improve painting skin weights

[userX4542]

- improve smoothing algorithms
- prevent random weight assignments (this even happens to locked joints)

- overall less buggy and random
- a layering system like NG skinning tool features
- add symmetry option
- paint weights on UVs 

- an integrated weights table like the component editor that is more user friendly 

- make sure that the feature to only paint selected verts works with the marking menu. (a current bug)
- a visual joints picker (front/side) so you don't have to scroll down a list of 50 + joints
- more procedural (perhaps a modifier stack) in order to be more non-destructive
- add 'weight sets' for multiple skin clusters on the same object. rigging on blendshapes works now, but it would be cool to be able to do it all on one mesh.

Considering animation and rigging is supposed to be one of maya strongest features, the painting of weights feels very outdated and clunky. I hope this will be improved!

[andrewmzcroft]

Add features like in 3Ds Max skin weight painting, for example select the vertex without exit of paint mode and have buttons to assing weight values (1, .75, .5, .25, 0) also a button to ignore backface vertex/faces.

[Peteman12]

It would be nice to have an option to link joints to other joints when skinning, so when you're smoothing, it knows to only distribute weights to its linked joints instead of any seemingly random value. .

[johnkeates2865]

"- a visual joints picker (front/side) so you don't have to scroll down a list of 50 + joints"

You can right hold on joints to pick them. It is a bit flakey but it basically works.

Otherwise, yes, anything to improve weight painting is welcome. It is kind of an equivalent of UVing in that it is boring/fustrating and time consuming. I like the idea of painting weights in the UV editor. Here are more:

>I would like to see the 'copy skin weights' tool improve. Sometimes I rig a proxy and copy the weights from that, but the results are not always as smooth as one would hope.

>The ability to copy weights from Nurbs to polys or the other way 'round.

>Setting the max number of influences to a lower value often produces odd results. It seems to re-do the skinning completely rather than culling the smaller weights and normalizing the remainders as I would expect.

> A button in the component editor to delete all the weights of a joint rather than having to select all and set to zero.

It feels like a lot of these should have their own thread... no? I'm not sure how it works but "generally look at weight painting asking rigging TDs what they want and looking at existing plugins" is the gist of it.

[Anonymous]

ALL OF THESE THINGS.

Weight painting in Maya desperately needs attention.

- When the user subtracts weights, don't just redistribute them to random influences. Allow the user to redistribute the subtracted influence to the non-zero-weights.  Make this new behaviour optional if you like, but I guarantee nobody will use the old behaviour.

- Allow the user to select vertices in weight paint mode without selecting other irrelevant crap in the scene. I have no idea why Maya wants to let me select objects that aren't skinned- for example. Please also let me select faces and edges. Let me clear selection and just paint the mesh object itself.

- Give us the ngSkintools "relax" smooth, except have it respect locked weights.

- If I leave the weight-painting environment to select or transform something and come back, don't reset the UI. I don't want to scroll down to the 153rd joint every single time.