This means there is often a delicate balance when skinning - and when you move a joint it will be competing with all the surrounding skinned joints. Secondly, whenever you add a joint - you are removing influence from another joint. Here, you can see the selected vertex is part of a skin cluster where the max influence per vert is set to 4. In Maya, you can see the weights on an individual vertex in the Component Editor under Smooth Skins.

If you have any questions, comments or feedback feel free to ping me.)įirstly, let’s define what some of these terms so we are all sharing the same vocabulary.

What I say might not be true for your pipeline or production - but I operate on general guidelines here that are hopefully useful for everyone. (Note: I’ve done this job for a decent while now - but I’m not the arbitrator of all knowledge. This information will be useful in your arsenal - but consider the restrictions on them a little looser.

This doesn’t mean what is described below isn’t applicable outside of a real-time environment - just that the limitations for pre-rendered aren’t as strict and the tools and techniques at hand are a lot more complex and powerful. Because of the limited nature of real-time deformers -skinned joints and blendshapes are often the only two real-time deformers rigging artists have at their disposal that can run in a real-time environment. Rigging Tips: Methods for Extra Character Deformation (in Game Dev)Ī question I’m often asked as a rigger in game dev is ‘ when should I use blendshapes?’ or ‘when should I use helper joints?’ when creating more advanced character definition.

Character rigging maya