For v2014 and later I'd recommend Skin Wrangler, a pyQT+python tool that is pretty good for that kind of workflow. And for 2013 and previous versions without pyQT support, Max Skin Weight Tool, a mel script based on Max workflow.
In games, at least here and other places I've worked, we rarely use paint weights because it is more common to have mistakes and uneven weights. Maya's Weight Hammer is the equivalent to Softimage's smooth weights, but way inferior and without any option at all. I rarely use it because it tends to mess up my weights smoothing it too much and using influences I don't want to. SI's smooth weights could work very nice selecting all points (ex: the whole snake model), while Maya's Hammer do some decent job only if you select the points where the joints intersect. If someone at Autodesk is reading, is it possible to have Softimage Smooth Weights to be ported to Maya? ngSkinTools smooth was nice, but I didn't get used to it's workflow. I may give it another try when I need to paint weights. I found another tool called as_SmoothNearest that looked good in the video demo, but it ended up being a combination of the Maya's default Weight Hammer command and grow selection. And without using the normalizing option with a potentially risk to have 1+ total weights per point. I fixed that code but, still not quite what I wanted. I ended up writing a custom tool to use smooth paint for selected weights and lock all the other joints so it would only smooth based on the selected points deformers. Now with that, SkinWrangler and Maya's Heat Map, my weighting workflow is a little less painful. Martin On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 11:28 PM, Sebastien Sterling < [email protected]> wrote: > I remember skinning in max, not the best but definitely not the worst, it > didn't have any pretences let's say, you HAD to use vertex weight selection > assignments or "Weight Tool" (envelops are garbage), and they had a very > practical little menu for that, with options for assigning a few default > pre-sets, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, as well as the ability to copy/past > values. > selection assignment is the slowest method, not great for fast turn > around, but it is also the most precise method. > > Softimage kind of had something similar, plus a really good smoothing > algorithm, (is it just me or was soft's smooth weight function, the bomb ?!) > > > Is there anything like this for maya currently, like max's weight tool i > mean ? and the first words better not be "In Bonus tools ... !" so help me > god ! > > > On 24 January 2016 at 13:50, Graham Bell <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Man I feel you guys’ pain. >> >> I haven’t rigged in Maya for a while, but the thing is if you’ve been in >> Maya land for some time, then you kinda get to know how it works and get >> the best from it. Many guys like it, because they can get quiet deep into >> it, but like anything it’s not without its eccentricities. If you’re gonna >> keep on comparing to Soft though, then you’re in for constant >> disappointment. But holey moly don’t go near Max for rigging, imho. J >> >> >> >> As Adam says, there’s been a lot of talk on Beta about the rigging and >> without breeching NDAs there is a desire to start addressing stuff. It >> seems the work on the parallel performance in 2016 perhaps might be the >> start of that. Certainly that stuff has gone down well with people. >> >> >> >> On the modelling front, Maya’s been going through an overhaul in recent >> versions. Up to 2016 there was a lot of overlap between what was the NEX >> stuff and the legacy Maya tools, but a lot of that got fixed in 2016 >> onwards. Imo I like the modelling in 2016, it’s in a very good state. The >> improvement in the pivot editing alone was worth it. >> >> >> >> >> >> *From:* [email protected] [mailto: >> [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Sebastien >> Sterling >> *Sent:* 24 January 2016 09:06 >> *To:* [email protected] >> *Subject:* Re: So.. Maya rigging is still a thing... >> >> >> >> Hey Jordi Bear ! what is skinning like in Houdini ? and have you tried >> Fabric for rigging ? >> >> >> >> On 24 January 2016 at 08:56, Jordi Bares <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> It may not be the only solution, it is really up to you. >> >> >> >> >> >> On 23 January 2016 at 18:54, F Sanchez <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Its 2016 already. Is there no other app that will ever take the place of >> Maya? (Besides a future resurrection of Softimage which is not going to >> happen. ) Sure I can use XSI when working on my own but if you need to work >> on site it will now have to be Maya from now on. :( >> >> >> >> On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 8:49 PM, Sebastien Sterling < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >> "I'm still holding out that fabric engine will become a solution for >> rigging" >> >> Here, here man ! >> >> "I can paint weights and build a rig in Maya using fabric to do all the >> heavy work. I can paint weights and build a rig in Maya using fabric to do >> all the heavy work. " >> >> so you can build a Rig in fabric, as a generalist ? >> >> can you paint weights in it as well ? >> >> I too hope Fabric blossoms into the next era of DCC's >> >> >> >> On 23 January 2016 at 00:48, Michael Amasio <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> I'm still holding out that fabric engine will become a solution for >> rigging. It's not all that magical for something complex in Maya. Which >> as I'm sure several of you have discovered is a bit of a Maya problem. >> I can paint weights and build a rig in Maya using fabric to do all the >> heavy work. >> But when it approaches the quality I require, fabric is providing all the >> computational speed I need , BUT all that speed is lost as it converts data >> back and forth between data Maya can use and KL. I actually get faster >> results out of the new Maya GPU accelerated. >> ...but faster results out of XSI. Good old XSI. >> I love it when a studio has like one license for XSI. I always snatch >> it up and never turn my box off. >> I've made a career off of lurking in the background making stuff like 5 >> times faster in XSI. >> >> I know it's childish to enjoy, but I still enjoy a good rant about the >> pain of rigging in Maya. >> >> On Jan 22, 2016 3:31 PM, "Eugene Flormata" <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Yah, not sure why there's no improvement in the processflow for rigging >> in that much time, almost in any program i see, so many advancements in >> modeling. but nothing for rigging. >> no zbrush of rigging so to speak. >> >> I like how there's notes and tips even when you just turn on the >> quaddraw. feels really thought out. >> >> a lot of maya feels like different programs just stapled together in a >> package >> vs XSI's whole package made for one user mentality. >> I just thought quad draw had that feel to it. >> >> I've not made any rigs in maya yet, and all my XSI rigs were pretty basic >> but at least while I was rigging, i wasn't punished for something i >> wanted to go back and change in XSI whenever you learned something about >> your mesh you wanted to animate. >> which the real benefit to the XSI over maya, it reduced the number of >> iterations in the learning process. >> >> >> >> On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 3:18 PM, Eric Turman <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> I'm glad you are liking your new modeling tools, Eugene. However I >> believe that it is important to make the distinction that it is not about >> the confusion in Maya rigging--at least not for me; I do not find Maya >> confusing at all. What the huge issue with Maya is that its limited rigging >> tool-set combined with archaic workflow make the task of rigging drudgery.* >> Drudgery* is the key word more than confusion. I have made many >> character rigs in Maya over the past fifteen-plus years and Maya still >> sucks at it. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> >> www.johnrichardsanchez.com >> >> >> >> >> > >
