Snapples
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Rigging with the skin modifier
Hello experts,
I've modelled a character and now need to rig him. I'm new to that unfortunately. I've already done the skeleton and all helpers and IK/FK setup. Now I need to assign my mesh to my bones using the skin modifier. Since it's a low polygon character I want to assign my vertices manually. The problem is, in the tutorial I'm following (Eva Wild series, rigging) the author moves the envelopes and the mesh moves along with the bones. When I do that it doesn't, my bone structure keeps moving but my mesh doesn't. And when I do it vertex per vertex it doesn't assign anything to my mesh.
I know it's probably a rookie question but I'd be really grateful if you could help me out.
I've modelled a character and now need to rig him. I'm new to that unfortunately. I've already done the skeleton and all helpers and IK/FK setup. Now I need to assign my mesh to my bones using the skin modifier. Since it's a low polygon character I want to assign my vertices manually. The problem is, in the tutorial I'm following (Eva Wild series, rigging) the author moves the envelopes and the mesh moves along with the bones. When I do that it doesn't, my bone structure keeps moving but my mesh doesn't. And when I do it vertex per vertex it doesn't assign anything to my mesh.
I know it's probably a rookie question but I'd be really grateful if you could help me out.
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I think it was one of the last 3 reasons you posted, I checked those so that it matched your explanation and now the mesh moves as well.
Thank you.
Thank you.
When I assign vertex weights manually, I do the following:
1. Select a bone from the Bones list in the Skin modifier. Any vertices that are weighted to the currently selected bone will have color (blue = low weight / red = high weight). You might want to do this in wireframe mode - I have had some display issues in max 2009 in shaded mode.
2. Select any vertices that you wish to weight and then type in the desired weight in the Abs. Effect parameter and then press Enter. If you want to remove vertex weight completely, enter 0 as the Abs. Effect weight.
Note: When checked, the Normalize option forces the total weights (from all the bones it is assigned to) of each selected vertex to add up to 1. So, if a vertex is weighted .4 to bone 1 and .6 to bone 2 - if you set the bone 1 weight to 0, the bone 2 weight will automatically change to a weight of 1.0.
There are many other ways to assign weights manually such as painting weights or using the weight table to change vertex weights in a spreadsheet fashion.
To sum up, if you select a bone from the Bones list and you see colored vertices that means you have vertices weighted to that specific bone. You should then be able to move that bone in the viewport and watch those weighted vertices follow.
I hope this is helpful. I'd be happy to take a look at your max file if you like.