Rigging for Beginners: Painting Weights in Maya

Hi Creators,
In this video tutorial, we cover how to skin a character. We will be painting weights and also using the component editor. It is a tedious but necessary part of rigging, but you'll love the results.
There's a lot of information, so let's get started!
Software Used: Maya 2019
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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[@anxientdesu]

this video series has actually been a lifesaver because my professor didnt do a very good job at explaining what each thingie does. thank you thank you thank you!

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

You are so welcome!

[@tampajoeyz230]

Even after years, I still come back to brush up on some things. Thanks for the awesome tutorials.

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Great to hear! 😊

[@TopsonNoble]

I enjoyed watching your video Many people complain that skin weight painting is tedious and stressful but personally, I enjoy doing it... I find it therapeutic for some reasons, like having control over which components a joint can influence is pretty a fun stuff to do...

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Agreed! It might be stressful when you first learn about it, but like UV mapping, it becomes calming and therapeutic. :)

[@danpym3D]

That Fatal error was soo funny! That's why I love your videos, your tutorials are so close to the real thing not like others KZbinrs that make perfect and flawless videos. Keep the good work!

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thanks Dan! I like to show viewers that crashing is ok, and it's a lesson to learn to save often! :D Thank you for watching!!

[@RayCaesar1111]

I have been painting weights and using the component editor for years but didn't know I could select the vertices and only have the painted weights tool only affect those specific vertices. Thanks so much, even though I am reviewing tools I have used many times I always learn something new from you.

[@mattiehoward9027]

I wish I’d learned about component editor sooner! This sped up my work flow so much. When I use paint skin weights my progress sometimes gets reset and takes me forever to do. This video definitely made rigging more fun for me!

[@NightDefender1765]

I think your tutorial breaks down every process step by step. You take your time to explain the parts of the rig. It is easily understable where you can follow along with the steps. Your rig is very detailed. I think the part about grouping is quite tricky honestly. The part about the finger controls was tricky The feet controls were the most trickiest part Though the weight painting is more frustrating then the other parts Though I like your tutorial for rigging. I didn't have a easy time finding the best animation tutorials online I can follow your tutorials So whenever I try to make rigs for my 3D models I always use your videos for reference Thank you for your help I learned alot from you I want to make animation videos

[@Iswick123]

I really love your tutorials. They're so helpful. I don't know where I'd be without them!

[@mando074]

Every time I come back to your tutorials I try to click on "like" and then I realize I had already clicked it from the last time I watched it. Great job on all of these! 😊

[@labaker4285]

Every time I want to try learning to model again I rewatch your videos and then remember how much work it is. 😭

[@marcogeld8204]

Haha that 1:10 character movement was so co-ordinated with your voice when you look at the eye's movement.

[@rpkgraphiks9011]

Thanks for helping, BTW you have to hold B and left click n drag to change the radius of the brush instead of pressing middle mouse button.

[@SilverSkylark]

(just for my reference): 2:26 - Component Editor [select vertices > Windows > General Editor > Component > Smooth Skin > zero out inappropriate influences] 4:00 - Paint Weight [Right click > Paint Weights: White = full influence, Black = zero influence]

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Awesome!

[@amargaming5658]

woooahh really impressed with this technic of skin weight .... i always have problems in skinning weight

[@kookuromiii]

YOU ARE AN ANGEL I COULDN'T THANK U ENOUGH FOR ALL THESE TUTORIALS I WISH U SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS ONLY

[@kookuromiii]

ALSO U R REALLY FUNNY I ENJOY UR VOICEOVER

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

You're so welcome 😊 I'm it helps you become a stronger artist!

[@parkerellis6761]

Thanks to your tutorial I will be able to fix my character with the animation process thanks so much

[@dennissabrievski4543]

Purely gold! Aah I’ve learnt a lot throughout your rigging tutorial series. I’d never know I’d learn skin painting normally I tend to lose my brain cells to understand all the business there lol very insightful! I’m an animator myself but grasped some and can make use of what I’ve learnt it can be bonus in my career in the future. rigging is always a bonus and advantageous to know I think I only have a question lady would you mind sharing the model with us so that we can rig it onto it in the future ? I really want to practice and create my own rig

[@NightDefender1765]

I've learned a lot from her tutorials too. They're simple and easy to follow if you want to learn to rig.

