Tutorial for....

Can you please tell us what software you use? [smile]

Quote:

Original post by Fenryl Can you please tell us what software you use? [smile]

lol, oops :-)
i use 3ds max 7. but a tutorial for just about any recent version of 3ds max will be fine.

comeon, no one? someone out there must know a really good rigging tutorial?

Painting weights is one of the more nuanced and annoying parts of 3D. It will take a few tries, at least, in order to figure out how to do it well, and even longer to do it efficiently.

Proper weighting starts with the model. It must be modelled correctly in relation to joints, or it will not deform well. It will not keep volume well.

When you paint weights, you can think of it like this. A vertex weight is a parent-child relationship to a bone. If a vertex has a weight of 1, when the bone rotates, the vertex will rotate around the joint, just as a child object would. If the weight is .5, it will only make half of the rotation. Once you understand these things, conceptually weighting is much simpler. It should always be smoother on the front of the knee, and sharper on the back, the reverse for the elbow. Places like the torso will usually have 3, or even 4 (the max, usually, for game engines) bones effecting a vertex (pelvis and however many spine bones). Shoulders are without a doubt the most frustrating... they are not fun, since its just not possible to keep volume well.

The bottom line is, there are VERY few tutorials about binding, because there are really no tricks to it. Its painful usually. Just keep practicing and testing and figuring out what everything does. Even the rigging books I've read do not go into detail with it.