When you said "isn't rigging fuuun?so fun" you sounded exactly like my modeling teacher who tried to convince us that retopology is "fun" 👁️👄👁️ Thank you for this video though, it was really helpful!
@@builtbycolossus Hey man great video! I've done exactly what you said and got the results I wanted but the skinning only seems to be working during my calisthenics animation but when I manually move the controls it looks like it did before I used your technique...do I need to bake the deformations or something? Thanks again!!! I've definitely gotten further faster with your technique than I have alone!
Coming from 3dsmax and Blender, seems like Maya don't want us to rig by selecting only vertices. I was hoping NG would give me the option. But even in this video, you might not notice but everytime you're done selecting your vertices, you press PAINT-FLOOD wich turns off the "select vertex mode", then you have to turn back 'select vertex' every, single, time. I wish they add a proper "vertex selection mode" that stops switching back automatically to "paint mode".
Hey there! Thank you for this incredibly eye-opening video! Just to clarify, do you block out the whole character (every joint) on the same BLOCKING layer? And then relax every thing on the same RELAX layer? The NGSkinTools official full-character-skinning tutorial separates the torso, limbs, etc. each into their own layer. As a complete beginner i'm very confused by its method LOL - i think I'll start from scratch over again and do your method! :)
I've avoided weight painting for so long but your technique of blocking in the joints looks so effortless and fun, I want to try again. Do you think it's feasible to get similar results with Maya's default tools? Thank you for the tutorial!
Hi! I'm glad you like the process, not many people call skinning fun! One of the main reasons I use NG is for the relax tool, which is not available in Maya's default tools. You have "smooth", but that is only on a joint to joint basis. What's great about relax is that it factors in ALL influences on surrounding vertices and gives you an average across all joint influences. It's just easier in my opinion
this totally sounds like a newbie question, but how do you previsualize the weights you are flooding? I can somehow only see the colored weight of vertices in Maya when I'm in Paint mode or with vertices selected, which makes it really cumbersome to work with.
Hi it's really fun method! Thank you very much. Just a question ...in the latest version of NG they have changed a bit the UI. Theresn't anymore relax tool: so what do you use?
I am very happy that you reply in the comment I want to ask you a question if you can RIG the meta human cloth and make a tutorial and upload it I will be very grateful if you Do it like this because I've been trying for a long time to make a good cloth rig but I can't make a good cloth rig. Can you plz do it and make the video in easy and straight forward .. while i am using ng skin tool and advance Skelton for skin weighting checker
I am very happy that you reply in the comment I want to ask you a question if you can RIG the meta human cloth and make a tutorial and upload it I will be very grateful if you Do it like this because I've been trying for a long time to make a good cloth rig but I can't make a good cloth rig.
Thanks! If you're skinning the arms or legs, when you select the verts, make sure to start the selection past either the furthest finger tip or below the feet, then drag it, then as you deselect it will only shrink from the inner most part of the limb out. If you're doing the spine, again just start the selection from the position you want to have shrink last
@@builtbycolossus Hey there! I've been running into the same issue :( I followed your advice, but it still shrinks from both ends 🤔 Could this be a maya version issue?
How did you select all the points through the mesh like at 1:20? When I do that it only selects ones I can see, and yes I have both camera based selection turned off. Getting suicidal urges
Nshankoff1 hey man! Not really... Just make sure that you’re blocking in solid 1 values on joints, then blending between like in this video, as you move around the joints/controls. There will come a time obviously where skinning has gone as far as it can, and you’ll need a corrective to fix any troublesome areas. That’s something I’ll cover down the track.
@@builtbycolossus Ah okay, I always seem to have issues specifically around those areas. I wonder if it's just a topology thing sometimes, or if it's just bone placement, or if it's weighting haha
Nshankoff1 it can honestly be all of those things. I’ll cover body topo in a later video. Importance are in this order: topology, pivots, skinning. Last thing you want is to be trying to make your skinning look decent when the hip pivot/topo is bad.
