Weight painting question

[Liramaril]

Hi! So I am trying to make a cape similar to the picture I'll attach below. I've experimented with starting the mesh in both A pose (then using blender/avastar to convert to T pose) and meshing it in T pose to begin with. I've seen a lot of capes on the MP but they either don't drape on the arms/partially in front of the arms, or they do but need to use custom poses/animations/alphas etc to hide the arms/restrict movement.

 

Because I want to try to create a cape that moves with the arms but also has something of a fabric drape effect, I've realised I need to sacrifice a lot of the 'look' in T-pose. It will look unrealistic in T pose because the fabric will have to still to some degree sit on the arms, even though logically it would fall away from them at that point. I've experimented with different mesh poses to begin with to allow for more vertices to manipulate, but I've been running into problems where it just distorts too much when I move to either (I guess because I am trying to move so many vertices to hide excess mesh etc, or because I simply do not have enough).

 

I am wondering if you guys might have any suggestions for how you might go about something like this.

 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

What you're describing sounds like you're trying to have the cape behave like a physical cape would. You can't do that in SL, all meshes are "static" to a certain degree -- even rigged meshes. The individual vertices are influenced by all of the bones you've rigged them to, regardless of distance. If you rig the cape to the arms, it'll follow the arms no matter how extreme of a movement you do. It won't "fall off the arms" like you might want. You could try some trickery by rigging the cape to multiple bones (like arms AND chest/spine, for example) but that will be more complicated and probably won't do what you want.

The "best" solution you have for a nice flowing cape that reacts to avatar movement is animesh. You give the cape its own (separate) skeleton, and rig it to that. Then you create animation-pairs for the cape and the avatar, which you would have to play in sync at the same time. This way, you know when the arms are lifted and you can animate the cape to "fall off" exactly how you want. It's a lot more effort and a lot more complicated, but besides that, you just can't really do long drapey clothes that look great, because SL lacks clothing physics.

[Liramaril]

Hi!! Sorry, no, I don’t mean that the cape would be animated, rather that when the arms are raised, the mesh still looks reasonable, as well as when the arms are lowered. To have the mesh still in a decent, non-gammy-looking position seems to definitely require an interplay of several bones, because you want the excess fabric to essentially accordion when it would fall into folds, reducing its surface area. If you know what I mean? If you look at the top two sketches of this image, this might help explain the quandary Im at!    https://pin.it/52ye5PU

 

So just how to tackle it so that it sits right when arms are up or down.

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2020 by Liramaril

[Janet Voxel]

17 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

What you're describing sounds like you're trying to have the cape behave like a physical cape would. You can't do that in SL, all meshes are "static" to a certain degree -- even rigged meshes. The individual vertices are influenced by all of the bones you've rigged them to, regardless of distance. If you rig the cape to the arms, it'll follow the arms no matter how extreme of a movement you do. It won't "fall off the arms" like you might want. You could try some trickery by rigging the cape to multiple bones (like arms AND chest/spine, for example) but that will be more complicated and probably won't do what you want.

The "best" solution you have for a nice flowing cape that reacts to avatar movement is animesh. You give the cape its own (separate) skeleton, and rig it to that. Then you create animation-pairs for the cape and the avatar, which you would have to play in sync at the same time. This way, you know when the arms are lifted and you can animate the cape to "fall off" exactly how you want. It's a lot more effort and a lot more complicated, but besides that, you just can't really do long drapey clothes that look great, because SL lacks clothing physics.

This is really the best answer you’re going to get. It’s a limitation of mesh that there’s no way around.

Basically, all of the details of your mesh are frozen when you finish modeling and all rigging does is allow the mesh to move with your avatar in a way that looks realistic, but again there is a limitation. 
 

Another good example is one of the illustrations has a cape that pools on the floor. You can model it and it’ll look great, but once your avatar starts moving, the bottom part that was touching the floor will still look flat when it wouldn’t in real life. 

[Liramaril]

Sorry, Wulfie, I misunderstood your reply on first read. I see now! 

 

And yes, it sounds like both of you are right. Another rabbit hole for me to fall into XD

[Phate Shepherd]

What if you rigged the cape primarily to the extended bento avatar wing bones (Secondarily to the chest/abdomen). For a default animation, you could have a high priority wing bone animation hold the cape behind the shoulders, allowing regular animations to move the arms freely, but when playing animations that you create, the wing bones could follow the arm bones and possibly create an over the shoulder draped look. Weighting that would be nightmarish though.

[Salt Peppermint]

cape are very very tricky in SL. It's really like Wulfie explained. If you make it animesh it's just a lot more work . another workaround is to make a fixed pose with your arms down and make the cape lock that on wear. that's how I rigged my cape. but of course you sacrifice the shoulder movement for this