Blender 4.0 - Weight Paint Workflow (& Techniques!!)

[@swordofkings128]

2:04 You're probably already be aware of this but for anyone watching that isn't, checking "preserve volume" on the armature modifier of your mesh improves knee/elbow bends a ton. If you're planning on staying in Blender and not exporting to anything else, it's usually good enough (and also I recommend using corrective smooth, helps clean up weird deformation in general and usually works as well as correcting the weights yourself). Seriously, corrective smooth can be a *life saver* if you're staying in Blender. But if you're going to use the character outside of Blender you're going to want to have pristine weight painting since "preserve volume" (and corrective smooth) don't carry over outside of Blender.

[@atoaster2070]

There's a paid addon called "Corrective Smooth Baker" which fixes that, by baking everything to corrective shape keys.

[@darrennew8211]

The youtube channel of Dikko has a very good video or two on making topology on your characters and faces such that they deform properly without a whole lot of drivers, balancing, weight keys, etc. If you're having trouble, it's worth digging up. I *think* he released it around the same time RS was making the videos on how to use drivers to fix deformities.

[@Tremori_A]

Dikkos videos help me make my first avatar. Great thtortials and entertaining too

[@TheRoyalSkies]

Hope that helps, and thank you so much for watching :) Here's the complete Blender Rigging Series Playlist: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hnfEop2tpayrhcU Here's the original "Copy Skin Weights" Tutorial: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mIPCh56blMSppbc Blender Drivers Tutorial Link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sJ3HY2CJpp2AaNk

[@andrewferguson2221]

Man it's funny how we've come full circle lol I'd just discovered your channel around the time you started on drivers.

[@TheRoyalSkies]

Wow, you must have been found this channel YEARS ago then lol - Thanks for being such a long time viewer here, I really appreciate it and hope you have a Fantastic Day :)

[@andrewferguson2221]

@@TheRoyalSkies Of course! Thank YOU for all the amazing content and getting us through so much of this over the years.

[@sambamproductions8883]

Great overview on weight painting. Thanks for sharing!

[@bobfriedstand5942]

Thanks!

[@TheRoyalSkies]

You're very welcome, and thank you so much for the support, I hope you have a Fantastic rest of your day bro-!!

[@milo20060]

That last tip was actually new to me! I have to try it next time I'm weight painting a character ^^

[@incaroads001]

Brilliant as always. Straight to the point and no F-ing around.

[@Fallimation]

great, thank you

[@Woodythehobo]

Blender 4.0 changed keymaps to select individual bones, it threw me off for days. Make sure mesh(es) parented to the Armature: Object mode > LClick Armature > Ctrl+LClick mesh(es) > Top Object dropdown > Parent > Armature Deform (CTRL+P) > This places the meshes beneath the Armature in the collection treeview. Next clear selections. Ensure Paint mask and vertex selection next to Weight Paint dropdown are DESELECTED. TO SELECT BONES: weight paint > Object mode > LClick Armature > Ctrl+LClick a mesh > Weight paint mode > CTRL+SHIFT+LClick OR ALT+LClick a bone OR to select multiple bones SHIFT+ALT+LClick bone(s). TO ADJUST ON/OFF PAINT: Change Weight slider to 0 to remove, 1 for max weight. TO PAINT WEIGHT: Just LClick the mesh. PHEW.. Thanks for the pointers man.

[@randallmakhanya]

THIS TRIPPED ME UP FOR TWO WHOLE DAYS LOL. THANK YOU

[@nickyhasnojams]

Thank you! I watched so many tutorials and none of them mentioned making sure that paint mask was deselected, which was selected by default. So I had no idea why it wasn't working for me.

[@papierbndc]

my hero thanks mate!

[@joygamesinteractive]

i still cant select individual bones, the whole armature is selected

[@GenericInternetter]

omg this tutorial is amazing as always, thank you so much for this!

