Problem with rigging mesh

[Melysange]

Hi, it's me again :)

 

For the last 3 days i've been trying to figure out how to rigg mesh such as clothes and hair so they can fit my avatar's movements, i watched a few tutorials on youtube on how to do it and it doesn't look too complicated and yet i am having an issue..

I followed this tutorial and i downloaded and used the bone structure from the website in the description (i believe it's the default bone stucture that everyone use):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqW3BBRu1DI&index=5&list=FL4Eb79iIBgIi_G1qB1LAvUQ

 

I import a mesh top that i'd like to rigg to the avatar, i move it around and such to make it fit the avatar like on the picture:

 

Then when it looks ok, i select the mesh top and hold shift and click on the bone structure, then i press ctrl+p and i click on "Armature Deform with automatic weights" but then an issue comes up, sometimes i have a message saying " Bone heat weighting: Failed to find solution for one or more bones" .. what does this mean exactly?  i don't have this message all the time, but either way, everytime i upload the mesh onto sl, it's not rigged to my avatar at all and the size has increased, like shown on that screenshot: 

 

Is there a step that i've missed in the rigging process? It looked too easy to be true :matte-motes-agape:

Thanx in advance for your help,

Melysange

[Medhue Simoni]

All I can say, is that I use Avastar. If you are going to make clothing it is worth every penny to get the addon for Blender.

[Ssmiles]

Medhue, not everyone starting out wants to spend the money on Avastar.  It's a great add on, don't get me wrong, but some folks want to learn what they can with out it.  Not to mention, you still need to learn the basics before you can make use of Avastar anyway.  

Melysange It looks like you either aren't weighting the mesh properly OR more likely, aren't exporting it to colada properly before you upload it to Second Life.  

Try this tutorial and see if it helps you. It really helped me a lot.  Make sure you watch it to the end and follow the directions fully.  

Good luck!  

[Melysange]

Ok, i gave a try to the tutorial you sent me, Ssmiles and i manage to go through it easily though i think my problem comes from the avatar structure i use to work my mesh on.. i use the avatar workbench-265 from machinimatrix and when i upload the mesh i tried to rigg i get that:

 

 

A huge mesh avatar with a few little avatars underneath .. I noticed on blender that i have those avatars but i didn't touch them, i tried to remove them and keep only the female shape avatar and put my mesh top on it, but when i remove the other avatars it removes the armature of the female avatar (not sure i am being clear sorry it's hard to explain ) 

Basically here is a screenshot of the avatar i work on: 

 

but if i click on the other layers, i also have a second female avatar (it's the huge one we see on th epicture that i've taken in world) 

 

and a male avatar: 

 

i also have another layer with a basic hair and a skirt.. Are those avatars the reason of my problem? if yes, can i remove them so i only have the female avatar and her armature?

 

 

[Ssmiles]

For one thing, your avatar is WAY too big.  Niether SL nor Blender is going to resize it for you.  

I would stick with the SL avatars for Blender, at least for now.  They are the correct size and the shapes aren't all that different from the one you are trying to use.  That and with fitted mesh around, it's not going to matter anyway.  If you put strange avatars into Blender, Blender is likely to do strange things or at the very least, not do what you want it to as it's really touchy.  You really need to have a lot of experience under your belt to get Blender to do things that are a litte unconventional.   

What version of Blender are you using?  There are new SL avatar bones for Blender that have more to them.  They are for Blender version 2.70 and above.  

http://lecs.opensource.secondlife.com/fittedmesh/SecondLifeAvatarSkeleton.zip

[Melysange]

Hi Smiles, sorry for the slow reply..

I use Blender v2.71, i downloaded the avatar you sent in your last post and i followed the tutorial again carefully but it's still not working, my mesh isn't rigged and it's driving me nuts :matte-motes-mad:  

I think the best way to find a solution is to post pictures of what i do step by step:

So first, i open the avatar i downloaded from your link, in Blender

 

Then step 2, i import the mesh item i want to rigg, in my case it's a tank top, and i position it on the avatar and make sure it fits it

 

Step 3, i click on my mesh then hold shift and click on the armature, then i press ctrl+P and i click on "Armature Deform with empty group like on that picture

 

