Wolfire Games Forums

This might not make any sense...idk.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:T ... t_painting
Using the armature modifier (following the above tutorial) I was meant to use 'Vert.Groups' and not 'envelopes' to define deform. For some reason it would only paint if I selected envelopes insted.
Im not sure why I cant use vert.groups.

But it seemed to be doing the job fine anyway, but then I hit a key or something and then it would act as an eraser insted of a brush when holding down LMB. I can't figure out what I pressed or changed and haven't been able to find any mention of a toggle hotkey for the weight-paint brush.

Also, if im just starting out with blender would it be better to start with 2.55 or is it to early/lacks the documentation of 2.49?

The the tool isn't as important as being able to do cool stuff with the tool. I've just followed a girl go from having opened Blender a week ago, to modeling a full character and mostly unwrapping it, in two months. Learning to use the program took her a few weeks. Understanding what to model and how is the harder skill, and more important.

Most new stuff has only gone to 2.5 for a while now - including the Overgrowth tools and exporters made of Wolfire guys. If you want to focus on doing stuff that works on Overgrowth, 2.5 might be a better choice.

Thta said, I still use 2.49. It has more scripts, more importers, more exporters, and it still has features not found in 2.5. For example, at the moment I'm working on weight-painting and animating a character, and I have to export it to the md5 format. The only exporters are for 2.4x versions, and I need a 2.4-specific script (Clean Groups or something similar) that removes unused weight groups. If you paint a vertex with weight 0, it belongs to that bone's vertex group, with weight zero. It has no effect in Blender, but the md5 format only supports up to four vertex groups for every vertex...


How did you make the Armature connection? Go to Edit mode, and to Editing screen (press F9), and look at the left part of the Buttons subwindow (if you have the default UI). There should be a list of vertex groups in there. If you haven't created any, and didn't use the parenting method in creating the Armature connection, there were no vertex groups the bone weights could be saved to.
The easiest way to create the vertex groups is as follows:
1) in Object mode, select first the model, then the armature
2) press Ctrl+P. this assings the Armature (active object) as the Parent object of the selected object (the character).
3). Usually, a Child object just follows the Parent object, but when you make Armature the parent, you get to choose additional options... such as creating a new vertex group for each bone, and even creating vertex groups and assiging them weights based on the closest bones, or the envelopes.

The button you probably pressed is the Sub (for Subtract) in the right menu on this picture:

Strange, sub wasn't ticked but I clicked it then un clicked it and now I can paint again.

If im painting something like lower_arm.l and have x-mirror on, should the red paint show up on the opposite lower_arm.r that is being mirrored? or is it there, but doesn't show?

Mike (AUS) wrote:Strange, sub wasn't ticked but I clicked it then un clicked it and now I can paint again.

If im painting something like lower_arm.l and have x-mirror on, should the red paint show up on the opposite lower_arm.r that is being mirrored? or is it there, but doesn't show?

The red color shows what's in that group. The lower_arm.l and lower_arm.r are different groups, so it isn't supposed to show. It does work, but it would be nice if there was an indicator.

I also still work with 2.49, newcomers generally appreciate 2.5x more though. Seems it's slicker, friendlier and stuff.

2.5x should yield a considerable performance boost also; I'm still waiting until it's stable, that's really all.