Quick test to see if everything responds correctly to posing now:

- Everything works fine now for a start.
- You will have to do the final refinements though : ) can't do it all for you.
- I have pointed you out above a few of the things that need retouching.

- Additionally found issues: 
 The UVs and Troubles in the mesh:

- When I looked at the UVs I found some major issues as well:
- both armparts had different texture space (one side smaller then the other) which will result in stretched texturing and
   other problems.
- The armparts had even more issues (right side): overlapping faces, holes, and a lot stretching. Which would prevent
   textures from even being applied correctly in those spots. 

- Seeing all this it was clear to me that there must be inconclusive seams and possibly doubled edges and vertices
  in  those spots. Which appeared a correct assumption when I looked at the mesh on those areas:

- The seam was not going through (left)
- faces and edges have been overlapping (top- middle)
- there have been numerous spots with doubled edges and vertices (middle - bottom)
- Some parts of some of the edgeloops had up to 3 duplicates.
- and the seamline here was inconclusive (right)

- this did not only make a correct UV unwrapping impossible.
- It also was yet another issue which lead to your troubles when doing the weightpainting:

Because when you would paint on one of the overlying vertices those would be contracted towards the bone, but the former hidden ones you could not reach while painting would all sudden stick out. (regarding your screenshots of the armparts when you tried to paint weights on it) And the half visible half hidden vertices of course got all sorts of different
weights this way.

- So I removed consequently all of these faces and loops and redid them;
- And additionally I redid the whole UV for you as well:

- fixed the seams after fixing the topology and faces, and then unwrapped the whole model again.
- now with equal shoulderparts, better texture space, and undistorted armparts.
- To give you even better texture space I decided to rotate one of the dress parts on 180 degree so I could scale them
   both more up.
- After all this I redid the weighting on the arms. To assign weights to the newly created vertices.

- Another thing:

- Also the faces across the upper legs had been proportionally much bigger then the rest of the skirts topology. And thus
  uneven.
- For better weighting / posing behavior, and also better texturing (avoid extreme stretching etc) I decided to add one 
  additional loop in there to even things out.

- Another thing you will have to do:

- as written above you will nee inwards facing polygons. To cover those ingame invisible / transparent backsides of the
  faces.
- Due to SL's backface-culling those are unrendered and transparent and you will need a few inward faces / loops to
  cover these.
- The earlier you do it, the better. Because: you have to weight those too, and need to include them into your UVs as
  well.

- The corrected model in your file: ( I have used Blender 2.65a - so you might need to switch to that version if
  working with the edited file gives you problems)


- Hope that helped you to get an overview over your mistakes and how to fix those in future. And helped you getting
  started on doing the final steps on it =)

- Don't forget you will need 3 more LOD versions of the model later on (and of course the physics model). And the better
  you prepare it now, the easier you will have it to tweak and retouch the 3 other LODs.

PS: I have copied this reply to the "ways to fix a problematic rig" thread, to have them combined there for other users searching for help
(http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Ways-to-fix-a-problematic-Avatar-Rig/m-p/1953809#M20285) You can check that one out too. The other rig fix there had some problems yours had too. and might make you understand some things and changes I did better (especially the applying of rotation, location. scale, and changes on the topology etc)

Cheers, Code.