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Variable bone weights in TGE 1.5?

by Proto · in Artist Corner · 05/23/2007 (5:09 pm) · 5 replies

I've just started making weight maps for a rigged character and I'd love to know a bit more about how bone weights are treated in TGE.

In TGE 1.51 do two weights influencing a vertex need to add up to anything, i.e. if I wanted equal influence of two bones should the two weights be 50%? Is there a limit to the number of weights that can influence a vertex?

Thanks in advance :-)

P.S. I'm using Lightwave 9 and DTS Exporter 06-07-04 on Mac OSX 10.4.9.
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Torque 3D Owner James
#1
05/24/2007 (4:06 am)
You have it correct from my experience - the total influence adds up to %100 (50-50, 30-30-40, etc). My memory could be wrong here but I don't think LW will let a vertex go above %100 total weight, shared or not.

Torque Owner CDK
#2
05/24/2007 (5:29 am)
As far as i know the documentation states that it only allows vertices to belong to a single weight map. You may not blend a vertex's motion between multiple bones. If a vertex does belong to multiple weight maps, then only the bone's influence from the first weight map will be used at 100% strength.

This was the previous version so I am not 100% sure if this has changed in the updated version.

Hope this helps

Torque Owner Proto
#3
05/24/2007 (7:16 pm)
Yup, the LW2DTS plugin documentation is out of date and yes a vertex may have multiple weight influences from multiple bones (fixed in version Version 04-02-23 according to changes.txt).

Does anyone know what the "resolution" of weight maps is in TGE 1.51, i.e. do weights of 50% and 51% get treated differently? How about weights below 5%? It seems that a weight value of 1% has no noticeable influence.

Associate Orion Elenzil
Real Life Plus
#4
05/24/2007 (7:48 pm)
I'm not 100% sure but i think there's a limit of four weights per vertex.

Torque Owner Proto
#5
05/27/2007 (5:32 pm)
In answer to my own question: "do two weights influencing a vertex need to add up to anything" - weight normalisation occurs within the exporter. All weights are scaled proportionately to add up to 100%.

"It seems that a weight value of 1% has no noticeable influence" this threshold is set in the exporter's Preferences tab.

One more question: of the available bone properties, which properties influence the effect of a bone once exported? Are there properties always enabled by default upon export (therefore overridden) or properties that are not supported by TGE 1.51? I've covered what I think is happening below but I would find it helpful to be refereed to a more definitive guide in case I've missed stuff.
- Falloff Type (not supported, leave as inverse ^16 for better Lightwave preview)
- Morphed Positions (not supported, leave unchecked for better Lightwave preview)
- Faster Bones (not supported, leave unchecked for better Lightwave preview)
- Rest Position (supported, leave as default position)
- Rest Rotation (supported, leave as default rotation)
- Use Weight Map Only (overridden, leave checked for better Lightwave preview)
- Weight Normalization (overridden, leave checked for better Lightwave preview)
- Multiply Strength by Rest Length (not supported, leave checked for better Lightwave preview)
- Limited Range (not supported, leave unchecked for better Lightwave preview)
- Joint Compensation (not supported, leave unchecked for better Lightwave preview)
- Joint Comp for Parent (not supported, leave unchecked for better Lightwave preview)
- Muscle Flexing (not supported, leave unchecked for better Lightwave preview)
- Parental Muscle Flexing (not supported, leave unchecked for better Lightwave preview)