Paint Cluster Weights Tool

With the Paint Cluster Weights Tool, you can use a Maya Artisan brush to paint cluster weights on your deformed geometry.

The Paint Cluster Weights Tool menu item is located under the Edit Deformers menu in the Animation menu set (Edit Deformers > Paint Cluster Weights Tool).

Paint Cluster Weights Tool settings

Lets you specify the settings for the Paint Cluster Weights Tool in the Tool Settings editor. In the Paint Attributes section there are some attributes unique to the Paint Cluster Weights Tool. These unique attributes are described below along with some of the common attributes, and how they apply to this tool. For descriptions of all other attributes in all other sections, see Artisan Tool Settings in the Artisan guide.

Tip

You can define hotkey combinations to change most of the settings without opening the Tool Settings editor. For details on setting hotkey combinations, see Use Artisan hotkeys in the Artisan guide.

Paint Attributes section

These are descriptions of the attributes in the Paint Attributes section.

clustern.weights jointClustern.weights: Displays the name of the cluster selected to paint and the attribute you are painting (weights). To select another cluster to paint, click this button and select the appropriate cluster weights name. By default, the tool selects the first cluster it detects on the surface (for example, cluster1.weights, or jointCluster3.weights).
Filter: cluster: Sets a filter so that only cluster nodes display on the menu for the button above this one. You are painting clusters with the Paint Cluster Weights Tool, so you do not need to change this filter.

Paint Operation

Select which paint operation you want to perform on the selected cluster.

Replace: Your brush stroke replaces the vertex weight with the weight set for the brush.
Add: Your brush stroke adds the vertex weight to the weight set for the brush.
Scale: Your brush stroke scales the vertex weight by the weight factor set for the brush.
Smooth: Your brush stroke averages the weights of adjacent vertices to produce a smoother transition between weights.

Value: Set the weight value to apply when you perform any of the painting operations.
Min/Max Value: Set the minimum and maximum possible paint values. By default, you can paint values between 0 and 1. Setting Min/Max Value can extend or narrow the range of values.

Negative values are useful for subtracting weight. For example, if you set Min Value to -1, Value to -0.5, and select Add for the operation, you would subtract 0.5 from the weight of vertices you paint.

Positive values are used as multipliers.

Tip
To help you differentiate paint values when you paint with ranges greater than 0 to 1 (for example, -5 to 5), and to maximize the range of values that display when you paint values with ranges between 0 to 1 (for example, 0.2 to 0.8), set Min Color and Max Color (in the Display section) to correspond with the Min/Max values.

Clamp

Select whether you want to clamp the values within a specified range, regardless of the Value set when you paint.

Lower: Turn this on to clamp the lower value to the Clamp Value specified below. For example, if you clamp Lower and set the lower Clamp Value to 0.5, the values you paint will never be less than 0.5, even if you set the Value to 0.25.
Upper: Turn this on to clamp the upper value to the Clamp Value specified below. For example, if you clamp Upper, set the upper Clamp Value to 0.75, and set Value to 1, the values you paint will never be greater than 0.75.

Clamp Values: Set the Lower and Upper values for clamping.
Flood: Click Flood to apply the brush settings to all the weights on the selected cluster. The result depends on the brush settings defined when you perform the flood.
Vector Index: If you are painting a three channel attribute (RGB or XYZ), select the channel you want to paint. Cluster weight is a single channel attribute, therefore you do not need to change this setting.