CAT Rig: Crashing while Skinning

Chris Kuhner

Ello ello,

Has anyone ever used CAT and just as you're editing the vertices while skinning, the program crashes every time?

I know CAT has a reputation for being... special... but, previous to this, I've never had an issue and I've spent considerable time sizing it to my character. So I'm a bit reluctant to just throw it all out. Plus, I always feel a bit uncomfortable leaving a problem unsolved, haha.

Things I've tried thus far:

- Delete all Edit Poly modifiers used to customize CAT bones
- Reset scale and transforms of base mesh
- Installed all Service Packs and Hotfixes (2012)
- Applied XForm modifier to base mesh

I'm really not sure what else to try other than scrapping it and either creating a custom rig or using Biped. If anyone can give me some advice one way or another I'd greatly appreciate it!

Mark Dygert

Cat was never all that stable before they stuffed in max but ever since they decided to include CAT in max and have been tinkering with it, CAT has gotten more and more unstable, I can't trust it and won't use it in production.

I think there are a few scripts that convert CAT rigs to biped so that might be an option, check scriptspot.com.

They both have different naming conventions (especially for the fingers) so saving out the skin weights and appling them to a biped might be kind of funky? You probably want to rename the CAT rig to match the biped or vice versa, there might be a script for that also.

The bugginess might be in the skin modifier. especially if you where resetting scale and transform, applying xform while it was skinned? That's a good way to fubar skin...

You might want to copy your mesh, delete skin (or collapse the stack if it shifts when you turn off skin), THEN reset the transforms, do reset xform, maybe even export it as OBJ or FBX and reimport it into your scene to make sure there aren't any errors with the mesh.

THEN apply skinwrap to the new mesh and target your original mesh and then convert to skin and throw away your old mesh. But personally I would be much more comfortable starting from scratch with something else besides CAT...

Chris Kuhner

Thanks for such a detailed and helpful reply! The xForm was thrown on prior to skinning (never let me get very far, so restarting wasn't too painful).Though, after a while of getting nowhere I just scrapped it and switched to Biped.

It's too bad CAT is so unreliable. Guess ill just get better at building my own rigs from scratch!

Thanks again, once I get home I'm going to try your suggestions. My curiosity won't let me rest otherwise. Haha