Hi! How did you marquee-select the vertices for your arm? When I try to select the vertices for my mesh, Maya prioritizes the armature for selection, highlighting my rig and ultimately ignoring my component selection. Pressing "CTRL+SHIFT" to toggle the "add to selection" function for Marquee selection yields no improvements. Maya somehow prioritizes the Armature, even while operating in Component Selection mode! If you did nothing in particular to select your vertices, I will assume it is another Maya bug, and move on by selecting via "SHIFT + > and
Hey man, there should be a menu at the top left of Maya with some highlighted icons. Turn off the joint icon (second from left) to not select the joints when you select geo. :)
@@builtbycolossus I have another question, do you know how I can weight multiple objects at once, I have hair cards but currently I have to do each one individually :/
@@Felix-os5hf I'd create a new mesh that covers the space of all the cards and skin that. Then using a script, copy the skincluster from that main mesh onto all the hair cards. This script should be fine: lesterbanks.com/2015/09/scripting-a-copy-skin-weights-tool-with-python/
In NgSkinTools 2.0 onwards, it's been moved to the set weights tab and called "Smooth". (I still prefer relax - it's different to how Maya smooths influences)
this was really helpful thank you. Do you know or could do a tutorial on volume presentation? Especiually on am uscular character like that when i bend the bones there is a lot of squiashing and it ruins the volumes. Is there a solution for this?
Hellol, thankyou so much. could you help me to get an answer to a question? Can ngskintools work the paint weights together with a rig and skinning done with advanced skeleton 5? im trying to use both plugins, i want to have faster results with ngskintools using advanced skeleton 5 which can do rigs fast too
how do you approach the torso/spine? do you first paintweight the spines, and then the arms? (from "inside" to "outside"), or does that not matter at all? is there a chance you will create a full blown tutorial on skinning rigging a full character, so we can buy it of course? :)
Hi Ben! Yes, so I never rely on any default weight painting Maya gives me. I always have to adjust anyway to get to precision I need. For bipeds I always start with the spine. I start at the center of gravity (pelvis) and flood the whole mesh with the root joint weights. Then for the upper mesh, I select everything from the next joint up in the spine, and slowly start to decrease my selection as I climb up the torso, flooding to the next joint I get to, decreasing selection and so forth. Then when I get to limbs, I’ll go and re-select the whole arm/leg and start the process again. I like the idea of a skinning a full character course. Thanks for the idea :)
@@builtbycolossus Thanks a lot for your quick reply and your answer! Another tiny question: for humanoid characters, do you prefer one whole mesh or separate meshes? Would love to see that tutorial :)
quick question: whenever I try flooding the entire mesh's influence to the root joint, it unbinds the mesh from all my other joints. Why is that happening?
Your influences are all still there, it's just being overidden by NG's layering system. You can treat your first layer like a layer in photoshop. Right click it inside NG to toggle off the root joint influence.
I'm currently making a course going over skinning different parts of the body, but for the neck I do the same as the torso. Flood from the base of the nack up, then keep deselecting and flooding at each neck joint. Final joint should be the head joint and should flood to just below the jaw and ear.
hi colossus! ive got a double sided kilt mesh trying to skin it having penetration issues during deformations also have separate sleeves and torso parts of a shirt that need to remain separate and have seams showing during deformation please help! ty
Hi my friend! Try to relax weight with “associate by volume” checked. Should help! If that is not enough, I often duplicate the mesh and delete face to make it only one sided. Skin that, then copy the skin cluster back to the original mesh.