[@antonovanimation]

Wow man you are opening my mind : ) But maybe Ctrl+Shift instead Alt for select bones in WPM

[@noirlavender6409]

bless you

[@joygamesinteractive]

i cant still select bones with ctrl shift :(

[@halfd0rk]

very relavant video for me today, thanks Royal Skies! dropped my like and pray the algorithm gods take it from here

[@MegaZayd1]

Royal skies has finally made it

[@zackx1]

Haha I have learned alot from ya and I find myself coming back here to get a review of what I have learned. Thanks for making these tutorials, keep it up dude!

[@Ekerealms_Animations]

I was rigging a little cartoon dog character, but the weight painting was wrong, so needed to use weight painting to fix him. This video helped me a lot. Thanks! :)

[@PY5RA]

This one is a real good one. Thanks.

[@Wise_pt]

you my sir are a life saver!

[@argusbargus4301]

5:42 is such a life saver for adding clothing sets to previously rigged characters 🤘🔥

[@飯-w9p]

1:46 Hi, I followed the video, but realized that even though I have mirroring on, the "smooth" is not automatically applied to the other side of the body, is this a bug? If I'm drawing the weights of a symmetrical body, does that mean I can't use the "smooth" button?

[@pablogr6960]

yes!!! updatet tutorials, thank you

[@FelipedeMouraFelix]

You saved my life. AGAIN.

[@JD98143]

Also don't forget the magic of using 0.2 weight to blend between bones ;)

[@notDreadful]

Thank you very much

[@taupepigeon2435]

Hey, for the rig, did you use the rigify skeleton, or the UE Mannequin skeleton, if the Mannequin skeleton, how were you able to import it into blender? And if this was the rigify skeleton, did UE identify it as the Mannequin skeleton when importing it into UE5?

[@TheRoyalSkies]

Sure, this is the actual UE5 skeleton, not the rigify one. Just import as fbx, and make sure automatic bone orientation is on - You can't use the mannequin animations with the rigify skeleton in Unreal without major retargetting.

[@taupepigeon2435]

Thankyou. For the FBX did you import it from Maya, or did you import it from UE5 directly, because often when I import directly from UE5, it doesn't appear in blender as a usable rig. Edit: I also wanted to ask, would you recommend using the new UE5 weight painting tool, I've tried it on a few characters, but it is a little hard to see which parts were properly painted, and the character would look alright in some animations but disfigured in others. @@TheRoyalSkies

[@lyubovn.4890]

0:30 There's more to do in order to prepare the model I assume, because when I do this and click "with automatic weight" nothing happens. I wanted to try that because transfering weights requires a lot of fixing, I wanted to see if this method was smoother.

[@timbridger4681]

Thank you so much

[@chagaze7199]

simple and efficient, bravo

[@FearlessFighterAkida]

I was just about to ask if you were going to re-do the weight painting series because they're a couple of years old now but thank you for the weight painting one

[@TheRoyalSkies]

So far, aside from the addition of pose libraries, and some tricks with the graph editor, rigging/animation seems almost exactly the same. But, if I find something that I think absolutely everyone needs to know is updated, I'll probably release some more Blender 4.0 tutorials in the future :)

[@HatulaKing]

Just realized that when "Paint Mask" is on, "Alt+LMC" does not work for bone selection. God bless you for your videos.

[@Suzuki_Hiakura]

wait... Blender is already 4.0? I thought it just got 3.4 or so lmao. Nice to see an updated tutorial by Royal Skies :D The earlier video was always the one I went to first when having trouble weight painting; its amazing to see how the fixed the xray weight painting that was broken in the earlier video.

[@TheRoyalSkies]

Woops - I meant 4.0.2, but I went ahead and fixed that in the title, thanks for letting me know :)

[@Suzuki_Hiakura]

@@TheRoyalSkies I didn't know though lol, I just refer to all main versions as x.0. Thanks for letting me know that there is a new main version xP and thanks for a nice updated tutorial :D

[@Kdot_bdot]

Thank you sensei

[@ST0RMZZY196]

what about animating long dress , I have downloaded several character online, and they got rig on their skirt , but I feel its really difficult to animate them manually, is there any other method you would recommend?

