Has anyone else noticed that the weight editor is acting quite differently in V16 from the way it did in the past?

Say, if you have some CPs and they are weighted 50% to bone 1 and 50% to bone 2, and you want to throw in a 3rd bone at only 20% but keep bone 1 at 50%... so it would be B1-50%, B2 30%, B3 20%... it used to be that all you needed to do was (in the editor) click a bone, enter a value one by one, and 'apply'. NOW- if I put the 3rd bone in there and give it a value of 20... the editor will automatically 'do the math' on the other two and give them 40-40%... but I want bone 1 at 50%... so I click bone 1 and enter 50... but the editor again 'does the math' on the other two and splits the difference equally... but thats not what I wanted... so I go round and round this way until I get 'near' to what I want with a lot of decimals and unround numbers (instead of 50% I will get to 48.64%). AND- try adding a 4th bone into the mix... aghh! I prefer the old way... I can 'do the math' quite well myself. BEFORE I make a report...has anyone else noticed this, does it bother them?

It is different. Once you set a bone to what you want you can lock it while you adjust the others.

Pick a bone and check the Lock Box

Click to view attachment



The change was a result of this discussion.

It is very difficult to weight 4 bones equally at 25%, even when locking the bones. I also noticed you can only add one bone at a time, you have to close the dialog to add the fourth bone.

If you hit "Apply" after you add a bone you can add another bone without having to close the editor.

However I'm finding that "locking" a bone weight isn't staying locked all the time.

Hmm, in older versions of A:M, if I hit apply, I have to close the dialog or I will get errors in the weighting (duplicate bones) if I try to add another bone afterwards. I haven't tested this in v16 though.

And yes, I find locking a bone doesn't work all the time too.

Three bones seems to work, but in the case of four bones I can't get Lock to stay locked.

Unless I'm doing it wrong?

Click to view attachment

Yes, that's the problem I'm having when trying to weight 4 bones equally at 25%. It's very frustrating.

AMReport time then. I'll send it in.

Good work Rob- well documented. I never even noticed the lock button- will start using it and hopefully Stefan can fix this little jewel.

If I am not wrong, Steffen introduced the Lockbutton in RC 1, or something like that?

*Fuchur*

Thanks for the AM Report Rob. Nice video. I was able to fallow your german because of my Highschool German classes. Was that what you were recalling?

In regards to the new dialog for weighting bones, I am impressed. When I was weighting my characters I found it frustrating. Once this is fixed it will make it much easier.

I have to get out the spear and magic helmet

Steffen is on it now.

Thanks Steffen.

Okay- I just utilized the 'lock weight' feature for the first time... ugh. You have to do it one by one, you can't lock multiple bones. Then, I locked a ring of splines controlled by multiple bones (one by one) applied that, and then selected another ring of bones AND the locked ring... but nothing appears to be locked here... and I can freely change the values of the 'locked' CP's- which makes them... not locked. I MUST be doing it wrong.

How many bones are you wanting to lock at once?

Aha, I'm getting the hang of 4 bones. Make sure you click in a blank space in the bone list, AFTER locking each bone, and before you select a fourth bone from the drop down menu.

It was an arm/shoulder area... and I had added another spline ring in betwixt 2 other ones... like ya do. Because it is in a joint area... there was Arm1, Upper Arm1 and a Intermediary bone in play... so to answer your question- THREE. The original 2 spline rings were weighted okay, so I wanted to lock their weights (select outer 2 rings, enter weight interface, select each bone and activate LOCK.) Next, I wanted to weight the new ring while referencing the weights of the other two. SO- I selected the middle ring and one of the weighted outer rings and entered the weighting interface and saw that nothing was locked... I was hoping the locked CP's would be identified. I think I am misunderstanding the way the new interface works... need to spend more time with it (as if). Dang- it was so cut-n-dry simple before and worked so well.

It sounds like you are not under standing what "lock" is for.




If you have three bones you never need to lock three bones. You'll only need to lock 1.

Say you got bones A B and C.

Before, If you wanted those to have A=53% and B=21% you had to also know that C=26%

If you typed in three numbers that didn't add up to 100% A:M would change them all after you closed the window.

Now, you can type 53% in for A, and lock it. Then then you put 21% in for B and C will automatically get what's left, 26%

They always add up to 100%


That is what "Lock" is for.




This... I'm not sure what you're trying to do here but this isn't what lock is about...

Locking/Unlocking bones can also be done from the popup menu in the boneslist .
RMB on a selected bone
For the equal weighting will be there a extra entry in the next version (not RC2, it's out to Jason yesterday ..)
Click to view attachment

Thanks Steffen, that will make it much easier.

Yup. I appreciate you refining this IMPORTANT part of the program so quickly, Stefan. Can't wait to mess with the new Weight Editor. Excuse my earlier grumblings, please.

Great revision

I'm coming to this discussion late and I see some of you did figure out the procedure for using the lock button. Great feature, and it just takes some trial and error to get it to behave. i was working with it pretty extensively last week and got comfortable with it.

One thing I noticed, following the CP weighting guide for Holmes' lite face weighting guide, is that if you select CP's one by one before launching the weighting box, the CPs list is in the order you selected them. BUT, if there are hooks in the spline you're selecting, the hooks appear in the list as well. Not major, but it helps to understand that this is happening.

Unfortunately the CP weighting box misbehaves pretty badly in the Mac version. I will try to document some specific things and make a report.

GOOD TO KNOW! Thanks for sharing that tip, Gerry!