Help! Missing joint in Paint Skin Weight tool

[exsulator]

In the Paint Skin Weight tool, there`s nothing when selecting this particular boneThis is the joint hierarchy in outliner...

I really need help on this... I have a critical reoccurring problem - I bind my mesh to a skeleton, but there is a certain joint that doesn`t appear in the hierarchy.

If I select any other joint, then the Paint Skinweight Tool, the hierarchy shows up with that joint selected. However, when doing this with the particular joint selected, the 2nd from the root bone, there`s nothing in the hierarchy.

I did not bind the mesh with the "selected joints" option, but there is this one joint that is missing no matter how often I rebind it.  I can select it in the outliner, but not in the paint skin weights tool.

... So I found a solution online: LMB on the problem joint, shift + LMB the mesh > add influence. This messed up the weights, but I could at least paint it all again.

When I was done, I saved and quit.

I came back later - and the joint was missing from the hierarchy again, just like before. I think all it`s weight got redistributed as well to the rest of the joints in the area.

The rest of the hierarchy is fine, and shows in the tool settings

the second item in the hierarchy does not correspond to the second joint.

[gautham.chandran47]

Must be some bug, try deleting the maya folder from document folder to reset it or reinstall it. 

FYI there is a option to lock influence in the "add influence" option and set it to "zero" so it wont mess up the skin weight you already did. You can unlock the joint and paint weight it later.

[exsulator]

Thanks, I`ll try this. Actually I suspected that "lock weights" would do that, and tested it.

It still messed things up. Aye, must be a bug.

[gautham.chandran47]

Yup

[exsulator]

Hey, is there any way of doing this but keeping my redshift renderer? It stopped working after the deletion, and I doubt that redshift is related to the problem. I have saved the original folder, so perhaps I can keep some folders just to have things working?

[gautham.chandran47]

Yeah, just keep the maya.env file intact. That will keep the redshift
working.

[exsulator]

Cool! is there a guide somewhere that I can check for stuff I wanna keep? I figured out how to keep the shelf-scripts I`ve collected, but I`d love to learn more about the folder structure at work in such a buggy program as Maya XD I`ll probably have to do some resets over the years, but keep stuff I need.

[Anonymous]

Hey, I am just wondering if you fix the joint problem. Cause I have the same problem as well

[exsulator · Accepted solution]

No. But to be honest the problem haven't reoccured recently if I can recall so maybe maya 2018 took care of it? Either way I had to check every time that all my joints were present in the hierarchy. It's fairly easy in the "paint skin weights tool panel" though, you just start from the top and hit arrow down, it'll light up the joints and you'll quickly see if some are missing.

Then you add you select all missing joints, and use the "Add Influences". You really should do this before skinning though, or you might get some headache!

[Anonymous]

I see, yeah I tried adding influence and lock the weights, but the newly add joints just wouldnt show up...:(

[Anonymous]

I've managed to avoid the issue by going into the 'bind skin' options and turning the bind method to 'closest in hierarchy'. It seems Geodesic creates the problem. 

[Anonymous]

Hi I've also been having the same problem, Geodesic must have a bug at some point that creates the problem. 

I switched to "Heatmap" instead for my weight painting and my stuff popped right into the Weight Painting tool, like it was supposed to.

What's weird was I was using Geodesic Voxel just fine adding assets to my character. He's got armor and such and suck so stuff I don't want warped when posing I Deform Wrapped, or used a Parent Constraint. But for the first layer of clothes I used Geodesic Voxxel (until it stopped working after the 4th article of clothing).

that's the fix I saw. If you're using Maya 2021 like me, Use heatmap. 

[exsulator]

Honestly if you need a specific skinning method, I'd just find which joints that were missing and use the "add influences" options like I mentioned in a comment earlier. It doesn't take long but choosing the right skinning method for your preferences might be more important than saving a couple minutes.

[Mausebein]

Incredible! Bind with "closest in hierarchy" does the trick. My goal was a hard bind, so I flooded the object with the desired joint and removed other influences with "remove unused influences". Thank you very much.