New Geo to a skinned rig

#1

So I’ll try and be as clear as possible.

I have a skinned rig with geo that unravels and what not. The issue is the geo needs to be smoother because when we curl it down the geo is still rather ridged.

We also need to export this geo from the scene as an fbx and into flame.

So I have two “rigs” one has the model attached to the rig that I animate with. After Im done animating and ready to export I swap my reference to the other “rig” that has the geo separate from the rig but it still has the controls and stuff because if not they dont stay in place. Than export. The animation holds up, but the smoothing is not. Even if I add another smooth before I export its not working.

Is there a way we can just adjust the model on the rig to smooth more? Ive been trying but as soon as I export it doesn’t work.

Im using Maya 2011. When I export I have a geo cache too. We also didnt build the rig. It was made for us and we’re trying not to have to go back a step.

Thanks.

#2

In the default pose, you could try and replace the geo in the rig(s).

There is a neat trick with maya 2011+:
I’ll break this up so it’s super simple incase you don’t know rigging.

Get your new smoother mesh exactly where the original mesh is.

Select the original mesh and go into Skin>EditSmoothSkin>PaintSkinWeightsTool
(Your original model will turn black and in the Paint Skin Weight Tool window you will see the joints that are bound to the original mesh)

There are a couple radio buttons beneath the joint hierarchy in the Paint Skin Weight Tool window:
Paint, Select, Paint Select.

Click the “Select” radio button

Now select the all the joints in the hierarchy in the Paint Skin Weight Tool window there.

Shift-Select the new mesh: bind the new mesh to the joints: Skin>BindSkin>SmoothBind

That’s a very easy way to get the same joints that influenced the original mesh(s).

Now we need to copy the skin weights from the original to the new mesh.

select the original mesh, shift-select the new mesh by going to the copy skin weights options: Skin>EditSmoothSkin>CopySkinWeights OPTION BOX

Best to save your scene with a new iteration before proceeding.

We are going to try two different methods and see which works best.

In the copy skin weights Options:
We have a couple options in there, if your new mesh has the same uv’s as the original mesh, click the “UV space” radio button. move the rig around and both the original and the new mesh should move the same(with a little minor changes since the newer mesh has more verts, it might be a bit smoother)

Now, if that didn’t work so well, forget this scene and go back to the saved file you just made and try again, but this time, click the “Closest point on surface radio” button.

One of those copy skin weight methods should work for you.

Hope this helps,

-Tim

#3

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