The tools for copying
skin weights give you two levels of control in the skin weight editing
workflow. You can copy and paste all weights from one bound mesh
to another (for example from a low res mesh to a high res mesh),
or for even finer control, you can copy the weight value of a single
vertex and paste it to other vertices.
Copy weights from one vertex
You can select a vertex
and copy its weight value to other selected vertices. You can paste
these weights to vertices that are on the same mesh, or paste to
vertices on a separate mesh.
To copy and paste skin point weight values
- In the Paint Skin Weights Tool,
switch to Select or Paint
Select mode.
- Select a vertex whose weight value you
want to copy, then click the Copy tool icon .
- Select the vertices where you want to
paste the value and click the Paste tool icon .
The weight value you
copied is pasted to all selected vertices.
NoteIf you are pasting
weight values from one mesh to another, Maya displays an error if
the target mesh is missing any influences that have weights to the
source vertex.
Copy all weights
For best results when
copying smooth skin weights from one bound skin to another, your
source and destination skin should:
- be positioned closely together in your
scene. For example, the skinned meshes you are copying weights to
and from should be located at the same position in Maya’s coordinate
space.
- look similar. For example, copying the
smooth skin weights from one medium sized biped model to another
produces much better results than copying smooth skin weights from
a small biped model to a large biped model.
To copy all smooth skin weights from
one bound mesh to another
- Do one of the following:
- Select the smooth skin polygonal mesh
(or group of meshes) you want as the source skin, and then select
the polygonal mesh (or group of meshes) you want as the destination
skin.
- Select the vertices you want as the ‘source’,
then select the vertices you want as the ‘target’.
- Select
Skin > Edit Smooth Skin > Copy Skin Weights > .
- Do the following:
- Set the Surface Association options
appropriately based on the type of correlation you want to occur.
For most situations, the default setting of Closest
point on surface works best. If your characters differ
widely in scale or proportion you may wish to use the UV
space setting.
- Set the Influence Association options
appropriately based on what you believe will provide the best correlation
between the joints. For most situations, the default setting of Closest
joint works best. If the skeleton hierarchies in your
scene are identical, the One to one setting
can be useful.
- Do one of the following:
- Click Copy to copy
the smooth skin weights from the source skin to the destination
skin.
- Click Apply to
copy the smooth skin weights from the source skin to the destination
skin.
- Click Close to
close the options window without copying the skin weights.