binding- rigid or smooth?

[svenip]

for characters smooth is usually better cause it has the advantage that more than just one bone can deform a single cv. so you get "smoother" deformations which are required for characters. in my op, it's also much easier to weight through the paint weights and the component editor. you don't have to setup deformation lattices to work around in critical areas like elbow, knees etc. off course it's not the only thing you have to do to get a smooth and good result. you may wanna add some secondary deformers to get rid of "loose volume" in some areas etc.

btw : very nice and cool char. ;)

[HADES]

l think you should better try in rigid bind with lattice you got a better result in no time and you dont have to assign point during a half a day........put a lattice on your torso only and after bi9nd the lattice on your skeleton nad you can put flexor on that and wach out for the result you got a character rig in no time

[bigfatMELon]

Hmmm... So we have one for smooth and one for rigid. I would choose smooth whenever possible.

Rigid advantages:
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speed. And I am not referring to the setup time, rather the on screen performance because there is only one influence per vertex.
Flexors for elbows, knees and fingers. These can (and sometimes can't) be a really quick way to get a good shape at those joints and Flexors aren't available to smooth bound objects. Then again, if you find yourself not agreeing with the shape offered by flexors, the issue gets complicated in an awful hurry.
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But wait! What about the indirect skinning method previously mentioned in another post?

Since you can do that with smooth bind as well and it actually is of greater advantage with smooth bound skinning, it can't be argued as an advantage to rigid binding. In fact, it's really more of a necessity than an advantage.

Indirect skinning is a general method, regardless of bind style, although it is more often necessary with he rigid bind method in order to add some additional level of smoothness via the lattice FFD node settings, and can offer some additional control to the rigid sytem by rigging in sympathetic blend shapes of the lattices.

That said, anyone arguing that this method requires less work than simply smooth binding needs to cut back on the brown weed and spend some more time with the smooth bind method. ;)

Smooth advantages:
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More control from your bind system. You can have any number of influences on a single vert. Joints that don't need FIVE influences can just have 2 and perform nearly as fast as they would if they were rigid. Most any 1DOF and most 2DOF joints can be done well with just two influences. Critical areas like shoulders and pelvis might require 3 or 4.
It's not just for joints, ya know! You can use other shapes as influences and this opens the door to riggs that include mucsle and bone shape deformations that are built right into the skin system. This flexibility beats the snot out rigid bind, and you can still mix in indirect methods as well.
Weighting speed. That's right. I put the production speed here and not for rigid. It takes a lot of effort and several tool modalities to tune a rigid system. You have the memberships and single level of weights and your indirect shapes and probably their blend shape cousins and... well, that makes for a lot of different tools and their associated modes. With smooth bind, you use the paint tools to quickly rough out the major issues and then component editor to hand tweak the minor issues. Done! And... AND... you only need to work on one half of the model and mirror to get the other half with a small bit of global tweaking afterwards.
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So, IMO, I'd go with smooth unless you can find a necessary reason not to. The best one I can think of is people working in games with an engine that only supports rigid bind or supports both methods with an in-game performance advantage to rigid characters that can use that system and not look bad (like a tiny rock monster with no limbs that is always viewed at a great distance or has a limited range of movement).

-jl

[ReD_MeRkIn]

Ok, I think i'm going to go with Smooth skin, because i already have a low poly cage to bind.
A few questions.

1.Which kind of skin deformers work the best then?
2. Should i use skin clusters, or influence objects?
3. I've used influence objects before, what's the difference between that simply adding another joint?
4. is it possible to use latices with smooth skin?

Thanks.

Colin Graham
:thumbsup:

[HADES]

if you got a low poly cage you can go with a wrap deformer in smooth skin and put some influence to get a better result after your paint weight and yes you can use lattice in smooth skin and you can use also cluster ..........but what is the best this is you who decided taht if you likje play with cluster go with it ....
good luck

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