Weight map question

pfunkyfize

Hi all,

How do you delete the entire weight map off a bone rotation in the Weight map Pane? I suppose you could use subtractive painting but I really don't want to go and paint  over the whole thing again. I just want to clobber the old error filled weight map and start over again...

 

Thanks!

pfunkyfize

Nevermind folks, I saw you can delete the rotation but didn't know you can re-add a blank one in the dropdown amenu above. Thanks!

pfunkyfize

Whoa wait a minute....

Is this a bug?

I completed the changes I wanted on a bone rotation in X and copy it to Y and Z respectively. The changes to the maps carry over.

I go on to the next bone in the chain and change Rotation X's weight map to my liking and copy it over to Y and Z.

For some reason I went back to the previous bone I completed earlier and all the map changes reverted back to the state that I had changed them from. It looks like whatever I cut and paste in the maps I can only affect the current bone I am working on and the previous work i did on any other bones doesn't save or 'stick' to the bone rotation. I even saved my work after I completed one bone before I went on to the next. Each time the most recent bone I weightmapped gets saved but the previous bones revert back to their original maps...

Is that a bug or is that intended behavior?

Richard Haseltine

I'm not quite sure what you mean, but one thing you may be being caught by is that weight maps are normalised - for any given vertex the ttoal weight is always 1 (if you are using triAx that applies per-parameter). So if you subtract all the weight from a child bone it is applied to its parent, if you apply weight to a bone it subtracts that from whatever other bones have weight for that vertex.

pfunkyfize

Hm, well all I have been doing is editing the bend rotation 'X' for my new character and copying them on top of  Y and Z. Are you saying I should just remove Y and Z and readd Y and Z tabla rasa , then paste 'X's map over the new maps?

pfunkyfize

Hopefully this is a btter explanation of what I am trying to fix...

I have a new monster/character that has a rigging shape that is like a snake. All the bones have general weight mapping applied to them. I want to add my own weight maps that are different than the DAZ generic/uniform filled weights. I create a new weight map for the first child bone's bend/X rotation. I then copy it to Y's and Z's rotation and it looks like the changes were applied and when I flip back and forth between x,y,z in the weight map tool settings pane all the maps look identical. I then save my work and go on to the next bone and repeat the process. I confirm that all threee maps look identical. I again save my work.

I go back to the previous bone I completed before this most recent bone and see that the weight maps all went back to their original state which is not the new maps I edited for those XYZ rotations. Aren't they supposed to retain the work i just did on them?

pfunkyfize

Does 'red' == 1 in normalising relationship you speak of?

pfunkyfize

Yeah, I can't seem to copy and paste maps across the XYZ maps without losing them the moment I leave the bone to work on another. When I come back to the bone to see if my work saved, none of it did.

I searched for a tutorial on this and found this:

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/creating_content/rigging/tutorials/weight_map_brush/start

but even at the end of the tutorial the saving across Y and Z seems to be what one would expect.In practice it does not work for my installation. This is why I think it is a bug...

Richard Haseltine

If you are using General Weightmapping then the axis maps are not dong anything, only the Geneal map matters (and if you use triAx you want the axis weights, not the general).

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you blank the thigh map. Then you go to its child, shin, and blank that. The weight you took off the shin map has to go soemwhere - by default it is added to the thigh (since that s the parent bone), which may seem like the map has lost your edits. Conversely, if you filled the thigh map with a value of 1 and thens tarted paintng the shin map that would remove weight from the thigh.

pfunkyfize

Ohhhh i think I understand better now. So if I used a blanket fill General map it has no bearing on XYZ maps and vice versa. This would explain why the different rotations looked slightly different from each other. so that means the 20 bones down the child hierarchy are giving their weights to each of their parents...

Why would the DAZ tutorial even suggest copying and pasting in that tutorial then? Because of the X Y and Z rotations are separate from General?

I will have to go back and try some more. Thanks Richard!

pfunkyfize

Just to confirm, Triax is only used for Genesis and Genesis 2?

Richard Haseltine

Yes, of the Daz figures the first two Genesises used TriAx and the next two used General weighting. And yes, if you were using triAx it would probably make sense to copy/paste some of the maps (usually the twist would be different n a soft-body item, which is why Genesis 3 and 8 have separate bend and twist bones in some joints).

pfunkyfize

Ok so I am mixing up eneral weight mapping and rigging....

There's a general rigging along with parametric so I just need to keep this all straight in my head...

Richard Haseltine

Parametric rigging is the legacy form, instead of a weight map it relies on nagles/spheres controlled by numeric parameters to decide which areas bend and which don't. TriAx/General are skin binding options, both using weight maps, and I suppose all maps are listed at once as it is possible to switch between the two in the Binding tab of the Tool Settings pane, with the Node Weightmap Brush tool active (I would prefer a visual cue on the maps to indicate which are currently going to have a potential effect).