After you install, next time you open Maya you should see a new NgSkinTools tab in your tray. Then under Windows->Settings->plugin manager you can find Ng and turn on "auto load"
Vallin Borel I don’t use the free anymore but on the website it says you don’t get some “paid only features”. Never seemed to bother me though, it already had everything I needed
@@builtbycolossus thank you very much for your method. is it possible to do a tutorial on facial skin (with mouth opening) with ngskintool. thank you in advance
I'm struggeling with dual quaternion too. It seems that Unreal Engine doesn't support it anymore and, instead, metahuman rigs solve this problem with support joints that spread out form the main ones. So the skin is weighted to them instead of the main joints. Don't know why they came up with this complicated solution and complitely dropped the DQS support. Would be nice not to have like 150 joints per character to set up first in rigging, then in skinning and then also in the physics asset, but insteas just using DQS. The only solution i found is a custom version of UE4.26 from i guy on a daz3d forum. Not the best i guess till his edits will stay as a stand alone thing he have to apply to each new version of the engine. Hope that epic puts it in the default plugins some day and for now i think i'll use metahumans's technique
@shadowmurlock282 @builtbycolossus used on maya 2016 with NGskintools 2 . 4 - it still works, you just need to leave ngtool, click in outliner on model, go to select mode, select verts and go back to painting. Great tutorial thanks
Jason T.O.D it is difficult, but the more practise the better you’ll get! I’ve used his skinning method for over 5 years now.. But hey, if you’re willing to pay I’m not going to say no ;)
What A Waste Of Time, Just Use Bind Skin With Max Influence 1, Then Delta Mush (Bake Skin Weights To Skin For UE), Done.. Make Sure Your Char In T Pose
When you said "isn't rigging fuuun?so fun" you sounded exactly like my modeling teacher who tried to convince us that retopology is "fun" 👁️👄👁️
Thank you for this video though, it was really helpful!
You’re welcome.
It’s actually a tad ironic because I really do love rigging and skinning haha 😂
Lmao my teacher said the exact same thing during rotomation. The thing I hate the most lmao
@@maverickmurphy god YES it is so tedious
@@builtbycolossus Hey man great video! I've done exactly what you said and got the results I wanted but the skinning only seems to be working during my calisthenics animation but when I manually move the controls it looks like it did before I used your technique...do I need to bake the deformations or something? Thanks again!!! I've definitely gotten further faster with your technique than I have alone!
If you have a good base mesh then you kinda can avoid retopology
Coming from 3dsmax and Blender, seems like Maya don't want us to rig by selecting only vertices. I was hoping NG would give me the option. But even in this video, you might not notice but everytime you're done selecting your vertices, you press PAINT-FLOOD wich turns off the "select vertex mode", then you have to turn back 'select vertex' every, single, time.
I wish they add a proper "vertex selection mode" that stops switching back automatically to "paint mode".
This? ua-cam.com/video/TACB6bX8SN0/v-deo.htmlsi=KPYWhSCqnEujhRnj
man I couldn't agree more, coming from 3dsmax to maya this was and still is a pain
Lol me pulling up to my intro to rigging class now with god tier skills
🔥😎🔥
Exactly how I approach skin weighting...
Though I use the smooth weight tool instead of relax, perhaps, I'll try out the relax method too
Genius. Simple and super efficient. Thank you for sharing your process!
Glad I could bring you a bit of value!
Wow, skinning has come a long way since I first learned it.
thank you very much for your method. is it possible to do a tutorial on facial skin (with mouth opening) with ngskintool.
Thanks, we need more of these. 😍😍😍
Well stay tuned! :)
Fun??? not at all,,, is the most stressful thing ive ever done in my life
😂😂
Hey there! Thank you for this incredibly eye-opening video!
Just to clarify, do you block out the whole character (every joint) on the same BLOCKING layer? And then relax every thing on the same RELAX layer?
The NGSkinTools official full-character-skinning tutorial separates the torso, limbs, etc. each into their own layer. As a complete beginner i'm very confused by its method LOL - i think I'll start from scratch over again and do your method! :)
I've avoided weight painting for so long but your technique of blocking in the joints looks so effortless and fun, I want to try again. Do you think it's feasible to get similar results with Maya's default tools? Thank you for the tutorial!
Hi! I'm glad you like the process, not many people call skinning fun!
One of the main reasons I use NG is for the relax tool, which is not available in Maya's default tools. You have "smooth", but that is only on a joint to joint basis. What's great about relax is that it factors in ALL influences on surrounding vertices and gives you an average across all joint influences. It's just easier in my opinion
this totally sounds like a newbie question, but how do you previsualize the weights you are flooding? I can somehow only see the colored weight of vertices in Maya when I'm in Paint mode or with vertices selected, which makes it really cumbersome to work with.
