Rigging small objects to fitted mesh

[Suki Hirano]

I'm using Blender 2.74 with Avastar and trying to rig small objects like a belly piercing. I attached the belly piercing to the Avastar armature, selected "fitted mesh" instead of "classic mesh", bind to armature, then copy over the weights from Avastar. I see all the fitted mesh vertex groups when I select the belly piercing (ie "right pec" "left pec" "belly" etc) added to it, but when I go to the Avastar shape slider, the belly piercing is not rigged to the fitted mesh bones at all. When I adjust the belly slider nothing happens to the piercing, but when I adjust a rig mesh bone like "body height" or "body thickness" then the piercing will deform. I tested this in the beta grid and indeed the piercing does not respond to any of the fit mesh bones, but does respond to the rig mesh bones.

Anyone know how to fix this?

[Suki Hirano]

OP updated with some other info.

[Suki Hirano]

No one knows how to rig small objects in SL? Or is it a trade secret lol. It's definitely possible as I own a set of fitted mesh pasties and belly piercings.

[Sassy Romano]

I can rig then fine but seriously don't do it for something that should be an editable attachment.

 

If you rig it, nobody will be able to adjust the fit. Something like a piercing shouldn't change size with bones either.

[Gaia Clary]

i do not see exactly how the size of an object can limit its ability to be weighted to collision volume bones (fitted mesh). As far as i know there is no limitation on that (except that a mesh can not have a bounding box smaller than 1 cm on each axis.

If you use Avastar then this also should not stop you from weighting your mesh to your likes.

so if you encounter an issue with this, then you could create a ticket for Avastar at http://blog.machinimatrix.org/tickets

[Suki Hirano]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

I can rig then fine but seriously don't do it for something that should be an editable attachment.

 

If you rig it, nobody will be able to adjust the fit. Something like a piercing shouldn't change size with bones either.

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How do you do it? I use Avastar and it definitely doesn't work with the traditional "bind to armature" method, as confirmed by one of the support team members. I guess it requires manual weight painting? But it's so difficult for small objects to match the movements of body parts.

[Sassy Romano]

How? Just omit doing any weights, don't bind to armature. Upload.

[Gaia Clary]

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Suki Hirano wrote:

I use Avastar and it definitely doesn't work with the traditional "bind to armature" method, as confirmed by one of the support team members.

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Who said that please? Avastar really does nothing special here. Of course it uses Blender's skeletal animation system, so binding should work without any issues. Especially what you name "The traditional bind to armature" method is nothing special, it just makes it easier to bind when you also want to copy weights from somewhere.

In your case it might not make any sense to copy weights from anywhere because you possibly want to rig riggid objects. So you need to create the weights manually. And this can be done by using the "assign weight to vertex" feature from Blender. This feature can be found at the bottom of the vertex group list (in edit mode), see here:

http://www.blender.org/manual/modeling/meshes/vertex_groups/weight_edit.html

However it may be possible that what you really want to do is to just attach static mesh objects to avatar attachment points. And indeed that does not need rigging at all. IN that case the bind to amrature method (or any binding) is not necessary (even not advised as others pointed out already).

[Suki Hirano]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

How? Just omit doing any weights, don't bind to armature. Upload.

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I asked you how you would rig them, which I believe is what you said?

I wouldn't have started this thread if I wanted static mesh...? Not sure why so many people are saying "just use static mesh". If static mesh doesn't clip on the ugly linden body then congrats. But it clips on most mesh bodies, therefore you must rig it. Simple as that.

Rigged belly piercing:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/KC-JANINE-Navel-Piercing-for-MAITREYA-LARA-FITMESH/7418591

Am I clear now? Lol.

 

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Gaia Clary wrote:

In your case it might not make any sense to copy weights from anywhere because you possibly want to rig riggid objects. So you need to create the weights manually. And this can be done by using the "assign weight to vertex" feature from Blender. This feature can be found at the bottom of the vertex group list (in edit mode), see here:

http://www.blender.org/manual/modeling/meshes/vertex_groups/weight_edit.html

However it may be possible that what you really want to do is to just attach static mesh objects to avatar attachment points. And indeed that does not need rigging at all. IN that case the bind to amrature method (or any binding) is not necessary (even not advised as others pointed out already).

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I've already tried vertex weight pasting and it didn't work (copied weight from a single vertex on the avastar body onto entire attachment), the attachment spasms everywhere when I move sliders, not sure why. Guess I'll go back and check what weights were pasted.

[Sassy Romano]

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Suki Hirano wrote:

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Sassy Romano wrote:

How? Just omit doing any weights, don't bind to armature. Upload.

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I asked you how you would rig them, which I believe is what you said?

I wouldn't have started this thread if I wanted static mesh...? Not sure why so many people are saying "just use static mesh". If static mesh doesn't clip on the ugly linden body then congrats.

But it clips on most mesh bodies, therefore you must rig it

. Simple as that.

Rigged belly piercing:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/KC-JANINE-Navel-Piercing-for-MAITREYA-LARA-FITMESH/7418591

Am I clear now? Lol.

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Yep, basically the situation is that a bunch of "best in SL" bodies each require unique rigging to suit their "best in SL eva!" bodies and weighting whereas had they put an ounce of thought into the actual use of the item, they'd have realised that the belly button can easily be served by having the vertices fully weighted to the pelvis, thereby maintaining the users ability to keep existing products which attach perfectly well to an attachment point.

I've also seen plenty of rigging where no attention has been paid to things like buckles and buttons, which subsequently stretch and distort with avatar movement.

I understand what you're asking for now, you desire to support ill thought out items requiring weighting for potentially each one.  Fine, continue!