[@JuanFernandez-ti5bv]

Thank you very much!!

[@ColinFox]

Your stuff is amazing - I assume you are a professional in the industry. I'm curious what you work on - are these game characters, or for animation? And if so, which games or animations have you worked on?

[@TheRoyalSkies]

Hey thank you so much for the kind words - I'm actually just an indie dev who's been doing this stuff for years, but yeah, these are game characters, that I use for game projects and animations, I'm glad you like them :) The most recent project I worked on was called "Macrophage" which you can find on itch.io here: royalskies.itch.io/macrophage Before that I worked on a game called Vanguard Knights on Steam which can be found here: store.steampowered.com/app/652890/Vanguard_Knights/ The archer girl is for my next game project, so I hope you look forward to that when it's done :)

[@iamaylacat3935]

I didn't think it was possible to TLDR a TLDR series any further, but you somehow managed to do it.

[@seikijin2308]

Funny the incorrect hip topology was exactly what i had... well big help. My main issue is while i understand how to do weights i seem to spend a lot of time clearning up spillages to weights and even when i lock the vertex groups of weights ive already done it still spills over.. maybe because weight isnt at weight of 1 or something. That's a bit of advice i'd really like to know... using edit select to select the faces/verts for masking only helps so much. Anyway liked the video xD need to redo a lot of my character i think.

[@TheHaydenAlexander]

Not sure if you went over it in the video or if I just missed it, but "Ctrl + Left Click" does the opposite, so negative weight paint ig (makes it blue lol). Just would've been nice to know as well. Thanks for the short and simple tutorial tho, helped a bunch!

[@sayuriartsy5108]

For the royalty!

[@sainterasmus4545]

Thx man

[@Nebularban]

While not really related to this video, would it be possible for you to make another video about cloud rendering? That Concierge renderer that you showed all those years ago was great, but sadly they no longer support newer versions of blender anymore, I was wondering if there were any more cloud rendering services that you could recommend.

[@fansot0592]

thanks bro

[@cmufcconor8567]

Best video big thanks.

[@jasonruff1270]

alt left click isn't working for me for selecting different bones for weight paint

[@connorryzen7020]

3:44 how can we do this in maya?

[@VoltitanDev]

One of my issues with weight paint is tyat i can't paint in face mode but paints fine in vector

[@jawadoumar]

peerfect tut

[@gormleikr]

How do you make the faces show up outlined in weight paint mode? My mesh is just a block of blue with no indication of where my faces end. When I click on the "paint mask Face selection for painting" (face icon) button is shows faces but does not let me paint. I have a really simple mesh in order to learn so I would be better off if I could just click on a face and have it turn red... instead of whatever the default disfunction is

[@gormleikr]

FOUND IT, you were using Wireframe mode in viewport shading -also, understanding that it was vertices affected rather than faces was something I missed

[@Ekerealms_Animations]

When I tried to turn on mirror x, I was in a different menu and couldn't find mirror. How do I get that menu back?

[@constantinezh7156]

Alt-left click to select bone while in weight paint mode doesn't work, any ideas? I'm in 4.2

[@jeshirekitenkatt1212]

I've been having this issue across several tutorials now - having symmetry checked and active on the x axis does nothing for me. everything up the then is working fine.

[@Alejandro12340]

Would Rigify be a good thing to consider using or stick to building rigs from scratch? After playing around with rigify, and comparing it to what your rig does. It feels very limiting since for example. Despite being modular. I haven’t been able to find a way to add the double joint system for knees and elbows without breaking everything and other things that make the whole thing look nice.

