Isolating, masking or limiting "painting weights", with DFormer

JD_Mortal

I am running into an annoying situation with the DFormer tool, related to an inability to actually "Mask" or "Select things" to limit the weighting paint tool to...

I add a DFormer tool, (Bug here that crashes on the next part). Then I "Add Influence Weights", in the only "Unused maps" selection. (The bug is that you must do this while the Dform ball is still there. Must move it out of the way or it pre-selects all the points. Then you can delete it. If you add it to the tool, after having deleted the Dform ball, it just crashes and dies.)

Ok, so that sets me up to start painting weighting... Works like a charm!

However, it does not obey "hidden items", and there is no way to "Select items" so it can "Respect Selection", since the tool itself has to be selected, to paint the weights for it, on the mesh.

EG, I hide the head, so I can paint the eyes... It paints the eyes and the hidden face at the same time.

EG, I want to paint the face, not the eyes or eye-lids (Or it breaks the model eye movements and blinking ability.) I hide the eyes and just try to avoid the eyelids, but I need to get part of the eyelid, which ends-up catching the eyelashes and jumps through the flesh, onto the hidden eye, which can't later be unpainted unless I extrude the eye from the head.

I can't "select" the head, and just paint the head, because it unselects the tool in the process. If I select the head and the tool, it ignores the selection and paints everywhere, even with "Respect selection" selected... (Apparently selecting the tool is also selecting the "whole root-node and all children".)

Attempted to put the tool in the head, doesn't do anything... Still paints everywhere.

Tried to setup a mask, but nothing shows in the "Mask" area... For that tool. (Must be missing a step for masking.)

"Locking" tab does nothing... There is no "structure" inside to lock... Unlike when painting weights with actual bones.

Help!

Richard Haseltine

You should be able to lock a selection with the Geometry Edit tool and have the weight painting respect that. I will check that and update if it it doesn't work.

Richard Haseltine

Yes, that works - select the polygons you want to lock with the Geometry Edit tool, right-click, Geometry Locking>Lock Selected, switch to the Node Weight Map Brush tool and paint your weights. If you are wanting to lock and unlock you can create Selection Sets with the Geometry Edit Tool and they will be available in the selection sub-menu of the Weight Brush tool's right-click menu, then you can lock from the same menu without switching tools.

JD_Mortal

Thanks Rich, that sort-of helped... The locking part is working.

The problem still persists... (Selecting by painting-tool)...

I can't select the eye, because the tool is selecting the invisible hidden head. Completely ignoring the fact that it is hidden/invisible, and thus, should not be a target for anything... Painting, selection, moving... Thus, I can't actually select anything beyond the "eye-opening" on the head, related to the eye. Even still, like when painting weights, the tool is painting everywhere, not just on the object directly under the brush, as if it were projecting onto the scene, across all objects, which is not how you expect a brush to function. (Air-brush, possibly. But a paint-brush usually only paints the single object underneath the mouse-point, at the radius you select. This is painting everything near where the mouse center is located, including other objects that I am not touching. Painting/selecting... Same code apparently.)

Note to self, as them to make paint-modes an option... Projection-mode (Which is what they have now), or Object-mode (Which paints only the objects you are actually touching. Until you let-go of the stroke. So it never over-paints once you are on the target you are actually trying to paint.)

Apparently, I have to request that the brush not paint invisible and hidden things, and not "collide" with those hidden and invisible things. That is kind-of why we make them invisible, to "get through them" to the things that are normally hidden by the obstructions.

EDIT: Using Expand selection, in this instance (Ctrl)+(+) which eventually gets the whole eye. But when I go to do the iris... Looks like I am out of luck, it is hidden inside the eyeball.

Richard Haseltine

Weight paitning won't transfer to another object, as far as I can tell. However, a body is a single object - the bone selection groups are parts of a single mesh. If you want to lock some body parts right-click with the Node Weight Map Brush tool and go to Geometry Selection>Select By>Face Groups and select the ones you want to lock, then lock them as above.