Hi it's really fun method! Thank you very much. Just a question ...in the latest version of NG they have changed a bit the UI. Theresn't anymore relax tool: so what do you use?
You're welcome! Under the "set weights" tab, use the option "smooth". Works just about the same :)
you just saved my life
I got you fam
Gracias ahora puedo darle mejor uso a la herramienta
You're welcome!
Nice! Just found out about your channel from UA-cam main page, looking forward to more videos! :D
Matheus Lima that’s awesome to hear man! Hope you stick around :)
Hi, thanks for the video. Is there a way to copy weights to multiple characters at once?
Thank you
I am very happy that you reply in the comment I want to ask you a question if you can RIG the meta human cloth and make a tutorial and upload it I will be very grateful if you Do it like this because I've been trying for a long time to make a good cloth rig but I can't make a good cloth rig. Can you plz do it and make the video in easy and straight forward .. while i am using ng skin tool and advance Skelton for skin weighting checker
I am very happy that you reply in the comment I want to ask you a question if you can RIG the meta human cloth and make a tutorial and upload it I will be very grateful if you Do it like this because I've been trying for a long time to make a good cloth rig but I can't make a good cloth rig.
Greatest tutorial ever,got a problem,when i shrink the vertex loops it shrinks from both sides,how can i fix it?thanks
Thanks!
If you're skinning the arms or legs, when you select the verts, make sure to start the selection past either the furthest finger tip or below the feet, then drag it, then as you deselect it will only shrink from the inner most part of the limb out.
If you're doing the spine, again just start the selection from the position you want to have shrink last
@@builtbycolossus Hey there! I've been running into the same issue :( I followed your advice, but it still shrinks from both ends 🤔 Could this be a maya version issue?
How did you select all the points through the mesh like at 1:20? When I do that it only selects ones I can see, and yes I have both camera based selection turned off.
Getting suicidal urges
You might need to turn off "Camera-based selection" under common selection options, in the tools tab (hammer icon, top right of screen)
can't see the "relax" tab
did u found the tab ?
@@pulkitpunea5403 no" :(
How long does it usually take you to rig a full character?
Master!
Easy to be when you love to skin!
I don't have the ''relax '' option ..wtf ??
wow, in less of 5 min, he did a job that to would took me 1 day and better
😁
When you're skinning, do you have issues with difficult areas like shoulders or where the legs connect to the hips/glutes?
Nshankoff1 hey man!
Not really...
Just make sure that you’re blocking in solid 1 values on joints, then blending between like in this video, as you move around the joints/controls.
There will come a time obviously where skinning has gone as far as it can, and you’ll need a corrective to fix any troublesome areas.
That’s something I’ll cover down the track.
@@builtbycolossus Ah okay, I always seem to have issues specifically around those areas. I wonder if it's just a topology thing sometimes, or if it's just bone placement, or if it's weighting haha
Nshankoff1 it can honestly be all of those things. I’ll cover body topo in a later video. Importance are in this order: topology, pivots, skinning. Last thing you want is to be trying to make your skinning look decent when the hip pivot/topo is bad.
@@builtbycolossus I think I'm in that situation right now haha. Thanks for the advice!
@@thisGuy481 you got it man!
讲的好！非常感谢！
So helpful!!
Thanks :)
Hi! How did you marquee-select the vertices for your arm? When I try to select the vertices for my mesh, Maya prioritizes the armature for selection, highlighting my rig and ultimately ignoring my component selection. Pressing "CTRL+SHIFT" to toggle the "add to selection" function for Marquee selection yields no improvements. Maya somehow prioritizes the Armature, even while operating in Component Selection mode! If you did nothing in particular to select your vertices, I will assume it is another Maya bug, and move on by selecting via "SHIFT + > and
Hi! I make sure to turn off joint selection when I use marquee select for verts. Top left of screen selected in blue.
1:20 what button do you press before selection the verts?
when i try that it always selects the Joints.. is there any way I can fix this?
Hey man, there should be a menu at the top left of Maya with some highlighted icons. Turn off the joint icon (second from left) to not select the joints when you select geo. :)
I'm using the free version but I dont see any relax tab? Did they remove it or is it only in the paid version?