[@ahmetpayza]

i really need help about weight paint mode in blender; When i press Ctrl+Z hot key for undo my weight paint strokes blender goes back to edit mode Any solutions for how to undo / redo weight paint strokes? If you take your time to answer It would be appericiated If you help I'll be gratefull Thanks

[@senoriasmith6967]

Ok this might be an stupid question but how do you get the colors so you can see what your doing

[@ninalassig8708]

I weight painted everithing to the correct bone, but still the wrong parts of the mesh move (for example by moving the arm) i need help pls

[@McNugggy]

Anyone know why It won't let me select bones after doing alt + Left click on the bone

[@joygamesinteractive]

found out?

[@empiresageof8550]

thx

[@InfernalWAVE]

another banger

[@Tekow1]

it would be great to have some tips on how to do the breast, armpit area and butt properly as they are being a pain to do properly with clothing while also looking good.

[@Anime4Music]

I was waiting the 0.2 life saver It's been my religion since the original weigh paint video We're losing the traditions :'( everytime a rigger doesnt use 0.2 an animator cries (Sad Smallest Violin Music) 🌧️🎻🦗🌧️

[@TheRoyalSkies]

Oh No!! You're right, I should have mentioned, that "if the smoothing doesn't work" - .2 is the way to go lol - Next, time I'll be sure to keep the tradition alive, thanks for reminding me :)

[@firecryDOC]

Sube un vídeo de físicas de huesos actualizados para blender 4.2 😊

[@Xanderthefurry]

It won't let me select bones

[@KittyPikaChu]

Bruh my mirror x doesn’t work

[@venkateshsalvadi7073]

make face rigging video with controllers.plzzzzz!

[@sunnymon1436]

Alt+Left Click? Didn't it used to be Ctrl+Right Click. I wonder why it changed.

[@derp3694]

Thank you blender Joey Wheeler ❤

[@driver7227]

4.2?

[@SKOP320]

Sliding in with that crisp Algo comment.

[@atoaster2070]

Okay, I read the video title and immediately thought, "Hold up, 4.2 is already in alpha?" I assume you meant 4.0.2, right?

[@TheRoyalSkies]

Oh wait, you're right - FIXED the title! Thanks for letting me know!

[@kavilpparwar4956]

Bro when are we getting face reveal? 😂😂

[@thatTEXANguy]

I CAN GET WEIGHT MOOOOOODE

[@opti12]

ALgo!!!

[@YT.lt3ag4s]

Algo for the algorithm

[@astralgg_]

I love u

[@remusveritas739]

why are you first selecting the armor and then the body, this is exactly what you would have to explain

[@manuelsanchez-xz9dj]

OJO

[@schonkigplavuis8850]

I just cannot do this. I cannot no matter what i do there keeps geometry spikes. Even after 4 hours of weightpainting it's still garbage. Moving the leg just a little breaks everything. I have to do this for 14 characters i cannot do this

[@raxo7546]

algo

[@darthvadder0]

Algo

[@322ss]

Don't quite agree with the argument about hip edge loops having to be diagonal or make deformation work better. Pretty much the opposite works too in practise, but linear skinning for 90+ degree bends will never work that well, shape will start to break down or collapse, whatever word you want to use to describe the result. And when you add clothes, those definitely won't follow an imaginary edge flow, or such ideal topology. Adding some corrective setups will solve this, like you've done, but that is another thing. Also, your character fingers could have worked a bit better with proper joint lengths and placements and more weight painting (in addition to a few extra loops), diagonal edge loops won't make the fingers bend better either. T-pose hands would have been easier to measure, as fingers are pretty much split/dimensioned length-wise by golden ratio, that too helps a lot along with a proper knuckle placement to create better fist shapes and such.

[@DarkWorlds]

please slow down for the love of god

[@akiraakiraakiraakira]

"if you hold alt and leftclick you will be able to select a bone" .... well i am not xD

[@williamtolliver749]

Basically everything in this video: STOP skipping retopo!

[@iainprendergast8311]

The speed at which you do video makes it longer for the viewer. If I have to constantly rewind. Slow down.

[@DaDarkDragon]

mhtiroglA

[@verse369]

[@RantyBlue]

Thank you!