Well, i've been avoiding binding / weighting my character mainly cause it's not a process I particularly enjoyed last semester, and as per usual now that i'm doing its screwing me over and i'm beginning to become a fan of it.
Now that I actually understand what i'm doing and why etc, i've found myself sitting her for 2 hours just doing the bloody leg. Making mistakes and finding ways to rectify it.
Basically all the little bits of armour are annoying, so i've realised that I don't need to actually bind them / weight them, by grouping and parenting them to the relevant skeleton they should work... in theory. By doing the same method for the eyes /teeth etc I should also avoid the problems I was having earlier with deformations and looking all crazy.
The whole process has also alerted me to other issues like making sure things have been scale constrained to the skeleton after deleting mesh history. oops.
Also threw in a global move control for good measure!
I've definitely learnt the most about Maya through the rigging / binding process. Most importantly I have learnt that the process needs to be done with a glass (or 3) or gin.
 |
| No wonder the boob was screwed... |
UPDATE #1:
So I was wrong, weighting is still kicking my arse and not playing ball, but I may have found a way that listens to me more! I might try making a few of the trickier tweaks listen to me via the Component Editor.
ALSO on a brighter more 2D note, i've discovered Blank on Blank - animations of interviews from famous people (dead or alive).
I've been listening to a lot of Elliott Smith again lately so this was pretty cool to see. Once i'm out of heavy 3D mode with this project and Going Live i've bribed Natasha into giving me some 2D lessons hehe.
UPDATE #2:
So with a clear head and the soothing sounds of the Buffy 'Once More with Feeling' soundtrack cause i'm cool and diverse like that, Weight painting has suddenly clicked (as stuff usually does with me when I leave it alone).
I'd been view each influencer as their own separate influencer... if that makes sense - it hasn't really occurred to me that the weight influence on one influencer affected the weight painted on another one - e.g that they were split percentage wise. So I was just whacking 100% everywhere not understanding why a change i'd made earlier had suddenly disappeared. How ridiculous.
So with a song in my heart and a skip in my models step, i'm finally making a dent in my weight painting schedule.
