I wonder if I am alone in this - I am finding it really difficult to make clothes for weightmapped figures that fit properly and that move nicely with the figure without pokethrough. The modelling isn't a problem, it's the rigging. Weightmapped figures bend so well when they are naked, but I am really struggling with the clothes.

I do the things that the manual says. I have tried autogrouping, but that often results in a mess. Miki 4, for instance - she has so many bones. I can group in Blender, but I am still not happy with the results.

I am using the following utilities where I can.

OBJ2CR2 helps me to group clothing for Miki4, and it does a good job. However, I find I still need to copy the joint zones from Miki to the figure otherwise the clothing behaves very strangely, with spikes all over the place - not just at the joints. I had told obj2cr2 to copy the weightmaps to the clothing. After copying the joint zones, it worked much better.

I have morphing clothes and I used that to transfer morphs to clothing items for Koz-WM. However the result was still unsatisfactory and Kirwyn kindly went over the clothing for me so that I could release a usable freebie.

I think my problem is that I don't really know how to tweak the weightmapping. I watched a tutorial by Chuck from Nerd3d on the Smith Micro site - he blithely paints away at Posette and some clothing for her and makes it look great, but I don't have a clue why he is doing what he does. Is it just me? I need weightmapping for dummies.

Nanette, allow a question.
Where is Miki4 clothing giving you trouble?
What groups, what body parts are problematic?

Just wanted to say, your not alone with weightmapped rigging. For me either pants split and skirts don't move right. I've used Philpc software which is great but the skirt don't always more correctly, they stretch instead of move. I've watch and read more tutors that I can count but nothing works very well.

Oh well, you are not alone!

This is why I stick with making dynamic clothing. My life is filled with enough real world frustrations to let my hobby get me too....

The following are my experiences, your mileage may differ:

1.  Miki4 is the worst weightmapped figure to "begin" your weightmap rigging experiences.  Every JCM, every FBM, and every PBM has to be adjusted in the clothing on Miki4.  There is no easy way to rig for Miki 4.  Work with Anastasia, V4WM first.  While not easy to rig, they ARE easier than rigging for Miki4.

2.  Nerd's videos really are helpful, but you're just going to have to get in there and play with the weight maps in order to understand what he is doing.  Paint, play, but don't save.  It's the only way to learn it.

3.  Here's a confidence builder for you.  Using any character, load the character, load and conform clothing, then raise the shoulder to an extreme level to CAUSE pokethrough. 

3.  (b) go into the Joint editor, select the shoulder, select the morph list, select ShldrUp and now push, pull, smooth that spot on the clothing causing poke through.

3.  (c) zero rotation and save your clothing to the library.  You have now permanently repaired that morph which causes the pokethrough on the clothing item you just saved.

There's a Nerd3D video for this as well.

Weight maps are much like the example in 3 above......painting, pulling, pushing, moving....until it's right.  In addition to the weight map, you have the bulge maps, if used. 

Learning how to rig with weight mapping should be a process of trial and error to see what is effective.  It's not hard, but it's no less tedious than Poser rigging has ever been.  Take your time, don't look for shortcuts, and learn what/why you're doing what you're doing.

Giitterati3d, thank you for that honest answer.

I didn't realise that Miki4 was more complicated than other figures. My first attempt at rigging clothing for a weightmapped figure was with Koz, and I had to be rescued there. I just recently learned how to tweak the joints on clothes for conventionally rigged figures, and this is much more difficult. I am afraid the Poser manual makes it seem easier than it is.

Bulge maps may be part of the problem - the biceps bulging through the sleeve, the breast poking through when the arm is raised. There is a lot more going on than with normal rigging.

Dynamic clothes do seem more and more attractive. But I want to learn this.

OK, you did not answer my question but the answer is simple:

It is NOT the W-Map, well, not completely.

The problems for Miki4 happen because of the magnets that are in those area"s.
The magnets are the bad boys.

• Elbows and breasts for Miki4.
  Actually the magnets are on the lower arm, upper arm, breasts and hip area.

And to make things more complicated: They are NOT symmetrical. => Build error.

Step ONE should be to make all magnets symmertical left-right.
They are NOT.

Step TWO would be to decide what magnets to transfer to the clothing.

That should get you 95% on the way for Miki4.

Quote - Giitterati3d, thank you for that honest answer.

I didn't realise that Miki4 was more complicated than other figures. My first attempt at rigging clothing for a weightmapped figure was with Koz, and I had to be rescued there. I just recently learned how to tweak the joints on clothes for conventionally rigged figures, and this is much more difficult. I am afraid the Poser manual makes it seem easier than it is.

Bulge maps may be part of the problem - the biceps bulging through the sleeve, the breast poking through when the arm is raised. There is a lot more going on than with normal rigging.

Dynamic clothes do seem more and more attractive. But I want to learn this.

 

 

You're welcome, and I don't mean to discourage.......it's just that Miki4 presents her own real problems that seem to be the hardest to resolve. 

I love weight mapped clothing.  It bends better, it "folds" better, it's somewhere between conforming and dynamic.  But, the price for that is learning an entirely new rigging system.

The pokethrough on her raised arm is Miki4's ShldrUp and Down JCM.  Been there, done that.  You have to adjust this same JCM on her chest, her shoulder, her breast, and her collar - in up, down and twist.  The lBreast pos bulge map is especially bad.

At any rate, don't let me discourage you.  Just be prepared for some learning time and don't try to rig something for her if you're on deadline.

