Weight mapping crashes DS 4.9.3.166

3WC

I created an original figure, using the figure setup tool in DS.  I had all my bones parented, placed and aligned exactly where I wanted them.  I went to the weight mapping tool and chose "Weight Editing", "Fill by Bone Selection Groups(s)".  Every vertex group was filled to 100% for x,y,z rotations and scale weights.  All was good.  I saved as a figure asset.  Everything worked.

I then realized I needed to change a small part of the geometry.  In my modeling program I made the changes, adding some vertices.  I exported as an obj file, imported to DS, and used the transfer utility to transfer the rigging and the weight maps.  But for some reason the weight maps did not transfer.  So I went again to "Weight Editing", "Fill by Bone Selection Groups(s)."  The program crashed.  I tried again, saving the duf file before doing any weight mapping, but when trying the weight mapping,  crashed again.  I tried adding weight maps to individual parts, the program crashed.  It seems no matter what I do, weight mapping now causes a crash.  Any idea why a bit of extra geometry would cause such a big problem?

Thomas Windar

Changing Geometry - depending on how you do it - will usually re-arrange the order of vertices. For you - you just added an extra Quad on the shoulder. From the program's perspective you added Vertex points 458, 459, 460 and 781 to the model, which pushes the previous points by 4 points. So the original 458 point is now 462. Also - the quad might've rearranged points, so Vertex 658 might now be 11 356.

This is just an example that might sound a bit extreme - but adding extra geometry like that changes a lot. For the same reason - your UV map won't work anymore. 

 

Anyway - about your problem.

This is just a hunch, but I think that during Transfer Utility, the program might be mapping something to non-existent surfaces. 
Anyway - after you use Transfer utility, check the Geometry Editor and see if the Surfaces there are mapping the correct places on the figure. If not - correct them manually. Afterwards use the Joint Editor to assign teh Face Groups as Selection sets for the correct bones.

Afterwards Fill by Bone Selection Group(s) should function as intended. 

If the problem occurs again - you might have to re-rig the new figure from scratch.

3WC

Thank you.  When I export an obj from Blender, I always have the option checked to maintain the vertex order, but what you say makes sense, DS didn't seem to know what to do with the extra geometry.  I actually went into Blender again, made sure all my face groups and material groups were ok, then exported it to obj again.  Then on import to DS, used transfer utility again to get the skeleton, and weight mapping finally worked as expected.

My uv's were fine, as I wasn't so much adding geometry as just adding detail, so they still worked.  Thanks again, I still don't know what the exact problem was but I'm glad that it is working now.

Thomas Windar

My hunch is that the new Object received incorrect Surface information and was trying to access weight maps that were on the previous model, but not on the new one - hence the crash. But that is only a guess.

Anyway - good to hear your problem was solved.