Blender - Parenting armature with auto-weights is just not right

Yerus

So, every tutorial I see people get good results with auto-weights but I’m getting complete abhorent results. My step-by-step is:

• create rigify meta-rig;
• place everything in edit mode.
• generate rig, apply the transforms to the model and to the controller set.
• selecting model and then controller set and parent with auto-weights.
  Could I be doing sth wrong? Is there any tuning for the range the bones will grab the mesh volumes that I don't know of?
  Thx.

kanga

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2pTkW-1JkE

Just followed this one (above) and everything worked ok. Using the basic bones after deleting the face rig and only about 5 rouge verts that needed fixing. Te video shows the correct procedure and I attached about 5 models to the rigify rig. I havent edited bone envelops yet but that is possible and there is a youtube vid on that. Nonetheless you should get mesh deformation in pose mode. If you have multiple objects attached to the rig it is advised to copy the modifier over to those as rigify is known for only auto riging the first object selected. In my situation it included all objects assigned to it tho.

I am on 2.82 beta atm and it worked pretty well for that.

pior

It's hard to tell just from your bullet point description but it sounds a lot like you are trying to get auto weights from the rig as opposed to getting them from the bones.

As a matter of fact, rigify/meta rigs have absolutley nothing to do with auto weigths, and shouldn't even be part of your question. The actual bone armature is what you need to access, nothing else.

Yerus

Ive just noticed that the model, for whatever reason. was duplicated and joined together. Still I suspect this is more common than we might thing, so the discussion is relevant.

RN

To be honest I always parent with empty groups and weight each bone manually, but then I'm a hobbyist and not pressed for time.

This manual process can be very quick if you use the "Inside Out" weight paint method:  
https://blenderartists.org/t/normalize-unlocked-groups-and-the-inside-out-weight-paint-method/1120728