It should be in the free version. In its own tab.
I remember using it when I only had free, I think I was using a 2018 version
you might be using the 2nd version of it. They removed that feature. But you can still use it by using the smooth option. It's still the same :D
"Rigging is fuuun"
Guess im one of the weird ones who agrees :D
An acquired taste, that’s for sure!
@@builtbycolossus for sure, same goes for UVs love the crap jobs!
3:16 Relax
Never thought I'd say it to another dude but i love you mannn, thaaankkksss
I can't find 'relax' on the current version. :(
Hi! Under the "Set Weights" tab, and mode is called "Smooth". I've found 2.0 onwards to be a bit buggy using this method, but see how you go!
@@builtbycolossus thank you
@@builtbycolossus I have another question, do you know how I can weight multiple objects at once, I have hair cards but currently I have to do each one individually :/
@@Felix-os5hf I'd create a new mesh that covers the space of all the cards and skin that. Then using a script, copy the skincluster from that main mesh onto all the hair cards.
This script should be fine:
lesterbanks.com/2015/09/scripting-a-copy-skin-weights-tool-with-python/
@@builtbycolossus Thanks dude ill check this out
Wow
it seems like the relax feature is missing? or am i missing something?
In NgSkinTools 2.0 onwards, it's been moved to the set weights tab and called "Smooth".
(I still prefer relax - it's different to how Maya smooths influences)
this was really helpful thank you. Do you know or could do a tutorial on volume presentation? Especiually on am uscular character like that when i bend the bones there is a lot of squiashing and it ruins the volumes. Is there a solution for this?
Hellol, thankyou so much. could you help me to get an answer to a question?
Can ngskintools work the paint weights together with a rig and skinning done with advanced skeleton 5?
im trying to use both plugins, i want to have faster results with ngskintools using advanced skeleton 5 which can do rigs fast too
Hey! Yep they can work together.
All that is needed to use NGSkin is a mesh with a skincluster attached
how do you approach the torso/spine?
do you first paintweight the spines, and then the arms? (from "inside" to "outside"), or does that not matter at all?
is there a chance you will create a full blown tutorial on skinning rigging a full character, so we can buy it of course? :)
Hi Ben!
Yes, so I never rely on any default weight painting Maya gives me. I always have to adjust anyway to get to precision I need.
For bipeds I always start with the spine. I start at the center of gravity (pelvis) and flood the whole mesh with the root joint weights.
Then for the upper mesh, I select everything from the next joint up in the spine, and slowly start to decrease my selection as I climb up the torso, flooding to the next joint I get to, decreasing selection and so forth.
Then when I get to limbs, I’ll go and re-select the whole arm/leg and start the process again.
I like the idea of a skinning a full character course. Thanks for the idea :)
@@builtbycolossus Thanks a lot for your quick reply and your answer! Another tiny question: for humanoid characters, do you prefer one whole mesh or separate meshes?
Would love to see that tutorial :)
@@builtbycolossus yes please :(
Hey! Do you do rigging & skinning work ?
Hi! Yes on occasion. Feel free to shoot us an email here: builtbycolossus.com/contact
quick question: whenever I try flooding the entire mesh's influence to the root joint, it unbinds the mesh from all my other joints. Why is that happening?
Your influences are all still there, it's just being overidden by NG's layering system. You can treat your first layer like a layer in photoshop. Right click it inside NG to toggle off the root joint influence.
Ooooh ok yea that makes sense I just downloaded it so I'm figuring this out still lol. Thanks
@@MultiNathan29 No worries!
do you have a good way of skinning the neck? no matter what I do, it always moves so wrong xd
I'm currently making a course going over skinning different parts of the body, but for the neck I do the same as the torso. Flood from the base of the nack up, then keep deselecting and flooding at each neck joint. Final joint should be the head joint and should flood to just below the jaw and ear.
hi colossus!
ive got a double sided kilt mesh trying to skin it having penetration issues during deformations
also have separate sleeves and torso parts of a shirt that need to remain separate and have seams showing during deformation
please help!
ty
Hi my friend!
