Painting weights disaster (Maya)

Elena_24

Hello, everyone. I'm new to painting weights, thus  having a hard time making my character not to deform when changing positions, intersecting meshes etc. I've seen a lot of tutorials and read about it, but still this seems to remain a mystery to me how to work with it once I try to apply what I've learned. Seems like it works ok once I painted on weights, change the position and it's a horror show.  I really hope smb could give me feedback , advise, a tutorial for dummies.  

The first pic is a sorta pulled in hip that i don't know how to make it look realistic:  https://imgur.com/a/RTlAA
Second pic is a squeezed neck once I turn it left/right https://imgur.com/a/3CY2p

Problems i'm facing: 
1. Mesh  deformation. 
2. Trying to weigh multiple, dense, or overlapping meshes.
3. Unclear process for painting weights.
4. Unaware of additional tools to save time

carvuliero

That's actually normal you have to do it few times to get use to it , first few times will be frustrating and wont look good 
Looks to me that hip problem is due to joint placement and neck is additive motion -> you have shared movement from more then one joints that share weights (neck1 + neck2 + head or what ever set up you have there)
I can give you some tips for painting weights :
- start from lowest layer  (in your example his body is lowest layer then shirt and on )
this way you can save yourself a lot of  time and headache ,once body weights are perfect you can transfer to other piece above and make adjustment if needed 
- you need to follow some sort of hierarchy for example :
spine /pelvis/ legs /neck and head/ shoulder/arms and hands 
this way weights are going in one direction and all unused bones are locked to prevent spill
- something preliminary : joint position is very important for good deformation so you might need to move yours quite a bit 
+ you need some sort of range of motion chart (most anatomical atlases have those )or can take the pose yourself -> neck rotate +- 45-50 degree from mid line and leg abduction is 45-60 degree or if you are very flexible and can do split 90++

Elena_24

Thanks a lot for the advice ,
 Here's the pic with the bones  https://imgur.com/a/2RpK3 . I also thought maybe I placed them incorrectly, that's why it's weird looking.

carvuliero

I will need side view as well 

Elena_24

https://imgur.com/a/7FEfL hope it's clearer to see 

carvuliero

Larry

Pft, that's normal. When i bend my legs for ballet my hips turn like this...!
Sorry for spam i couldn't resist ! Good luck with solving your problem!

Elena_24

Thanks for the tips and time spent , carvuliero .  
No problem, Larry. Humor is what keeps the workflow going    

Elena_24

Thanks for the tips and time spent , carvuliero .  
No problem, Larry. Humor is what keeps the workflow going    

Elena_24

Thanks for the tips and time spent , carvuliero .  
No problem, Larry. Humor is what keeps the workflow going    

WadeWT

I've always liked the hippydrome website as a reference for where things should pivot: http://hippydrome.com/LLeg.html

Elena_24

Thanks for sharing the website, WadeWT.  It's very useful for a noob like me, I replaced the hip bone as carvuliero  suggested and it worked like a  charm.