54 - Removing and adding joints to a skinned character rig (Cartoon character rigging series)
As we can see there is a problem with the antennas but we have already spent some time skinning the rest of the character (like the spine and arms). So we would like to remove the antenna and re-add them later without affecting the weights we have already worked on.
To do this we will flood a value of 1 on a joint and then remove the antennas, the means as we remove the joints as all the verts have some weight to the flooded joint, maya wont try re-weight. Then when the have fixed the antennas we can re-add them.
The problem with the ribbon spines is the nurbs surface U and V are in the wrong direction, so checking with the arms surface we can help debug what's gone wrong. Also because we added the sine wave and other deformers it might be a good idea to increase the follicles/joints in the antenna so we have more control and a smoother deformation.
I wanted to add this in so if for any reason you have an area of your rig you need to edit/improve you can do it in a way where you don't have to ruin or spend any time re-skinning weights that you have already done.
Twitter: / jamesdthompson
Please leave any comments or questions below and ill try help as soon as possible.
Thanks for watching :)
Source files can be downloaded at:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/30666061/JDT...