FBIK and paintweights question

[the_podman]

Hmm. That's strange. You should be able to paint weights on the mesh. The FBIK puts a "control rigg" skeleton on TOP of the skinned skeletal joints. If you used "Biped" factory, then you had to have "skinned" after generating the FBIK, yeah?

One of the things that would make the "paint weights" box empty is the "combine poly" command. This invalidates the skin cluster. So, if your mesh's got multiple parts and you combined them after binding, you would lose the option to paint on the individual skin clusters.

If you're sure you don't have that and you want to save the weights you've painted, get yourself a Mel script like COMET SCRIPT PACK from comet cartoons that allows you to save weights based off of point position. This will allow you to rebind and save your weights.

Hope this helps,
-Rod

[theanimeister]

Hmm. That's strange. You should be able to paint weights on the mesh. The FBIK puts a "control rigg" skeleton on TOP of the skinned skeletal joints. If you used "Biped" factory, then you had to have "skinned" after generating the FBIK, yeah?

One of the things that would make the "paint weights" box empty is the "combine poly" command. This invalidates the skin cluster. So, if your mesh's got multiple parts and you combined them after binding, you would lose the option to paint on the individual skin clusters.

If you're sure you don't have that and you want to save the weights you've painted, get yourself a Mel script like COMET SCRIPT PACK from comet cartoons that allows you to save weights based off of point position. This will allow you to rebind and save your weights.

Hope this helps,
-Rod

hi rod. thanks for the quick response :) i skinned my character right after the FBIK has been made. i'd definitely try your suggestion if that would fix the problem. and no, i didn't combine geometries i only have a single mesh. anyway you might help me wit my new found problem, why is that when i try to move the hand controller, the fingers turn twisted/deformed? what would be the issue? also, can i make extra controllers (nurbs circle etc.) once my joints even after my fbik was generated? how about adding SDK to fingers?


thanks man. really nice!

[the_podman]

Yeah, you could add extra controllers that have SDk on them, but keep in mind that you need to key the FBIK controllers a different way from the regular keyframes. Grab the FBIK Character Control UI from Highend here:

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/animation/FBIK-CharacterControl-3811.html

It'll make "keying" the FBIK keys easier. The SDK keys are going to recieve regular "S" keys.

One other suggestion I have is to select the checkbox in BIPED FACTORY that says "Create Joints Only". It will not create the "Characterized" rig for you, but you'll have joints all ready to go. You can then "skin" those joints, paint your weights, then characterize manually via the SKELETON>FBIK pulldown.

If you have access to MotionBuilder, you can also export as .fbx, characterize in MB, then import the .fbx in Maya. Maya will recognize the .fbx and imported control rig.

Hope this helps.

-Rod

[theanimeister]

Yeah, you could add extra controllers that have SDk on them, but keep in mind that you need to key the FBIK controllers a different way from the regular keyframes. Grab the FBIK Character Control UI from Highend here:

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/animation/FBIK-CharacterControl-3811.html

It'll make "keying" the FBIK keys easier. The SDK keys are going to recieve regular "S" keys.

One other suggestion I have is to select the checkbox in BIPED FACTORY that says "Create Joints Only". It will not create the "Characterized" rig for you, but you'll have joints all ready to go. You can then "skin" those joints, paint your weights, then characterize manually via the SKELETON>FBIK pulldown.

If you have access to MotionBuilder, you can also export as .fbx, characterize in MB, then import the .fbx in Maya. Maya will recognize the .fbx and imported control rig.

Hope this helps.

-Rod

Thanks man! you really helped a lot. I think i will do that ;) cheers

[theanimeister]

hey mr. podman, i tried your suggestion to "create rig only" using the bipedfactory but still can't paint weights :( i already skinned the character but no joints appear at the paint weights tool options. any ideas? thanks mate

[the_podman]

Hmmm, something doesn't sound right with your file. Are you using Sub-D's? Polygons? Nurbs? Also, you must delete all history before skinning. If you've got Blendshapes, delete all>Non Deformer History.

The way in which you are binding, are you selecting the root joint, then the mesh, bind>smooth bind?

There are some options in the smooth bind menu. One for "selected joints" and one for "joint heirarchy". If you use "selected joints", only the joints you individually select will bind... Hmm, but I don't think that's it.

Would you object to posting the file or PM message me with it? Your MAYA could be messed up. We have several PCs at school here in which the UV texture editor is simply gone and had to reinstall Maya.

-Rod

[theanimeister]

yey wo0t. thanks man! i dint know what made it but its working fine now. da hell!? perhaps the delete history thing. im glad that it dint require me to reinstall maya haha. thanks buddy i owe you one ;)

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