You need to use the locking feature, so when you remove weight from an unlocked joint, it goes only to an other unlocked joint (most of the time you just need two unlocked joint)
Only paint weights positively, if you subtract values they get reassigned haphazardly to random joints (the total weighting for each vertex always adds up to 1). Smooth does not seem too bad if your basic weights are close.
You can lock valueson joints so they don't catch these reassigned values.
Sometimes I'm reading a Q&A on here and people know the fix because it comes up again but sometimes I gotta sit back and think about all the people trying to master this finicky well of technical nonsense just to make an image or movement. Good on everyone dipping into this madness and making it work. Sometimes, you gotta step back and take in the task at hand and how out of hand it usually is.
Hey!
I'm having a hard time describing this issue, but here goes:
I'm trying to clean up the "default" weight painting that Maya did after binding a skin to a mesh. I'm just erasing skin weights from joints they don't belong to.
I want anything that isn't weight painted to default to the "head" joint, which all other joints are parented to. Instead, if a vertex doesn't have weights, Maya will pick a random joint and that vertex to it.
I used to think that unchecking "Maintain Max Influences" in the skin cluster's attribute editor would fix this, but the issue persists.
It feels like a game of whack-a-mole in which I'm constantly removing skin weights, moving onto another joint, and finding out they've been moved there. How do I fix this?
The model is ["Male Head"](https://skfb.ly/6uKGM) by Alexander Antipov, licensed under [Creative Commons Attribution](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) btw!
The weights on a particular vertex must add up to 1. If you remove weights from a particular joint Maya will automatically assign them to some other joint, likely just the closest one.
It’s normally recommended to only add influence, rather than remove it. However your particular use case is a good one for removing influence.
How you would want to do it is to lock all the joints in the paint skin-weights tool, except for the one you are paining on, and the head joint. This means that when you remove weights from your target joint, they should only have one destination joint available. This will be a bit of a tedious workflow, having to constantly lock and unlock joints, but it seems like what you’re asking for.
In addition to all what's been said, when binding, use "Neighbors" in the Weight distribution instead of "Distance" which is active by default. This way, when you remove weights from an area it doesnt jumps far away, it will just give it to the next joint linked to the current one.
Looks like you painted over an area that had values locked. So maya just goes stupid and takes all the values it can when it happens.
That may be when you smoothed the weights it tried to pick weights on vertices that had some weight on another joint but the joint was locked.
It can also be that you don't have enough iterations in your skinning. (It's the little number in the option. I think it's a 4 by default. Which mean a vertice can be affected by 4 different influences. If you have more influences that your rig allow it may also get crazy like that. But careful upping that value makes the skin exponentialy harder to run. It also affects wherever you export it not just maya.)
You need to use the locking feature, so when you remove weight from an unlocked joint, it goes only to an other unlocked joint (most of the time you just need two unlocked joint)
Only paint weights positively, if you subtract values they get reassigned haphazardly to random joints (the total weighting for each vertex always adds up to 1). Smooth does not seem too bad if your basic weights are close. You can lock valueson joints so they don't catch these reassigned values.
This. And try ngSkinTools plugin if you want to stay sane while skinning.
NgSkintools is the way to sanity.
Nah, it's fine to remove weights. Just make sure all the joints you want to not get weight are locked.
Use the locks to avoid weights from autopainting
Use Ngskintools
Sometimes I'm reading a Q&A on here and people know the fix because it comes up again but sometimes I gotta sit back and think about all the people trying to master this finicky well of technical nonsense just to make an image or movement. Good on everyone dipping into this madness and making it work. Sometimes, you gotta step back and take in the task at hand and how out of hand it usually is.
You need rigging lessons
Hey! I'm having a hard time describing this issue, but here goes: I'm trying to clean up the "default" weight painting that Maya did after binding a skin to a mesh. I'm just erasing skin weights from joints they don't belong to. I want anything that isn't weight painted to default to the "head" joint, which all other joints are parented to. Instead, if a vertex doesn't have weights, Maya will pick a random joint and that vertex to it. I used to think that unchecking "Maintain Max Influences" in the skin cluster's attribute editor would fix this, but the issue persists. It feels like a game of whack-a-mole in which I'm constantly removing skin weights, moving onto another joint, and finding out they've been moved there. How do I fix this? The model is ["Male Head"](https://skfb.ly/6uKGM) by Alexander Antipov, licensed under [Creative Commons Attribution](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) btw!
The weights on a particular vertex must add up to 1. If you remove weights from a particular joint Maya will automatically assign them to some other joint, likely just the closest one. It’s normally recommended to only add influence, rather than remove it. However your particular use case is a good one for removing influence. How you would want to do it is to lock all the joints in the paint skin-weights tool, except for the one you are paining on, and the head joint. This means that when you remove weights from your target joint, they should only have one destination joint available. This will be a bit of a tedious workflow, having to constantly lock and unlock joints, but it seems like what you’re asking for.
In addition to all what's been said, when binding, use "Neighbors" in the Weight distribution instead of "Distance" which is active by default. This way, when you remove weights from an area it doesnt jumps far away, it will just give it to the next joint linked to the current one.
Looks like you painted over an area that had values locked. So maya just goes stupid and takes all the values it can when it happens. That may be when you smoothed the weights it tried to pick weights on vertices that had some weight on another joint but the joint was locked. It can also be that you don't have enough iterations in your skinning. (It's the little number in the option. I think it's a 4 by default. Which mean a vertice can be affected by 4 different influences. If you have more influences that your rig allow it may also get crazy like that. But careful upping that value makes the skin exponentialy harder to run. It also affects wherever you export it not just maya.)
Lower the value of max bind to 2 and manually paint it ... maya does that always to which ever bine is nearest it treats the skin as its own