Then comes the weight paint mode, so i click on the avatar and press shift and click on the mesh tank top to select both of them at the same time.. then i go into weight paint mode and i click on "Transfer Weight"

 

Now according to the tutorial, the mesh is rigged to the avatar, so i go back into object mode, i select my tank top by clicking on it then i export it as a .dae file.. But then when i upload it in sl i have this:

 

It uploads the tank top but with the avatar and the top is up side down and not rigged at all .. Why does it upload the avatar and not only the top? i noticed at some point (when i do the armature deform with empty groups thing) the avatar merges with the top in Blender, but i don't know why it does that because in the video it doesn't do this at all, it seems easy and i follow all the steps carefully and yet i still struggle with rigging my top  

I am obviously missing something, but what? Can anybody help? 

 

Thank you in advance  

[Sassy Romano]

In the export panel for the collada exporter will be an option to only export selected objects.  You don't seem to have that checked, hence it's exporting the whole scene.

If it's coming into SL as unweighted, then there's an issue with the weighting.

Please don't use the newer thread, it's pointless when this one contains the detail, don't start new threads just because this one has drifted down the stack, now it's back at the top!

[Gaia Clary]

---

Melysange wrote:

It is frustrating because it looks so simple to rigg mesh clothes but i am still new with Blender

---

That is the main problem. It looks simple. But there is a reason why we have put so much work into our Plugin. Because rigging is only simple when you want to do basic things.

I have taken a quick look on your example above and i believe that i see where things are turning into a mess. First of all, please keep hands off from fitted mesh as long as you are not familiar with what this is all about.

Then i recommend you start with the Avatar Workbench. I just have added a new workbench file for Blender 2.71 (for classic bone rigging). This should be enough to get started:

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/avatar-workbench/

And when you eventually are ready for fitted mesh, you find a link to our fitted mesh demo on the workbench page (or just use the demo from Linden Lab, that works meanwhile as well)

[Melysange]

Hello Sassy and Gaia, thanks for the help,

 

So I tried again with the workbench you linked Gaia, it seems to work better, i followed the tutorial again and everything looks fine in blender, when i rotate my bones in pose mode, the mesh top follows the movements of my avatar properly like on the picture below: 

 

Then i make sure all the right options are checked when i export it, i think everything is fine at this step of the process: 

 

 

I must let you know that i chose an "operator preset" and chose "SL+Open Sim rigged" then it checked all the options you can see on the picture, i watched the video on youtube again and the same options were checked except that her operator preset is called "Second life Rigged" instead of "SL+Open Sim rigged"  like on my blender, but i don't think this is the reason of my problem..

So this is what i did, everything seems fine on Blender but then once i upload it on sl, the tank top looks bigger then on blender, and when i click on "wear" once it's uploaded, my avatar wears it on his hand and it's not rigged  

I didn't tell you but i upload the mesh on the Beta grid of second life (on Firestorm) just so i don't spend my linden for nothing as it is just a test to see if the mesh would suit me or not (which it doesn't lol ), could it be a problem and mess up the rigg when i upload it? 

[Gaia Clary]

• Your mesh scales up most probably because you forgot to "apply scale & rotation" before exporting the mesh from Blender.(Object -> apply -> Rotation & Scale)
• And you have no weights most probably because you forgot to enable upload of weights.

Here is a video about how to make a proper import:

While this is from the Avastar documentation, it also applies to meshes from pure Blender or any other 3D tool.

[Melysange]

It works!

 

Oh my god i couldn't thank you enough for your help Gaia! I think the problem was when i uploaded the mesh into sl, i didn't check the skin weight options..  But this time i did, and i also applied the scale and rotation in Blender and now my mesh tank top is perfectly rigged to my avatar! 

 

Thank you so much! 

[MidAirborne]

@Gaia Clary Hey I found this useful but I'm am trying to get clarity on enabling uploading weights? where or how do I do this?

[MidAirborne]

I have a mesh rigged in blender but when I upload it, it is floating attached to my avatar 

* Meshbody_-_Classic_m_1.2_Blender_3.6 [C:\Users\nmn\Downloads\Meshbody_-_Classic_m_1.2_Blender_3.6.blend] - Blender 4.1 (gyazo.com)

 

Firestorm-Releasex64 6.6.17.70368 - MidAirborne (gyazo.com)