3ds max skin mirroring

Rick Stirling

I've been using the max skin mirroring and skin wrapping tools quite a bit recently. Are there any tutorials out there for them, or would it be worth me taking an hour some day to write some?

The max website has good video tuts, but they are missing some stuff that experience brings.

I'm sure Dave Kings knowledge would blow mine out of the water though....

monster

I know my way around the tool, but I'm also curious to see how other people use it.

When I work, I clear weighting on the entire model and turn off all envelopes. I only weight the verts directly.

Here's a set of tools I use:

SkinTo1 - Sets the selected verts to a weight of 1.
SkinToHalf - Sets the selected verts to a weight of .5.
SelectionToSkin - Converts and EditablePoly sub-object selection to a Skin selection. (Very Handy)
SkinLoop - Similar to EPoly Edge Loop selection.
SkinRing - Similar to EPoly Edge Ring selection.
SkinGrow - Grows your skin selection.
SkinShrink - Shrinks your skin selection.
SkinClear - Clears the weights on the selected verts.
SkinStart - Sets the options in the skin modifier to how I like them.
http://www.juantwo.com/post/Martinez_Macro_SkinWeights.mcr

Rick Stirling

I have a side toolbar that I set up - switch paint mode on/off, toggle the options, toggle blend mode, and the weighting 0, 1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 etc. These are all mapped to keyboard shortcuts too.

I have a plugin to remove all 0 weights too.

The skin loop and ring select makes sense though, I reckon I'll nick that...and SelectionToSkin sounds like a life saver.

poopinmymouth

I miss you Juan! Thanks for these scripts, I'm sure they will come in handy.

Hollowmind

I'll post this again. Skin or Die 2 has just about everything you could ever want for working with the skin modifier.

http://mitglied.lycos.de/bogi1976/

Rick Stirling

Yeah, but Skin or Die almost has too much for day to day use. I do use it all the time - pop it up and save out my weights, but other than that it's too cluttered for me.

Eric Chadwick

I use it too, and there is a lot of extra stuff. It does help me though to close the windows I don't need.

Thanks Juan for the tools!

Delaney King

Skin or die is moving towards what I think the interface needs... I would love a springclean of the skin gui personally. I mean, how many times do you have to click the wrong remove button when trying to knock out an envelope.

Rick Stirling

We're writing our own here. A vert copy and paste with mirro paste would rock.

As to the max interface: the entire thing needs a serious overhaul.

AstroZombie

Would something like Anthony Delen's Skin Weight Toolset work for what you want to do?

Rick Stirling

Naw, theres not enough bone stuff in it. Things like mirror bone, mirrorn one animation, create selection sets from bones etc. It can all be done with a series of scripts, but it'd be nicer to have them all in the one place.