Terrible Mirror weight results?

[Akkalis]

Its your bind pose, you are copying weight outside of your bindpose. BAD!:shame:

Put your character back in the bindpose before you copy weights and it should work fine. I stress should. I notice that its trying to return to your bindpose when you mirror them. Hope that works, and if it doesn't, curse at Maya for a few minutes, and then post again.

Like the face of the model btw.

[Levitateme]

thanks akkalis.
that actually is the bind pose in the first image on the left. my friend drew the profile pics that way. so taht is how he is, he is in the bind pose. so...any other ideas?

[Akkalis]

So returning it to bind pose didn't work then...

Let me guess, you need this like tomorrow, and thus Mirror weights breaks on you when you really need it?

[goosh]

Did you mirror your skeleton too?

it might be that your skeleton is not the same on both sides, so you'll get this kind of thing.

To be able to mirror your weights properly, you should (like akkalis said) go back to your bind pose AND make sure that your skeleton is the same from left to right. (or right to left)

Go to the left view and if you see say both left and right arms there, your skeleton is not right. If you see only one (both of them have the same rotations) then you should be ok.

Goosh

PS: I've been mirroring the weights a LOT latelly and it works great. just need to get your skeleton working properly

[SpaceFork]

Um, maybe I'm missing something...but if your character is facing forward in Z, then wouldn't you want to mirror across the YZ plane? Also, I'm not sure which side you mean by "left" (his or ours) but if you mean that you're working on our left (his right), then you wouldn't want the Direction box checked since you'd be going from -X to +X. If you mean his left (our right) then you do want it checked. Anyway, seems like a simple case of improper settings.

-Mike

[FloydBishop]

I have NEVER had good result with mirrioring weights. If you are going to play around with it, I would suggest saving just prior to doing so.

The skeleton being exactly a mirror of the other side is key, but even with that (using a software program that generates a skeleton automatically) I've still had problems. Not only did it not mirror the correct weights to the other side, but it also screwed up the weights I had spent so long painting. This was with Maya 4.5. I have not yet tried this in Maya 5.

I just wanted to add: cool looking charater!!

[Levitateme]

Spacefork.
thanks . how do you know to use YZ? how do you figure that out? also you were right, i guess when iwas tryingto mirror...apparently, the character wasnt in the bind pose? but i went to prefered angle again, worked this time. which is weird. i didnt see any joint move. but im just glad it worked. cause it has worked every other time. anyway how do you know what direction to use? thanks again

Thanks for the comment floyd

[Akkalis]

I've only had problems with it when both sides did not =1, so to speak. But like all things in Maya, it will break if you don't use it EXACTLY like its mean to.

Hrm, I just thought of something, does it work based on weight maps like export/import weights, or does it work like copy weights based on vertex numbering? Because, and this is -just- a thought based on no real proof, if it IS based on its own temp maps when it mirrors, then your UVs could matter. I don't think this is it, but I am throwing it out there because I can. :P But seriously, UVs I think screwed me at one point with exporting/importanting weights.

Also, just for the hell of it, name sure all your weights are normalized, who knows, it might break if something is weighted greater then one.

*peers at Goosh, his nemisis for the day*

[goosh]

Floyd: I've been very impressed with the mirror weights tool. I had tried it in the past and it didn't work for me. But now somehow it's working great! I'm loving it.. and saving me tons and tons of time

Levitateme: The easiest way to figure out which way to mirror, and what's positive to negative, etc. is to look at the little arrow on the bottom left (the window axis) that will show you what you should be mirroring across. the part that has the Z (or Y or X) arrow is the positive. so if you have to go from where the arrow is to where there is no arrow, you are going from positive to negative.

Akkalis: Stop reading all the posts I'm reading!!!! :p What are you doing in Halifax anyway? You are on the other side of the country!!!

G

[Levitateme]

i belive it mirrors on the opposite side of your mesh. so what is on the left, will go to the right. so that is why all your verts have to line up. my friend said the uvs are overlappnig. that would fix it. but it did nothing. so i dont think uvs have anything to do with it.

[Levitateme]

Goosh,
i understand all the negative stuff. just i couldnt figure out how the Y factored into it all...

[Akkalis]

Yeah, the UV thing was pure speculation, but it DOES appearently matter when you export weights. Which is kind of a neat idea, because that means you can import rough weights from one character to a completely different character. Might be neat to use for multiple, generic people or something.

As for you Goosh, what I am doing in Halifax is not a whole hell of a lot. I am about to 'graduate' the program I am in, which I am not a huge fan of, and either considering looking for a new school, giving this one another chance, or looking for a job. None of which seem particularly fun after 8 months of seeing how bad we could all burn out. Yea for Halifax.

[Akkalis]

Its YZ because you are inverting X, so you are mirroring along not ony the Y, but the Z, because they for the actual plane that you are mirroring across.

So, basically, YZ remain the same, so they are your symmety plain. Its the more technical way of saying it I guess, It would be easier if it just said +X to -X which I think it DOES in some instances. Oh well, silly Maya terms are for TDs.

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