How to skin a robot ?

#1

Hello,

I do have a robot and would like to use the Human IK.
So far the rig is setup, but I don’t know how to skin it.

Acutally I wanted to start with the rigid bind, because I think a robot doesn’t really need smooth bind.

But when I assign the rigid bind to my geometry, it is really strange.
Vertex points are getting random weights - and I don’t know how to control.

Shouldn’t have all bones 100% weight ?

I mean… it’s a machine …

Maybe there is a tutorial out there, somewhere for skinning a robot inside Maya.
Would help me as well.

thank you so much !

#2

edit: Nvm, I need to read more carefully -_-

#3

ok, I got an idea.

since it is a robot, I thought, just let’s parent constraint the geo to the bones, right ?

I tried it… when parenting the hand to the hand skelton it works.
But when I try to parent the lower arm geo to the lower arm bone… and I move the hand…
the lower arm parent constraint doesn’t work anymore…

why is this ?

#4

wou, haven’t tried the HIK that much yet, as it’s far from useful for my/our purposes, but the parent constraining problem is very odd.

i guess it could have something to do with how the HIK handles the bi-directional constraining that takes place on the FK/IK externities in the HIK… just an observation…

if u wanna use skinning for this purpose, do so, but it’s heavier on your computer than constraints… (u do know that you have to paint weights for skinning anything, right? Maya doesn’t magically know which piece of geometry should be driven by which bone…)

this just hits me now… are you sure you’re constraining right? first select the bone, then the piece of geo you want to constrain to it. first driver, then driven… that’s how maya works…
<<- just checking…

#5

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