Kahenraz
04-23-2006, 11:10 AM
I'm having difficulty transitioning my workflow from physique to skin. I've been skinning my characters using physique, and I still do, usually. The problem I'm facing is the growing limitations with each new version of max. I really need help finding a transition for my workflow. The biggest gripe I have about skin is that I feel forced to use the envelopes to shape my weights --I hate that! Most of my characters and objects are very simply and low poly and tend to have non-linear shapes and sometimes overlap. This is a real problem when I try to skin using simple linear envelopes, even when using multiple bones (when I shouldn't need multiple bones!). Or maybe I'm just not doing this right.
My favorite thing about physique was the vertex sub-object mode. This allowed me a very quick and easy way to weight vertices as I wanted in a few quick seconds. I.e.: for the foot, the front would be deformable (or rigid) to the toe, the back would be deformable to the ankle, and the ring of vertices between the two links would be deformable between the two of them. Tada! No envelopes or anything. Fingers were just as simple. When I try to skin with the skin modifier the envelopes always grab vertices from neighboring fingers and muck everything up no matter how careful I am with the envelope.
I really miss being able to quickly assign weights with physique and its vertex sub-object. For the moment I still assign my weights quickly with physique and then use the physique2skin tool to convert the modifier but that is only a limited band-aid. If ever I have to alter the weighting after the fact I'm sunk because I don't know how to work skin at all.
I know there is a weight table thing and a paint weight thing but none of the tools feel as intuitive as what physique allows me to do.
Does skin offer a simple workflow for weighting vertices like physique provides?
My favorite thing about physique was the vertex sub-object mode. This allowed me a very quick and easy way to weight vertices as I wanted in a few quick seconds. I.e.: for the foot, the front would be deformable (or rigid) to the toe, the back would be deformable to the ankle, and the ring of vertices between the two links would be deformable between the two of them. Tada! No envelopes or anything. Fingers were just as simple. When I try to skin with the skin modifier the envelopes always grab vertices from neighboring fingers and muck everything up no matter how careful I am with the envelope.
I really miss being able to quickly assign weights with physique and its vertex sub-object. For the moment I still assign my weights quickly with physique and then use the physique2skin tool to convert the modifier but that is only a limited band-aid. If ever I have to alter the weighting after the fact I'm sunk because I don't know how to work skin at all.
I know there is a weight table thing and a paint weight thing but none of the tools feel as intuitive as what physique allows me to do.
Does skin offer a simple workflow for weighting vertices like physique provides?