Trouble with dress weight map
I think I have basic skill with weight maps but there is one thing that is unclear. If I have made a dress with 'Knee Length' as projection template the weight brush does not work anymore. Even if I clear all mapping, General Weight, Triax Weight and Scale Weight the animation's behavior is the same, the dress follow the movements of lThigh and rThigh. What is going on here?
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The Knee Length template only has those two bones parented to the pelvis, it doesn't have shins.
I cant't tell how glad I am to meet you SickleYield, only this morning I ran your "Saving Gen 4 Custom Bones on Conversion" tutorial with great success. I know your capacity.
If you look at my first image you see that I have deleted everything except X Rotation. Then I made an Select All and Fill Selected (with 0).
And still a red area is left where does it come from? And in the next image I have deleted even the X Rotation -then I started the animation and the bones still affect the mesh even with all weight maps deleted!
Also I am very curious of what is Scale Weights it isn't explained anywhere. A search on the forum get no hits. Truly peculiar IMO.
Perhaps I shall explain what I am trying to do. The simple skirt shall serve as scaffolding for a ball gown to be simulated in Marvelous Designer. That is the reason for that the original movements for "Knee Length" dress is to much, I want a more subtle movement.
Hi there!
Did you check for Bulge Map values?
Scale Weights is for when a bone is scaled and it scales the geometry it controls. Smoothing out the scale weights can produce a much smoother effect. Some artists don't bother with it because really the user isn't meant to scale the sleeve up to 200%, but it's a nice feature just in case, or if the user wants to make a skirt longer by scaling the skirt bones etc.
Thank you for the explaining of Scale weights, it is not anything I need in this project.
"Did you check for Bulge Map values?"
They are deleted. I deleted eveything belonging to lThigh except X Rotation.
It's showing red in your image, which would mean it's still painted. Did you select faces before you did the fill with 0%?
I have tried both, First "Select All" then "Select Faces" (belonging to lThigh).
Still, if I delete X Rotation it goes away, But then as I previously explained the mesh is still affected! ;)
I can't imagine what would be causing it in that case. It really shouldn't still be affected with no bone there.
Good to know. What about the other thing, how can the bones affect the dress after every single weight map are deleted?
(They don't influence in normal posing only when animated)
As far as I know it shouldn't be able to do that.
Ok SickleYield thank you, eventually I am going to solve this problem. You helped me in this way so I know that I have not done any obvious glaringly mistake.
When I deleted the animation and reloaded the aniblocks it works. And for the rest I have come to the conclusion that if anything need to be done with the weight maps better delete all and start anew! If you want a skeleton to keep up a dress with a certain volume, like a ball gown you have 4 alternatives.
1) Attach the underskirt to the hip as prop gives an unnatural and skimpy movement.
2) Rig as "Knee-length dress" is totally wrong.
3) Rig as Basic dress gives almost no movement at all, boring.
The best of all IMO is to rig as Knee-length dress and then delete everything that has to to with x rotation. Very nice movements that gives beautiful dynamic drapes during the simulation.
I'm glad you found a solution. :)
Thank you SickleYield I hope we meet again.