#RiggingInMaya | Part 06 | Painting Skin Weights

okay we have the skeleton and the model is now skinned so let's take a look at updating the skin weights really quick question for you now how would you like to help support the future of this channel and keep these videos free well there are a few options one would be to simply treat me to a coffee at my coffee page as a quick and easy thank you you could also grab something from the ant cgi store or one of my other online stores like cubebrush and gumroad this is where you will also find the course files that go with this course so you can download them and follow along however for as little as 99p a month you could join the ant cgi club there are a few ways you can join you could head over to my patreon or coffee pages or or alternatively simply hit that join button below this video in short the more support i get the more time i can dedicate to creating more high quality content just for you to get more information on how you can help follow the link on the screen or in the description below okay now that's out of the way let's get on with the video the first thing to do is quickly pause the character just use rotations for now we want to see how the current weights are looking it's usually best to work on the waist with the area posed so we can see here that the knee needs work let's pause the arm too so we can now see how broken the model is looking with the default weights the way i tackle weighting is to first block in the main areas around each joint so let's start with the pelvis i will probably speed up the video in some sections from here onwards so don't worry if it looks like i'm working really quickly set opacity and value to 1 so we can assign exact full weights to adjust the brush size simply hold down b and scrub with the left mouse button so we know that the crotch area needs to be fully weighted here so work your way around up over the hip and around the back this is just rough remember and just stick with the left side for now right click on the next joint up and choose select influence we can see that this has quite a big influence so let's pull some of this back for now set value to zero so we can remove the influence instead of add it and let's paint out this section we could use a harder brush here too all we want is the section which the joint is spanning weighted paint out this down here okay next joint and let's remove this area here okay so we focus mainly on the left side so let's update the right now all we need to do is select the model and go to skin mirror skin weights and open the options what this will do is mirror the weighting values across the model for us yz is the axis we're going to mirror across and this is the same setting we used when we mirrored the joints and we need to mirror from the positive side to the negative so left to right there are lots of other options to play with here closest point on surface will match the weights to the closest point on the opposite side of the model raycast uses a fancy rear casting algorithm to decide the best points to sample from each side closest component will match the closest vertices with a symmetrical model like ours the default options are fine for more advanced mirroring options you can also choose how the components on either side are associated with each other but for us again the default settings will work and finally we can choose to normalize the weight values when mirrored to make sure they stay between 0 and 1. we can leave this for now if i apply this now you see we get some errors with the model the vertices on the right side have jumped away from the model because the weights haven't mirrored correctly this is because the left side is paused so we need to reset it okay that's reset now let's try again so if we look at the weights now you can see they are symmetrical now we have the main areas blocked in we just need to soften the influence so when he bends he won't end up with angular sections to do this all i'm going to do is use the smooth paint operation there we can see it's softening so there's more of a gradual influence looks like we missed a section here let's make sure this is fully weighted to the pelvis and then soften the edges there was once a time when i'd hate painting weights using mayer's built-in tools the issue was mainly when using smooth the weights would seemingly be applied randomly all over the model so i'd end up chasing the weights around the model it was frustrating at times that was until i discovered that changing weight distribution in the bind skin options to neighbour kept the weights close to the selected joint which is essential when using smooth so if you're having issues try changing it okay now we have one side done we can just mirror the weights across let's pause the leg again so we can see how this area deforms not too bad but there's too much of a crease okay let's see how the thigh twist joint is looking so it's pretty solid here and there are some rug weights so let's remove those let's use replace oops forgot to change the value we want it to be zero because we are removing the influence that's better okay let's remove this up here too now let's soften the crease a little more there's too much of an angle up here let's switch back to replace and let's use a smaller opacity this time so we can gradually paint away the influence and a softer brush we want to reduce the weights here to close this gap that's looking slightly better if you remember we had to add these twist joints separately so there won't be any default waiting on them so what we need to do now is add their influence all we're going to do is follow the same process we did with the spine and you will see that this is how i approach most of my weights first we block in the area with some solid weights so we have a value of 1 and also opacity set to 1. let's follow these two edge loops around the thigh maybe widen it okay so that is now moving the model it's a little harsh though but we can easily soften it back in first pause it so we can see the changes now use the smooth paint operation to blend it into the rest of the thigh that looks a lot better okay let's look at the knee we can see that the back of the knee collapses too much so select the knee joint as the influence so we can see the weights okay so there's a lot of influence up here we need to pull back swap to replace this time set value to zero and let's also use a smaller opacity so we can work gradually we just need to work on the back of the knee so gradually paint those values to reduce them we could maybe use a higher opacity and also a harder brush otherwise we're going to be here all day okay this is looking better the thigh is filling back out let's work on the top too we have more of a defined crease now we can use smooth now to soften this back in but we will need to check how this deforms when the leg animates later okay so we have another twist joint here with no influence so we can just do exactly the same as we did above use the replace paint operation with opacity and value set to one and just block in the rough area now let's select the knee ah so the knee is affecting this section down here so we need to remove that set value to zero and just paint that out i'm going to check the thigh joint again actually as i suspect the same has happened with that and it's also affecting the knee yep we can see it here we need to remove this this area should only be affected by the knee and the twist joint let's soften this now i'm going to go back and double check the twist joint now to see how that's changed things that's looking okay we just need to smooth some areas now to stop it looking so angular so maybe gone a bit too far we don't need the influence on the lower leg so we can reduce that now to close the gap again okay so i could spend more time in this area refining the shape but i'll move on for