PS, if you wanna see where the magnets are (on any figure)

Set "Front view" in camera controls
Set Outline in Document display

Zoom in to get a good full screen front view.

Goto Top menu and Display => Go down to Deformers, Select Show ALL.

Also check from a Side view.

To correct the magnets open the hierarchy editor.

Check left-right values for the manget base, the deformation, and the zones.
Also check rotations and scales.

And last but not least :  check the denpendencies left-right for all magnets.

OK, I need to study magnets as well. I didn't think they would still be so important with a weightmapped figure.

Conventional rigging and W-Mapping are actually doing the same thing.
They tell a vertex to move from position 1 to position 2.
The rigging, conventional or W-Mapping, has to tell that to a lot of points at the same time using a fall off zone..

For elbow and knee bends a "change" to the curve is sometimes required. 

Some creators do that by "painting" on the W-Map. I do..
Some do it by adding magnets.

Poser legacy figures do that by adding magnets.

Unfortunately for us, there are lots of left-right errors in those magnets in ALL Poser figures including the lastest ones.

These 'WRONG" and asymmetrical magnets make it extremely difficult to make clothing for legacy Poser figures.

Quote - Conventional rigging and W-Mapping are actually doing the same thing.
They tell a vertex to move from position 1 to position 2.
The rigging, conventional or W-Mapping, has to tell that to a lot of points at the same time using a fall off zone..

For elbow and knee bends a "change" to the curve is sometimes required. 

Some creators do that by "painting" on the W-Map. I do..
Some do it by adding magnets.

Poser legacy figures do that by adding magnets.

Unfortunately for us, there are lots of left-right errors in those magnets in ALL Poser figures including the lastest ones.

These 'WRONG" and asymmetrical magnets make it extremely difficult to make clothing for legacy Poser figures.

But, there's a huge difference with a weight map - affected actors.

Instead of conventionally rigging a single joint, you can weight map and rig multiple joints to work together.  So, when you move the collar, you can add the neck as an affected actor so that the neck moves properly WITH the arm, plus the shoulder.  The same is true for the lats, pectoral muscles, etc. 

Weight maps with affected actors changes rigging dramatically.

"Affected actors" is nothing new to W-Mapped figures.
You can "play" with "affected actors" in conventional rigging as good as in W-Mapped rigging.

With a conventionally rigged figure, I could make a **single group long shirt **or pullover follow ALL bends of that figure without cutting the shirt or pullover up into groups. => The clothing stayed single mesh, single group.

I even demo-ed it to SM. Now THAT was something.

But it requires a lot of work for the everage home alone end user.
You had to change ALL joint fall off zones in the 3 axis, twist, side-side, and bend.

But I could rig any full clothing set with a single mouseclick thereafter.

Still can actualy, but you carefully have to prepare the whole figure and ALL joints to get the system going.

W-Mapping is the next best thing. I just never understood why they kept adding magnets to a W-Mapped figure.
Paint the map. Done.

i thought ...  jcms and magnets were removed from wm figure?  

iirc, the V4 wm script removes jcms?

wm works at the poly level, i imagined magnets defeat the purpose of the wm?

but i remember reading is not necessary to wm every joint, adds to overhead, ...

sighh

When you check Alyson2 and Miki4, both W-Mapped figures, you will see that SM puts magnets in them.
And those magnets are joint controlled via dependencies.

As I said above, painting the W-Map is a better solution and avoids extra problems.

One thing to remember is that Poser can handel both legacy rigging (falloff zones) and weight mapping, and it seems, for some reason, they have elected to leave both types available in their figures. So. for instance. Miki 4 has both falloff zones AND weightmapping in it;s cr2, altho the weightmapping is the only one checked as active. 

When transfering rigging Poser transfers both the legacy and weightmapping. One of the first things I do in clothing is merg the legacy mapping to weightmapping, then I massage the combined weight mapping weight mapping... well I'm lieing a bit since any more I tend to just paint my oen mapping from scratch but I started out massaging the transfered.

Another thing to learn is the bulge mapping. With some careful editing these can take the place of many magnets and JCMs altho I thing in some cases JCMs are easier, especially with either Zbrush (Goz) or colorcurvature's PoserMorphLoader.

One other tip, When working the weightmapping you need to check ALL of the affected actors since some actions are accululative. In other words say you adjust the abdomen weight mapping to suit your figure, you also have to be aware of how the chest and hip weight mapping will affect the same areas. They can often cause odd mistakes. This is one of the main reasons I started painting from scratch. It;s more work but more accurate.

I'm not sure why SM elected to keep the legacy stuff in their new figures, maybe they were just unsure of how well their weight mapping would work, or the riggers weren;t as familiar with what the engineers had built. Still, as has been said, weightmapping is definately the right thing to learn, it has a lot of power that has barely been touched so far.  For instance look ar the SM video on thier Dregon and lsiten for the phrase "Skinning Method" (also foound in the 'Figure' Drop down menu... This seems to be an area almost totally unexplored.

Before Pro 2012 came out I watched the video on weight mapping. Looked real easy. When I got the program and tried it, I stopped, stared at it a while, and went "Oh...." haven't gone back since.

Thanks everyone for a very informative discussion. I have a great deal yet to learn. And probably not enough time.

Letterworks, have your new item in my shopping cart for next payday. Looks great. Many, many thanks. NanetteTredeux, thanks for the new outfit for Miki, learning to like the cloth room.