A tool I'm working on for very quickly blocking in solid weighting for character rigs. Using it you can work in Poly, Edge or Vertex mode, simply select parts of the mesh and the list automatically updates to display the skin influences of those verts/polys/edges. Then just click on any joint in the list to apply 100% weighting to that joint. No more scrolling thought joint lists :)
Of course the weights will still need refinement after using this tool, but the idea is that it gives you a solid base skinning to work from very quickly, it can be used in conjunction with Mayas regular weight tools or separately.
This method was in part inspired by a demo video by Bret Bays, I also took some ideas from a skinning tool created by W. Wesley Howe in 2010.
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:character, animation, MEL, Maya, rigging, weights, weight painting, skinning, CG, 3D, graphite9 and Brian Horgan