Paint Weight Tool Problem, Red Cross

[wy.klight]

Hi, I am currently using paint weight tool to skin my character. It was working fine, however all of a sudden it stop working and my cursor end up turning into a red cross. 

I have try to find a solution but fail. I really need expert guidance on this one, as I have no clue on what did I do wrong or did I miss clicked anything. 

Further details:

Software : Maya 2015

Skin : Smooth Skin

[Anonymous]

Looks like you have some history on your mesh. Go edit>delete non-deformer history and see if that fixes it. If it doesn't, you may need to unbind and rebind the skin.

[wy.klight]

Unfortunately, deleting non-deformer history didn't work.  Is there other way to solve this problem? I almost complete my skinning process(80%) when this problem occur, I just to need to do some minor correction.  I don't wish to start all over again. 

[kirbysteele]

Hey wy.kllight,

I have had this problem and occasionally this trick will fix it. 

1. With the desired mesh selected switch to the paint weight tool

2. Right click on a joint that is supposed to have influence on the mesh

3. This will prompt a menu to appear and on that menu hover over "select influence" and select that option

if this does't work please upload the file so I can take a look. Hope this helps.

[wy.klight]

@kirbysteele

Thank you for replying. However, it didn't work.

Here the file for you to take a look.  P.S. I am using Maya 2017 student version. 

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Am I right in thinking that you separated the eyes out as a separate geo after doing a lot of the skinning?
If so then that will definitely be causing issues.
You might want to look into something like the cometscripts save skin weights tool.
You could then save the skin weights out, delete history, and load the skin weights back in again.

As a general rule, you should make all changes to your geo and delete history BEFORE skinning.

[wy.klight]

@Anonymous Thank you for the reply. Yes, I did separate the eye after doing some skinning.  I learnt my lesson. 

[tdHendrix]

I attached a scene where the skinning should be fixed. Can you test it out and see if it works?

[wy.klight]

@tdHendrix it work perfectly, I could paint weight again. Thank you so much. Just curious, may I know how you fix it ? 

[tdHendrix]

I think when you separated the geo the shape nodes changed, so the skinCluster wasn't hooked up to the proper shape node.

In the Node Editor (Windows->Node Editor) I hooked it back up. I attached a pic showing the steps.

1. Graph input/output connections.

2. Skin is hooked up to the wrong shape node.

3. Plugged the skinCluster into the model's new shape node.

After that I had to reapply the material to the model and that was it.

[wy.klight]

@tdHendrix Thank you so much for taking your time to share your knowledge. I have learnt so much from all the replied.  Well, time for me to do some experimenting on the node editor(never use it before). 

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saved me!

[Anonymous]

and you saved my live 🙂 thanks you! 

[toulawa]

You are my hero!

[n01450632]

Unbind and Re binding did the magic. Thank you