smooth skin painting weights prob

[fr3drik]

I am quite new to this and I am currently browsing the forum to get tips on weight painting. But I know that unless you "hold" your painted weights, it could change as it will be re-weighted when you weight paint somewhere else.

Or something like that...

So try and hold your painted weight. There should be a button just below the joint list in the paint skin weights tool panel... "Toggle hold weights on selected".

[fattkid]

This is my approach but I'm pretty much self taught (with the help of some Gnomon tapes) so it might not be the most proper approach, but it seems to work. First, check all the joints to "Hold" in the Paint Weights option box (or component editor) like fr3rik said. Then start at the outer most limbs, like fingers or toes, and work your way into the main body.
Also, it's called "painting weights", but I think of it more in terms of "corralling weights". The model will have the same amount of weights at all times, you're not really gonna add or subtract weights to or from the model, you're just going to direct or redidirect the weights that are already there to the joints you want. So then with all the joints on "Hold", "Unhold" the joint you want to modify (say an elbow), and then "Unhold" the next joint up from that one (the shoulder). Paint the elbow and shape it to your liking. Any extra/leftover weight will get transfered up to the shoulder. For example, a vert might deform well on the elbow with a weight of .75, so the remaining .25 will wind up on the shoulder (via weight normalization which I'll mention in a moment). This seems to be fine since the elbow vert will move when the shoulder moves anyway, whereas if the leftover .25 weight were below the elbow on the wrist, it will move around when the wrist moves, which is probably not what you would want. Then "Hold" the elbow weight when it looks good and "Unhold" the next joint up from the shoulder, like the clavicle, and repeat, working your way to the root. Also, be aware of Weight Normalization. That is Maya's way of "spreading" weights around to make sure everything adds up to one. That is why your weights would change after you painted them. This is fine when all the joints are on "Hold" except the joints you are working on, cuz then any extra weights just wind up on the next joint up and that's it. I will then use the Component Editor turning Weight Normalization off to fine tune weights. Also, some joints might not ever rotate, like a root or a rib bone. If the joint doesn't rotate I will usually corrall whatever leftover weights I don't want to those bones. That's pretty much it. Once you understand normalization, how to use the component editor, and holding weights, you should be fine. Hope this helps.

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