now i hope you're getting a general idea of how we work let's just check the calf okay so that's influencing quite a lot of the leg let's pause it so we can see what it looks like bent we can see there is quite a break here okay this needs to be influenced more by the knee twist joint let's block this in something like that and now smooth both ends maybe add some influence back here okay next twist joint again we have no influence here so we need to add some in we also need to remember to update the lower section too so the twist joint affects here and not the calf joint okay now we can add in the twist joints influence again exactly the same as we have done before actually a bit lower we need this all the way down to the foot and soften up here so it's not angular as it twists okay it looks good the foot will eventually be rotating with this so it won't look broken when the rig's built okay looks like we just need to smooth out the foot here it's too angular that's a bit better let's pause the tours now and work on them so we want less of an influence here and down here let's increase the influence here so this section of the toe is more solid we're starting to see why it's important to have cleaner topology if the edge loops here were better organized this area would bend in a much nicer way something like this setup is ideal i know these are human fingers but you should get the idea looking at the topology so we just want a better crease here so each section is more defined okay let's look at the claw now this may not eventually be rigged so it's an extra joint i added just to give the animator more flexibility we can see that it's more gray than white so we need to update it so it's weighted fully to the toe joint actually let's do something different here so i'm just going to select the faces of the claw we hold down ctrl and right click bring up the marking menu and convert this selection to vertices all we need to do now is flood this area with our settings maxed out that's better oh looks like we missed some verts okay so sometimes this may happen and you may find that the brush just won't catch these tiny vertices in this instance we can just select them open our component editor we just want these fully weighted to little two three so set these to one okay that's fixed right let's look at the big toe now actually let's mirror the weights and see how we are doing first it looks like we have a bulge up here so this section is obviously being influenced by the knee joints a bit too much let's adjust it so it's pulled back onto the twist joint so that's better but too harsh so we need to smooth it out now around the edges just slightly okay that's looking better right let's mirror again yeah much better but not perfect i'll come back to these but you ideally do want a little influence so the character looks more organic let's jump up to the torso and pose it so we already blocked in the weights here earlier so it looks like we just need to smooth them now and up here we want a nice blend now the clavicle actually this has too much of an influence over the body let's remove some of that and let's look at the upper arm twist now which should affect the shoulder remove some of the weights around here if you aren't sure how a part of the body would look as it deforms just look at your own move your shoulder around and see how much of its movement affects the rest of the torso we need to update the arm twist joints just like we did with the leg i'll come back to those let's do some more work on the upper body so as you can see all i'm doing is adding removing and then smoothing the area we don't want the clavicle to affect the collar instead we need a crease as the shoulder raises so let's build up this area around here too and soften it let's test the shoulder okay so the armpit is being pushed in too far so let's add some of the influence back to the clavicle fill this back out and smooth again to blend it in that's looking better now we need some more influence over the top of the shoulder with an area like the shoulder it's important to check each direction it will move in if we rotate it forwards now we get a crease which is good but the clavicle probably needs more of an influence to keep it pushed out okay let's add in the twist joints influence so block it in first and then soften it let's look at the elbow now so this has too much of an influence over the upper arm it should be weighted to the twist joint let's add that in so just fill this out and now smooth the elbow so we get a nice blend okay so i think you have a good idea now of how we go about painting weights personally i like to block the areas out and then adjust the perimeter weights to soften them or fill them out more if needed remember to observe how your own body deforms and try to replicate that with the weights as mentioned in a previous video if the model has been built with deformation in mind like with muscle lines for example and clean topology you can achieve a much better simulation of the muscles moving beneath the surface of the skin with your skin weights what i'm going to do now is go through and paint the rest of the ways so i will be back in a minute so here we have a fully weighted model at this stage i would say this is a first pass on the skin weights they aren't final just yet but they are good enough that we can continue with the rigging process the good thing about the weighting is that we can continue to tweak the values as we build the rig and also after it's finished so don't worry if they aren't perfect just yet before we move on to the next video i have a few final tips first it's a good idea to use a prune small weights tool from time to time this can be found here under the skin menu this will remove any weights under a set value so here it will remove any that are under 0.01 these are super small influencers so it's best to clear them out all mail will do is take any weights under this value and redistribute them to the surrounding joints next and you should probably do this right at the end of the rigging process once the rig is final but remove any unused influences now unreal will ignore any joints that don't have any weight values so it's not essential but it's just good housekeeping finally back up the weights simply go to deform export weights to save them having a backup is essential because you never know you might inadvertently break the skin weights or which has often happened to me the weights just go wild for no reason okay so we now have a model skinned so it deforms with the skeleton next what we're going to do is move away from the creature briefly as we look at how to build your control icons okay that's another video over thanks for watching right to the end and make sure you also check out some of the other free videos and courses that i have available you can find links to all these on the screen now and in the description below remember to help support future content and keep these videos free visit the ant cgi store or join the ant cgi club alternatively if you would just like to show your appreciation for these videos why not treat me to a coffee at my coffee page again the link is on the screen now and in the description below thanks again for watching this is ant cgi signing off and i will see you on the next one you

Channel: antCGi

Views: 1,016

Keywords: rigging, maya, autodesk, maya3d, rigging in maya, utility nodes, rig, node editor, nodes, Build Controls, 2019, maya 2019, Spine, Head, Multiply Divide Node, Pelvis, Waist, Abdomen, Sternum, Shoulders, Chest, Torso, gamedev, game art, game development, game rig, Paint, Paint Skin Weights, Mirror Weights, Prune, Skinning, Smooth, Replace, Add, 2022, maya 2022, weight distribution, prune weights, remove influences, import, export, export weights

Id: 8yWP7lqPpUA

Length: 27min 19sec (1639 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 29 2021