Try to relax weight with “associate by volume” checked. Should help!
If that is not enough, I often duplicate the mesh and delete face to make it only one sided. Skin that, then copy the skin cluster back to the original mesh.
Hey How do i Install this plugin? how to acces the auto loader that the site suggested ?? Using maya 2022
After you install, next time you open Maya you should see a new NgSkinTools tab in your tray. Then under Windows->Settings->plugin manager you can find Ng and turn on "auto load"
Standard version cost 65$ , Site licence Cost 125$, the free version lasts how long ??????
Forever!!
@@builtbycolossus hooooo cool Without any reduction in functionality ?
Vallin Borel I don’t use the free anymore but on the website it says you don’t get some “paid only features”. Never seemed to bother me though, it already had everything I needed
@@builtbycolossus Cool
@@builtbycolossus
thank you very much for your method. is it possible to do a tutorial on facial skin (with mouth opening) with ngskintool.
thank you in advance
✅✅✅
I am haveing a difficulty selecting the vertex and I cant grow selection. does anyone know how to fix this?
shift right arrow for grow selection doesn't work...
Make sure you're using the arrow symbols (2 lines making a point), not the main arrow keys.
@@builtbycolossus can u make a tutorial from start to finish?
@@lenneth1188 on what? Skinning a character from start to finish?
I'm new to skinning and was having trouble with volume loss around the joints does anyone know how to fix that?
Try changing your skin cluster type to "weight blended" then painting in "dual quaternion" weights around the volume loss area :)
@@builtbycolossus thank you so much
@@builtbycolossus does this export cleanly to game engines?
@@eeveemikat very good question. I’m not sure for certain sorry!
I'm struggeling with dual quaternion too. It seems that Unreal Engine doesn't support it anymore and, instead, metahuman rigs solve this problem with support joints that spread out form the main ones.
So the skin is weighted to them instead of the main joints.
Don't know why they came up with this complicated solution and complitely dropped the DQS support.
Would be nice not to have like 150 joints per character to set up first in rigging, then in skinning and then also in the physics asset, but insteas just using DQS. The only solution i found is a custom version of UE4.26 from i guy on a daz3d forum.
Not the best i guess till his edits will stay as a stand alone thing he have to apply to each new version of the engine. Hope that epic puts it in the default plugins some day and for now i think i'll use metahumans's technique
Okay, now show me how he raises his hands up.
How to install this plug-in
Hi! Use this link: www.ngskintools.com/documentation/userguide/
If I ever meet you I'm buying you a beer or 3
Not gonna say no to that!
THIS PROCESS NO LONGER WORKS WITH NGSKIN V.2!!! alright everyone pack your bags its time to go home
😂
We still have something very similar. Under the set weights tab, there is a "smooth" button. Which will do pretty much the same thing as "relax".
You can't select verts, the layers tool is ass, the ngstool youtube channel doesn't help anything. This tool has caused me more trouble than good
@shadowmurlock282 @builtbycolossus used on maya 2016 with NGskintools 2 . 4 - it still works, you just need to leave ngtool, click in outliner on model, go to select mode, select verts and go back to painting. Great tutorial thanks
as a non-rigging expert (xD), why do you have so many joints (twist joints) in one arm?
So we can also get a nice upper arm/forearm bend with Ik splines :)
can you skin weight my char i find this really difficult to do so , could I use some help?
Jason T.O.D it is difficult, but the more practise the better you’ll get! I’ve used his skinning method for over 5 years now..
But hey, if you’re willing to pay I’m not going to say no ;)
What A Waste Of Time, Just Use Bind Skin With Max Influence 1, Then Delta Mush (Bake Skin Weights To Skin For UE), Done.. Make Sure Your Char In T Pose
Thanks for the thoughts! I’m glad you have a workflow that’s working for you
@@builtbycolossus ... Felt Long lol
im gonna DO A STINKY FART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Your skeleton is horrible, so many joints in hand
Thanks!
You really dont understand what your talking about, that's why its horrible for you
another helpful tool is BRsmoothweights
by brave rabbit its free too i believe
wow