Mesh Weight Painting

[mariahrasco]

So I have been working endlessly on all parts of creating mesh.  I am able to create it, retopo it, parent it, but then when i go to do the weight painting I have the hardest time figuring it out.  I have watched multiple videos including the ones on machinamatrix.  I am unable to afford avastar, don't know that it would make it that much easier, but I can't seem to get a handle on it.  Is there someone out there that can help with advice or suggestions?

Thanks,

Zoe Kaul

[MIstahMoose]

Avastar does make it ridiculously easier. 
Other than that.. Practice makes perfect, you'll get familiar with the tools as you keep hammering away at it.

Blur is your friend

[mariahrasco]

I have been using blure but it seems to get wonky when i get close to joints like the shoulders and such.  Is there a better way to do those areas?

 

[Gaia Clary]

Weight painting is surely one of those areas which need a whole lot of experience. And the complexity of the SL solutions (especially regarding fitted mesh) doesn't make this an easier task.

While Avastar can be very helpful, you still need to exactly know what you do and how to solve weighting issues. And for sure there is no "click here and all will be well" button available. The best that you can do is gaining experience and learning in small steps how to make things better. And keep patient :matte-motes-sunglasses-1:

 

[Medhue Simoni]

Blur is definitely your friend, unless you are new, then it can just confuse you more. My tip about using blur is, it is generally the last step, and pointless to use until you have worked out how the weights should be. You'll waste time blurring things that you are just going to go over again later.

Shoulders and the crotch are always going to be problem areas. There are a number of reason, 1 being bad topology for a crotch or armpit. Even the most experienced riggers are going to go over those areas numerous times. As many have shown about the New Mesh Avatars LL released, even experience riggers can get bad results. I have yet to rig something and it not take me days to do in total time. Because I'm usually the person animating the character too, I'll end up spending  time while I'm animating to try and get the weights as perfect as possible.

Of course, I'm a big Avastar cheerleader, and if you do earn some money in SL, you should consider getting it. That said, I've had to do many contract jobs now for work outside SL, and for some fricken strange reason, recently they all involve rigging too. Yes, Avastar gives you some great tools that makes things easier, but rigging is a pain in the butt no matter what tools you use. I've seen some autoriggers do a decent job, but I'd still rather weight it myself than use those autoriggers. It gets easier and easier the more you do.

 

[mariahrasco]

Thank you all so much for the help.  I was beginning to feel like I just wasn't gonna get it but the more I play with it the more I seem to be making headway!!!  Thanks again.

[Spinell]

Hello friend!

I've only recently aquared avastar so I have been building and rigging mesh without it for a while now. Rigging with only the original SL bones is a pain and there are no shortcuts. At least, I never foudn any. You are going to have to get used to the weight brushes almost by force, kicking and screaming all the way. But it will be worth it, my friend. Once you make enough money in SL you'll be able to aford Avastar. It's honestly not that expensive. The day will come, my friend!!!

As for brushes, I only use the add and subtract and finnish with a blur if I see an area that needs smoothing. You will hate the blur tool at the beggining and I often found it uterly pointless, since it seems to destroy my work more than help it. But, you'll get the hang of it eventually.

Take careful note to, after painting a certain section of the mesh, move the bones around to different positions and check if the rigging is ok from there. Often times, I managed to get things right when rotating the bones a certain way for movement and then rotated them in a different angle to find things didn't fit as well. The blur tool can help here.

Weight painting will take a lot of time. You need to go through each bone and section carefully and calibrate the weight distribution with the brushes to meld the weights from adjents bones together in a flowing way.

Again, best advice I can give you, appart from being very very patient, is to often change rotations of the bones and try different poses for the mesh to check if things meld together properly. Remember that, if it's a piece of clothing, people will probably want to dance in it. So try to account for that. You don't need to make it look too good in some positions (I always find the "arms up" positon to be a pain to get the weights right), just so it doesn't look too bad or distracting.

When you get good at weight painting then you can aim at perfection.