04 ‐ Skinning

In the Skinning tab, we have all we need to create or edit the skinCluster influences.

Doc5: Skinning tab

Create SkinCluster

There are 2 main lists side by side in the UI, respectively:

• Left: Joints (influences on)
  • List all joints: shows all joints in the scene, even if they weren't designed to deform the models or if this script didn't create them.
  • List dpAR joints: display only joints created by this script. (Recommended)
  • Checkboxes to list the chosen joint suffixes:
    • Jnt: joints expected to be skinned on the final meshes.
    • Jar: articulation joints expected to be skinned on the final meshes to have a better deformation on the bend.
    • Jad: additional joints of limb's ribbons.
    • Jcr: corrective joints designed to fix some deformations by skinning the final meshes.
    • Jis: indirect skinning joints supposed to be skinned in the blendShape targets of tweakers.
  • Text field to joint name filter (case-sensitive, and separated by space).
  • Scroll field of the listed joints.
• Right: Geometries (influenced by)
  • List all geometries: shows all geometries in the scene.
  • List selected geometries: only the current selected geometries will be listed below.
  • Display long name: list items with their full path.
  • Display log window: show the log after creating the skinCluster node.
  • Text field to mesh name filter (case-sensitive, and separated by space).

The SKIN button creates a new skinCluster node with the selected items. If nothing is selected from the listed nodes, everything listed will be used. Then, the next step will be to manually paint the skinning weights using Maya's native tools or another plugin we want.

The Add button adds the chosen joints to the selected geometries. If there isn't a skinCluster node yet, it won't change anything.

The Remove button will remove the chosen joints from the connected skinCluster nodes of the selected geometries if they exist.

This script uses these options to bind the skin:

Copy Skinning

We can choose 2 types of the copy skinning method:

• closestPoint: finding the nearest vertex to transfer the skinning weights.
• uvSpace: using the UVs.

There are 2 buttons to proceed with the copy of the skinning weights:

• One Source: first select the source mesh to copy from, then select all the other meshes to receive the skin weights. If the destination mesh doesn't have a skinCluster, a new one will be created.
• Same Name: all the meshes in the scene will be checked to find nodes with the same name, and the script will copy the skinning to the meshes without a skinCluster as the destination.

This script will use the following copy skin weights influence association order:

1. Label
2. One-to-one
3. None

SkinCluster Weights IO

There are 2 buttons to export and import skin weights to the selected folder, respectively.

It uses JSON files to store and recover the skin weights data.