Need some help with rigging

[maywire]

I've checked out a bunch of tutorials, so I thought I'd try doing some simple rigging. I'm trying to add something onto the forearm of an outfit, and as far as I can tell everything's fine. It's obviously not though, otherwise I wouldn't need help! All the vertices seem to be rigged appropriately, but when I try to export I get an error saying "Cannot export mesh with unweighted vertices". What have I done wrong?

[Baelkin]

Check if you accidentally have unweighted some vertices somewhere else on the model than the area you are adding something to. Sometimes when you are weight painting a model you can inadverdently paint other parts of the model, which will then cause the error despite your newly added area being rigged perfectly. Also check that there aren't any duplicate vertices on the newly added part of the model as those also can cause the problem if they are left unweighted - they might be "hiding" underneath other vertices which causes the model to look weight painted correctly, however the system knows they are there as part of the model and can't export because they lack weighting.

 

I can't really think of anything else you should check off the top of my head.

[maywire]

It doesn't seem to be either of those things. What I did was use the copy bone weight script, using the arm of the armour I wanted and after checking which vertices were rigged where, it seemed ok. The thing is, that when it returns to the 3d view screen after the error, every vertex is selected! If I select it and the armour I'm trying to attach it to and join the objects then I can export it, but in the game it doesn't follow the arm, it juts out of the elbow at the back.

 

In the end, it's rigged to bip01 forearm.r, bip01 foretwist.r and hand.r. This is incredibly frustrating!

 

 

vv how I want it to look vs how it ends up looking :(

[Baelkin]

Hmm... try selecting all the vertices of the object and weigh them a 100% to the bip01 forearm.r bone as the object itself doesn't seem to require any articulation beyond following the movement of the forearm - Don't use any weight copying scripts for this as it's not necessary, plus you also want to rule out the script as a potential point of failure. Just focus on getting the part skinned to a bone such that it works and worry about correct weighting later. :)

[maywire]

That's actually what I was trying to do initially, I only tried the bone weight copy thing after that didn't work. The part was originally rigged to other bones, so I had to remove it from all of them. Could that be what's causing the issue? What's the proper way to unrig verticies?

 

Thanks for your help btw:)

[Baelkin]

That's actually what I was trying to do initially, I only tried the bone weight copy thing after that didn't work. The part was originally rigged to other bones, so I had to remove it from all of them. Could that be what's causing the issue? What's the proper way to unrig verticies?

 

Thanks for your help btw:)

 

As far as I know you can "unrig" vertices by removing all bone links in the skin modifier on a given object, and then re-linking them or simply deleting the modifier and reapplying it. This should remove all previous skin information and leave a clean slate to work on. I'm at a loss as to what could be wrong if you've already tried the above though. It seems like there is a fundamental linking problem somewhere since the object doesn't move despite being skinned to the correct bones, but I can't really say for sure.

[maywire]

Yeah this is crazy. Here's what happens when I try different things:

 

1. Remove the existing rigging then rerig - it'll export, but without a dismemberskininstance, so it won't appear in game.

 

2. Do the above, but then join the rigged object with the armour object - it'll export but in game it goes off at a weird angle like in the screenshots.

 

3. Bone weight copy - I get that error on export.

 

3. Bone weight copy, then join objects - same results as 2.

 

This is driving me nuts, no amount of screwing around with which bones it's rigged to will change the how it ends up positioned in game. I think what I really need is someone who knows what's what to have a quick look at the model itself. Baelkin, if you've got the time, I'd really appreciate it if you could be that person!

 

edit: nm it's all fixed:) Thanks again for your help Baelkin!