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Once the skeleton has been skinned and the weights adjusted, you can adjust the joint influence using the drop-off rate and heat maps.
Type:
Tutorial
Length:
5 min.
Transcript
00:03
Select the buying joints using the selection set
00:07
and slight the model
00:10
using the default bind method, which is closest distance.
00:14
You can see we have a drop off rate slider which
00:17
we can use to adjust each joint's influence on the model.
00:20
Let's set that to the maximum value of 10 and see what the difference is
00:26
and apply that.
00:29
So you can see here around the elbow, the drop off is a lot harsher.
00:33
So we get a smaller distance where the joint's influence ends
00:37
and another begins,
00:39
let's undo that and reduce the drop off rate instead.
00:45
Now you see the drop off is much larger. So this joint is affecting a wider area,
00:51
it's affecting the whole arm now.
00:54
So that's not ideal for this sort of setup.
00:57
In this instance, you want to try and keep each joint influence smaller.
01:01
So a drop off rate of around five or higher would work.
01:06
OK. So that's the first by method, closest distance.
01:11
This tells Mayer to use the closest joints
01:13
to influence the vertices and ignore the hierarchy
01:17
in some instances.
01:18
This can cause unwanted influences of the skeleton if not positioned correctly
01:24
because with the arms,
01:25
lower the finger joints are then closer to the leg parts of the model.
01:30
This again is why we raise the arm slightly.
01:34
Next, we have closest hierarchy, which is a better option in these circumstances.
01:40
This instead uses the skeleton's structure.
01:42
So keeps influences restricted to a joint parent and Children. Instead,
01:49
let's quickly try that.
01:52
You see,
01:52
it doesn't look much different and that's because
01:54
we have the arms in a good position.
01:56
So closest distance works as well.
02:00
Heat map is the one I use most often and is the best option.
02:04
If your model has a higher polygon count,
02:07
it essentially heats up each joint and uses the fall
02:11
off to check for and influence the surrounding vertices.
02:14
So you get a tighter influence,
02:18
it will also ignore any joints that aren't inside the mesh.
02:21
So in some cases, you may have to go in and add them manually.
02:26
If we select that option,
02:30
you will see that we now have a new slider heat map fall off
02:34
like with closest distance and closest in hierarchy.
02:38
This controls how far the heat map will search for vertices to influence.
02:44
Now, this does take a little longer to calculate.
02:47
OK. So if we look at the elbow again,
02:51
it's not that different to how we had it before.
02:54
Where heat map really does shine though is with areas like the fingers.
02:60
You see, we are getting a much better defamation here.
03:04
The finger is more solid So it means there's less clean up work to do.
03:10
OK, let's un bind this
03:12
and see what effect the fall of slider has.
03:16
Let's set it to zero,
03:20
select the joints again
03:22
and the model
03:23
and then apply.
03:27
As you can see, the elbow has a greater influence over the model now.
03:32
But it's a nicer more gradual influence than when we
03:35
use closest distance with a low drop off rate.
03:38
Let's check the finger again.
03:41
So this is softer as you would expect,
03:43
but it's still an improvement over the default option.
03:48
Let's undo that and set the fall off to one.
03:55
This has tightened things up now.
03:56
So the finger looks much better, probably better than earlier.
04:01
We would just need to adjust the crease here a little
04:05
and the elbow is a lot harsher now.
04:08
So what we gained in the fingers we lost in the other joints,
04:13
the shoulder works quite well too,
04:16
still needs work though. But under the arm looks nicer.
04:21
Let's undo and compare this with closest distance again.
04:28
So you can see with a maximum drop off rate. This is too harsh
04:33
in general heat map gives us a nicer result.
04:37
Finally, we have Geotic
04:39
Voxels.
04:41
I rarely use this option if I'm honest.
04:43
So I'm not going to go into too much detail on it here,
04:45
but it's great if you have a model that isn't built in the usual way.
04:50
So for example,
04:51
it may have non manifold geometry where you have multiple polygons sharing an edge,
04:57
this can be caused when extruding or just bad modeling practice. In general.
05:03
This will usually mean the heat map option won't work.
05:06
So you can try this instead as an alternative.
