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Note

The shading in the viewport changes as vertices are weighted between 0 and 1. Weight values around 0.125 are colored blue, weight values around 0.25 are colored green, weight values around 0.5 are colored yellow, and weight values around 0.75 are colored orange. •

The Absolute Effect field lets you specify a weight value for the selected vertices. The Rigid option makes the selected vertices move only with a single bone. The Rigid Handles causes the handles of the selected vertices for a patch object to move only with a single bone. This is important if the character is wearing a hard item such as armor plates. By enabling this option, you can be sure that the armor plate doesn't deform. The Normalize option requires that all the weights assigned to the selected vertices add up to 1.0.

The other buttons found in the Weight Properties section of the Parameters rollout are defined in Table 40.2. Include Vertices and Exclude Vertices buttons let you remove the selected vertices from those being affected by the selected bone. The Select Exclude Verts button selects all excluded vertices.

Using the Weight Tool

The Weight Tool button in the Parameters rollout opens the Weight Tool dialog box, shown in Figure 40.5. The Shrink, Grow, Ring, and Loop buttons work the same as those in the Select section, and they let you quickly select precise groups of vertices. The value buttons on the second row allow you to change weight values with a click of the button or by adding or subtracting from the current value.

The Copy, Paste, and Paste Position buttons let you copy weights between vertices quickly. The Paste Position button pastes the given weight to the surrounding vertices based on the Tolerance value. The Blend button quickly blends all the surrounding vertices from the current weight value to 0, creating a smooth blend weight. The Weight Tool dialog box also lists the number of vertices in the copy buffer and currently selected. The list at the bottom of the dialog box lists the weight and bone for the selected vertices.

FIGURE 40.5

The Weight Tool dialog box includes buttons for quickly altering weight values and for blending the weights of adjacent vertices.

Using the Weight Table

The Weight Table button opens the Weight Table interface, shown in Figure 40.6. This table displays all the vertices for the skinned object by ID in a column on the left side of the interface. All bones are listed in a row along the top. For each vertex and bone, you can set a weight.

FIGURE 40.6

The Weight Table lets you specify weight values for each vertex and for each bone.

The Edit menu includes commands to Copy and Paste weights. It also includes commands to Select All, Invert, and None. A selection of vertices can be combined into a Vertex Set and named. The Vertex Sets menu lets you create and delete these sets.

The Options menu lets you flip the interface so that bones are displayed in the first column and the vertex IDs are along the top row. The Update On Mouse Up option limits the updates until the mouse is released. Several options for showing and hiding interface elements are included. The Show Affected Bones option lists only the bones that are affected. The Show Attributes option displays a column of attributes labeled S, M, N, R, and H. The Show Exclusions option makes a check box available in each cell. When checked, the vertex is excluded. The Show Global option makes a drop-down list available that enables you to set an attribute for all vertices. The Show Locks option (like the Show Exclusions option) makes a check box available for each cell. Enabling this check box (the left one) locks the weight so it can't change. The Set Sets UI makes available two buttons for creating and deleting vertex sets.

The S attribute is marked if a vertex is selected, the M attribute marks a vertex weight that has been modified, the N attribute marks a normalized weight, the R attribute marks rigid vertices, and an H attribute marks a vertex with rigid handles.

To set a weight, just locate the vertex for the