#rigTip of the day!
Ever got stuck with mirroring the muscle weight with standard #Maya
skin weights mirror tool? Well mirroring weights in Maya is based on
the world space XYZ transformation co-ordinate of joint or influence
object. Maya muscle objects on the other hand is frozen in
transformation, as a result we are unable to mirror weights and usually
stuck with painting the weights on both sides.
Well for some cases this is a nice choice since we have asymmetry in
deformation but for the most the time, this is frustration to repeat the
same thing on the other side and a waste of time. Asymmetry can be
created with simple corrective shapes, no problem!
Well there
is a clever solution to this problem. Why don’t we just go on to attach
the influence objects to create a single mesh. Selecting left and right
influence nurbs object (muscle mesh) and attaching them to create a
single mesh! There you go, that was SIMPLE! All you need to do, is paint
the weight on the left and the mirroring works like a charm! Pheewww…
that saved us some time.
Hope this rigTip comes handy to you:)
If you want to learn more about Musculo-Skeletal deformation, check out these Mini-Workshops at Puppeteer Lounge!