05:10
To be honest, though, if your model does have issues like this,
05:13
they should be addressed before exporting to a game engine
05:16
as they will likely cause issues further down the line.
Video transcript
00:03
Select the buying joints using the selection set
00:07
and slight the model
00:10
using the default bind method, which is closest distance.
00:14
You can see we have a drop off rate slider which
00:17
we can use to adjust each joint's influence on the model.
00:20
Let's set that to the maximum value of 10 and see what the difference is
00:26
and apply that.
00:29
So you can see here around the elbow, the drop off is a lot harsher.
00:33
So we get a smaller distance where the joint's influence ends
00:37
and another begins,
00:39
let's undo that and reduce the drop off rate instead.
00:45
Now you see the drop off is much larger. So this joint is affecting a wider area,
00:51
it's affecting the whole arm now.
00:54
So that's not ideal for this sort of setup.
00:57
In this instance, you want to try and keep each joint influence smaller.
01:01
So a drop off rate of around five or higher would work.
01:06
OK. So that's the first by method, closest distance.
01:11
This tells Mayer to use the closest joints
01:13
to influence the vertices and ignore the hierarchy
01:17
in some instances.
01:18
This can cause unwanted influences of the skeleton if not positioned correctly
01:24
because with the arms,
01:25
lower the finger joints are then closer to the leg parts of the model.
01:30
This again is why we raise the arm slightly.
01:34
Next, we have closest hierarchy, which is a better option in these circumstances.
01:40
This instead uses the skeleton's structure.
01:42
So keeps influences restricted to a joint parent and Children. Instead,
01:49
let's quickly try that.
01:52
You see,
01:52
it doesn't look much different and that's because
01:54
we have the arms in a good position.
01:56
So closest distance works as well.
02:00
Heat map is the one I use most often and is the best option.
02:04
If your model has a higher polygon count,
02:07
it essentially heats up each joint and uses the fall
02:11
off to check for and influence the surrounding vertices.
02:14
So you get a tighter influence,
02:18
it will also ignore any joints that aren't inside the mesh.
02:21
So in some cases, you may have to go in and add them manually.
02:26
If we select that option,
02:30
you will see that we now have a new slider heat map fall off
02:34
like with closest distance and closest in hierarchy.
02:38
This controls how far the heat map will search for vertices to influence.
02:44
Now, this does take a little longer to calculate.
02:47
OK. So if we look at the elbow again,
02:51
it's not that different to how we had it before.
02:54
Where heat map really does shine though is with areas like the fingers.
02:60
You see, we are getting a much better defamation here.
03:04
The finger is more solid So it means there's less clean up work to do.
03:10
OK, let's un bind this
03:12
and see what effect the fall of slider has.
03:16
Let's set it to zero,
03:20
select the joints again
03:22
and the model
03:23
and then apply.
03:27
As you can see, the elbow has a greater influence over the model now.
03:32
But it's a nicer more gradual influence than when we
03:35
use closest distance with a low drop off rate.
03:38
Let's check the finger again.
03:41
So this is softer as you would expect,
03:43
but it's still an improvement over the default option.
03:48
Let's undo that and set the fall off to one.
03:55
This has tightened things up now.
03:56
So the finger looks much better, probably better than earlier.
04:01
We would just need to adjust the crease here a little
04:05
and the elbow is a lot harsher now.
04:08
So what we gained in the fingers we lost in the other joints,
04:13
the shoulder works quite well too,
04:16
still needs work though. But under the arm looks nicer.
04:21
Let's undo and compare this with closest distance again.
04:28
So you can see with a maximum drop off rate. This is too harsh
04:33
in general heat map gives us a nicer result.
04:37
Finally, we have Geotic
04:39
Voxels.
04:41
I rarely use this option if I'm honest.
04:43
So I'm not going to go into too much detail on it here,
04:45
but it's great if you have a model that isn't built in the usual way.
04:50
So for example,
04:51
it may have non manifold geometry where you have multiple polygons sharing an edge,
04:57
this can be caused when extruding or just bad modeling practice. In general.
05:03
This will usually mean the heat map option won't work.
05:06
So you can try this instead as an alternative.
05:10
To be honest, though, if your model does have issues like this,
05:13
they should be addressed before exporting to a game engine
05:16
as they will likely cause issues further down the line.
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