Advice for a rigging newbie?

[Ellerysia]

So I've tinkered around with uploading meshes into SL via Blender, but I wanted to try making something that was specifically rigged.

I just so happened to have a friend say "I'm so upset nobody's made a Zebstrika avatar yet" (a Pokemon) so I was planning to rig the 'mane' section onto Orange Nova's Dvalinn Deer.

ONA is super awesome in that they have their dummy blend files ready to download on their blog, so the issue wasn't getting a hold of the avatar.

The issue is, despite all the tutorials I've watched trying to figure out rigging, ONA just does it differently. Not to mention I'm not using Avastar or a human avi, for that matter.

I've gotten all the way down to where you have to assign weights to the mesh so that it moves properly with the body but when I switch into "Weight Painting Mode", the section I have selected is covered with indications of the vertices. I'm assuming it's something to do with vertex groups, but I'm far from pro so I'm not certain about it.

 

 

This was the video I had been trying to follow to get a better feel for rigging (and I liked that they aren't using a Human avi), but as you'll notice the differences when THEY select the avatar versus when I do...

 

 

Visually it's not a big deal, but when I try to select the mesh I made to adjust the weights, it just ends up selecting the nearest vertex (highlights the selected one).

I looked everywhere through Blender Manuals and forums and videos--on and on. I couldn't figure it out, so I finally buckled to come ask for myself. And I'll be heading over to other forums if things are inconclusive SL side. I just figured somebody has to know how to do what I'm trying to do, especially since this is a popular model in the MP.

 

[OptimoMaximo]

Look on the bar where there is the selector saying "weight painting" : moving to the right hand side, you will see two little buttons with cubes as icons, one with a face highlighted and the other with a vertex highlighted... Notice howw you got the second one enabled: click it to disable it and you should go back to the same weight painting mode you see in the video

 

Edited July 28, 2019 by OptimoMaximo

[Ellerysia]

On 7/28/2019 at 1:33 PM, OptimoMaximo said:

Look on the bar where there is the selector saying "weight painting" : moving to the right hand side, you will see two little buttons with cubes as icons, one with a face highlighted and the other with a vertex highlighted... Notice howw you got the second one enabled: click it to disable it and you should go back to the same weight painting mode you see in the video

 

Thanks for that help, but now I'm suffering from another issue

[Ellerysia]

So Optimo helped me with the original issue, but now I'm having a couple new ones.

 

When trying to transfer weights from the avatar to the mesh, a couple of things happen:

 

I have NO idea where the purple is coming from or why. I tried looking this up as well but none of them seemed to following the same path of thought that I was. I'm not sure why, but this purple highlight is preventing me from transferring weights onto my mesh.

 

I tried fiddling around with some stuff, and just clicking away from the highlighted section will remove that purple... but there's no weight shown.

 

Considering I have the Neck and Neck Bone selected, you would think there'd be a good bit of weight 'painted' on the avatar. Right clicking the armature in pose mode allows me to move the avatar wonderfully, but even adding weight paint to my mesh doesn't seem to make it move at all.

I did indeed parent the mesh to the armature, by the by.

I tried joining the Dvalinn together into a single mesh (since it's broken up into sections, and the tutorial is shown as a whole mesh) but that didn't really do anything or change the results.

 

[OptimoMaximo]

16 hours ago, Ellerysia said:

I'm not sure why, but this purple highlight is preventing me from transferring weights onto my mesh.

From what i can see, it seems to be an avastar rig, and the bones you're selecting and manipulating are the animation bones, which are green. The deforming bones in avastar rigs are blue in color and are hidden by default. Try and find the visibility switches in the avastar interface, once you make the blue bones appear and select one of them, you'll be able to see the weights and, hopefully, be able to transfer weights

[Cackle Amore]

Before you get to rigging, I'd recommend learning about retopology. Atm it looks like your mane thing was made via scuplting, So it's polygons are probably a chaotic mess, and it'll make it a a pain to properly weight.

To explain what Retopoly is, basically, you just rebuild a lower poly mesh around the high poly scuplt.

Often times, the high poly sculpt will be used to make a bump map to stick on the lowpoly to retain the extra details.

This video should give you a rough idea of how to do it, though I think the fellow in the vid might have some plugins that might throw ya off.

 

 

Edited August 16, 2019 by Digit Gears

[Ellerysia]

On 8/2/2019 at 2:36 PM, OptimoMaximo said:

Try and find the visibility switches in the avastar interface, once you make the blue bones appear and select one of them, you'll be able to see the weights and, hopefully, be able to transfer weights

I actually managed to snag an experienced mesh maker in-world who talked me through it, but ended up giving me pretty much the same advice so thank you for it ❤️

 

 

On 8/15/2019 at 11:27 PM, Digit Gears said:

Before you get to rigging, I'd recommend learning about retopology.

 

 

 

Oh my god thank you. I knew my triangles were a mess and now I know what I need to do to clean it up. Very useful advice~