This'll help with Assimilate debugging :)

[MacD]

Here's a tip for those who have been getting that delightfull assimilate error "vert x not weighted", and then have trouble finding vert x on their complex mesh:

 

-select the mesh with the vertex (the assimilate error msg will give you that)

-type

 

setVertSelection $ #(x)

 

in the white box on the left hand bottom corner of your 3dsmax screen (the maxscript listener box), replacing x with the vertex number, and press enter. That troublesome vertex is now selected

 

Also, here are some pics of my battle droid, fully wieghted (except for vert 102). capped etc, all but textured.

 

http://macd.netfirms.com/roger_mk4_1.jpg

 

But I can't finish it, as assimilate is giving me trouble with vertex 102. I know it's weighted to the thoracic (the surrounding faces are red, and it deforms correctly when moving the bone), yet still assimilate gives me an error on that vertex, saying it's not weighted GRRR!

I do hope someone can help me out...it really sucks to have done all this work and then find out it's for nothing.

[SilentMobius]

Ooooh, another battle droid, nice work. I finished weighting mine a couple of days ago. Just to warn you if you havn't UVW mapped it yet, colapsing the mesh will destroy the weighting.

 

I've have problems with bits of mine too, generally I just select the submesh in question. Apply the skin modifier, switch verts on in the filter, select all the verts, click "Reset selected verts" in the "advance params" rollout then reweight it, shouldn't be too hard as 90% of the droid should be 100% weighting to one bome or another.

 

If you're interested, mine's here:

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66428

[sithlord-II]

one easy way i find to see which vert is not weighted:

double click on the Pelvis bone to choose all bones in the mesh, then move the mesh horizontally. All verts unassigned will remain in place

remember to undo any movements you make

but this will easily show up for any verts you have not weighted, especially if you move the mesh a fair distance sideways.

[MacD]

Thanks for the tip, Silent Mobius, but I've already tried that...I've also tried deleting the bone, re-adding it and repainting...same error!

 

Here's two pics to show how strange it is. First one shows the selected vertex 102, second pic shows the weights...by all intents and purposes, it should be compiling right...or am I missing something obvious?

 

http://macd.netfirms.com/102.jpg

http://macd.netfirms.com/102skin.jpg

 

And Sithlord...thanks for the help, but if you'd read the last bit of my post, you'd have read that that's what I do when weighting.

 

Unless somehow you mean that verts can't be painted to pelvis...they can, can't they?

[SilentMobius]

Originally posted by MacD

http:///macd.netfirms.com/102.jpg

http:///macd.netfirms.com/102skin.jpg

Um even after I've taken out the third / I get 404's for those.

 

EDIT:

Repainting? are you actually using the paint verts option or are you selecting the verts and assigning an absolute value?

[MacD]

Heh...oops!

 

's fixed now

 

Ah, bit of both...using the 'paint verts' button at an intensity of 1.0 instead of the standard 0.1. I did it like that because it gave me better control over which vertices I paint. I'll try painting them absolutely, but according to spacemonkey's tut, I should be able to paint them on that way, shouldn't I?

[SilentMobius]

You _should_ be able to, however the reason I stopped doing that is because it gave me unpridictable results. I heartly recommend selecting verts and using the absolute spinner.

I split mine up into many more bits, the only parts on the entire mesh that have more that one bone affecting it is the lover torso hydrolics, and the head.

 

Ohh, one last thing, from one battle droid modler to another, what are you going to do about the head? the head pivot on the cervical is nowhere near the right place (unfortunatly) all I did was bind the head to the cervical witn 0.1 of it to the head, so it moves a bit but not enough to shear off.

[Psyk0Sith]

Have you fixed it?

 

I'm just taking a guess here, this happened to me before, make sure you hit the "remove isolated vertices" button, maybe that's not the problem but you can try it.

 

great model btw!

[MacD]

"I split mine up into many more bits..."

 

Do you mean in the "torso_lowertorsobit" way? And then weighted those seperate pieces of for example the torso to a bone each?

 

What I did was to make the torso one piece of geometry, and then weight different parts (lower section, middle, upper, [and bit of neck, shoulders]) to the lumbars and the thoracic bone.

 

As for the head, I bound all of the actual head (the bowl and the cilinder) to the cranium and bound the neck to the cervical, both for 100%. I also bound the little bit of the of the neck, which I have attached to the torso geometry, to the cervical. Same with the two caps. All for 100%, because you don't want different bones to influence them; you want them to remain straight and unbended.

 

Unless you're planning on a psycedellicaly moving beaked droid

[SilentMobius]

I'll take some screenshots and show you what I mean, give me 5 mins

[SilentMobius]

Right, Firstly here is my mesh with all the individual objects highlighted (and it illustrates how far my UVW mapping has got *sigh*):

http://www.silentmobius.co.uk/GFX/Droid_Segments.jpg

 

Here is a close up. The head is weighted 100% to the cranium and the neck 100% to the cervical

http://www.silentmobius.co.uk/GFX/Droid_Head_1.jpg

Here are the bones:

http://www.silentmobius.co.uk/GFX/Droid_Head_2.jpg

Rotating the cervical presents no problems:

http://www.silentmobius.co.uk/GFX/Droid_Head_3.jpg

http://www.silentmobius.co.uk/GFX/Droid_Head_4.jpg

However, because the cervical bone isn't long enough I cant align the pivot of the cranium with the actual point in the mesh where the head would pivot so weighting the head to the cranium shears if off the neck:

http://www.silentmobius.co.uk/GFX/Droid_Head_5.jpg

http://www.silentmobius.co.uk/GFX/Droid_Head_6.jpg

 

Y'see? So the best I could come up with is let only a _little_ of the heads rotation come through, allowing it to wiggle a bit but not enough to shear off the neck. As long as all the points are weighed equally (even if they are shared between many bones) the mesh won't deform.

[KapnKeg]

I just wanted to add a little bit to something that was said at the top of this post. When you compile your mesh and carcass tells you that a certain vertex isn't weighted to a bone, it seems to be a waste of time to go searching for that specific vertex in your .max scene. Whenever I've gotten this message and then searched through my object for the delinquent vertex in question ... it always (well ... a vast majority of the time ;0) turns up to be weighted properly. I'm suspecting that when the max file gets exported to an xsi file, the vertices get renumbered to match the xsi format. So when you get the "vertex 104 not weighted" message, that doesn't actually mean vert #104 in your max scene.

 

I really don't know for sure and I can't back this up in any way, but it's just a hunch that I have. Hope it helps someone.

 

Here's a little tip for all of you who may not know as well. If you've already mapped or have a material applied to the object you're trying to weigh, it's best to make sure that you've gone into your material editor and deselected the little icon that renders that material in the viewports. This way your unassigned vertex's (for the bone you have selected in the skin modifier) will show up a deeper shade of blue so that you can more easily identify them.

[aL BeasTie]

Yes once you've exported your .max scene to an .XSI, start a new scene and import the .XSI file you just made and make sure that everyting still looks okay. Sometimes the export can do some wierd things

 

Sometimes mesh parts can move etc.

[MacD]

Good tips; I'll try the export/import thing tomorrow morning...make that tomorrow afternoon See what happens to vertex numbers, geometry placement.

 

And Silent Mobius: I checked, and I cheated I weighted the bottommost vertices of the neck (actually the head) to the pelvis. That way those vertices stay in place, but you do deform the neck a bit. You might be able to minimize the distortion by assigning the lower/upper lumbar or the thoracic.

 

Anyway, I'm off to party...gonna drown that vertex 102 with some fun Enjoy the weekend!