How to correctly put armor on a character?

[Anonymous]

Hi , so i am new with Maya . I import a rigged character from unreal , i import a piece of armor(say pants), which is fbx. I scale it to character. I select the skeleton and the armor mesh, then do " bind skin" . then i select the armor mesh and the character's skin, and do "copy skin weights". Export back to unreal and it seems the armor is moving around like gel. Some parts of it are in place and moving correctly,  but some parts not. Like only parts of the armor are skin weighted , but other parts not. Am i missing something? I've done this with armor pieces imported that are already attached to a skeleton and it works.(but in that case i dont have to bind skin, just copy skin weights). But these current armor pieces are not attached to any skeleton when i bring them in. Therefore why i select the skeleton and mesh and "bind skin" , before copy skin weights. Is there some steps i am missing somewhere? Thanks for any help

[Anonymous]

I seem to notice that if the armor mesh is one piece , then it works much better, but if i have an armor prt that is made of multiple pieces , then it is the problem above . I am selecting the multiple pieces and "combining them " , but it still causes issues.

[mcw0]

Your initial post says you do the skinning/copying of weights and then you export.  So my first question...does it work in Maya?  Basically, is the problem with your process or with the export.

If it's not working in Maya, then I would suggest doing each part individually.  You also mentioned that you had to scale the parts to get them to fit your character.  Did you freeze the transforms prior to skinning?  

I would combine the meshes after each part is working.  I believe there's a "preserve skinning" option in the combine mesh function.

[Anonymous]

Honestly it seems like it is working in maya as far as i can tell. If i am wanting to bind skin , should i be just selecting the joint and bones related to where the mesh is on the character? Its like when i select certain bones , it automatically selects half the skeleton , i use shift select to select , but i cant figure out how to de select the ones i dont want.

[Anonymous]

this is what i get when back in Unreal , its like the top part and bottom part are working fairly well , but not the middle.  https://imgur.com/dPupcfn

[mcw0]

Are you perhaps getting confused with what's being highlighted?  If you select a joint, everything under the joint will be highlighted.  But they are not selected.

So what is displayed in the video is what you see in Maya?  Or does it look correct in Maya and only gets strange when you export it out?

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure , let me double check. Does it matter if the whole skeleton is selected when binding skin , as opposed to just the joints and bones related to where the mesh is?

[Anonymous]

Well when i select a joint and rotate it , it seems like the mesh is moving correctly , i would say.

[Anonymous]

Though the character's hand are like stuck in place not moving so his actual skin deforms , like in this video , but the mesh itself seems ok. This armor is originally several pieces , then combined together. https://imgur.com/FgIk1Jo

[mcw0 · Accepted solution]

In your bind skin options, are you using "Selected joints" or "hierarchy"?  It looks like the former since none of the hand and finger joints seem to be influencing the mesh.  Only binding to specific joints is cleaner.  But I think in your case, you should try the "hierarchy" option.  Just let Maya determine which joints to use based on distance.  You can always remove unwanted joints manually.

But these joints look odd.

[Anonymous]

Well so far as i recall i haven't changed it and this is what it is set to (like in pic). I think the only thing i changed there was checking the "allow multiple bind poses" checkbox.

[Anonymous]

The pic doesn't show directly. How did you show your pic directly?

[Anonymous]

Another thing to note is these armors are not rigged yet.Not sure if that makes a difference.

[mcw0]

I've never had the need to check "allow multiple bindposes" but that shouldn't cause your hand issues.  Select a vertex in the fingers and see what it's weighted to.

But in general, I would reset the options for the bind and select the root of the skeleton and try again.  Are those joints that I circled part of the character's skeleton?

[Anonymous]

Yea they are part of the skeleton. I re imported again and re did the bind and armor and this time the hands worked normal . But still the mesh did the same thing back in unreal.

[mcw0]

So if everything works correctly in Maya, then the issue is in the export to Unreal.  I've not done that so no experience.  But see what options you have for exporting to Unreal and try various combinations.

[Anonymous]

I clicked your pic reply as accepted solution, as those nodes were causing the problem. thanks