[@gamegod5559]

Hey , love your tutorials a lot. Maybe next time you can tell some hard surface modelling tips, like how to make a complex designs and manage edges of it. Thank you.

[@kelsye204]

I just want to say thank you because you save my project :'D

[@Pixelnocra]

a very good and clear overview about weights and very nice is the option with component mode i happpy that there is more as only way to fix the skinning :D my boss in my animation internship never told me something about the component mode xD

[@prasinkar707]

Great tutorial mam !!! Quick yet informative. It helped me a lot. Thank you very much.

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Glad to hear that!!

[@feathertails]

this video is fantastic, thank you so much

[@zepheral7125]

I wanted to say thank you. I got an A- on my final. Also you remind me of my professor, he also makes noises when modeling.

[@eighteyedfluffball]

Blend shapes will be illuminated! That means, I'm an almost happy person :-P Thank you very much, Monika. The riggers I know are tight-liped and serious guys. It's a challenge to angle some modern and working technics from them. This is very closed profession, as I noticed. But I want to break through in it someday.

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Keep pushing Joan! Rigging looks like magic, but once you learn how, it's not so bad. :)

[@rhettpeter83]

yeah there are guys at my college who know how to do this but they won't help out. I think its a mixture of them protecting a specialised skill that gives them a unique advantage in the industry and thinking of the torture they went through learning it and not wanting to give someone else an easy out.

[@vishnurk3107]

Loved it. Its so helpful. You're awesome. ❤️❤️

[@ryanl.1085]

Thanks for this, skin weight painting makes me want to actually bang my head off the desk so thanks for helping take some of that pain away

[@tanny2161]

Hi Monica! thanks for your videos, I have been trying to paint my character but I have a very big problem whenever I change the bone the earlier bone I have been working on doesn't save, doesn't matter if I use paint weight or component editor nothing saves and it is kind of like bones are coloring themselves and don't care what I am doing! I also tried locking the bones in paint weight menu but whenever I unlock them same thing happens!! I hope you would be able to help :(((((((((

[@Totorus]

Thanks for the tutorial Monica. Greetings.

[@EthiopiaOnlineMarket.]

*I love It Thank You*

[@MayjorMayham]

Great video. That was really helpful. Thank you!

[@MultiNathan29]

Quick question Monica, we can add more controls to the fingers after the skin is binded, correct? I would like to add even more controls and build off of this rig (i'm new to rigging). AWesome tutorial btw, I followed it to easily :)

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Hi Nathan, yes you can! Just don't change the name of joints/ctrls, so can add as many attributes as you want in the finger controls. :)

[@andresagudelo502]

Hi Monica, I have a big problem when painting the weight and it is that I select the joint that I need to paint and then when I go to another one, what I painted is not saved, I return to the previous joint and everything I painted simply no longer this

[@mrpinoux]

B + left click to scale the brush, not middle mousse

[@sgiff]

Awesome!!! Woot Woot!! Thank you so much!

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

You are so welcome!

[@xXMABSHREDXx]

Hi I need help, when I flood the paint weight my other joints flood the opposite way every time and I don't know how to fix this.

[@Imran400e]

I don't know what's the problem bt i'd complete shoulder joint paint then go to elbow, wrist, and fingers joint to paint..and after that when i come again to see the shoulder paint it's been meshed up and again i fixed shoulder joint paint and see that elbow joint has meshed up... Same thing is going with leg joint and spine... How can i fix it

[@nialismcreates]

How would you attach clothes to a rigged character? I've got all sorts of layers for Gloves, Under Armour, Over Armour, Bandana etc and unsure how you would parent them to the mesh that has the rig bones attached

[@javedakhtar7596]

Very informative, you are doing great job, impressive

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thanks Javed! Glad you liked it. :)

[@FiliaVenti]

I didn't find where you are explaining how to fix the issue with the eyes ((

[@johnenerio6453]

I love your video you've been helpful how to properly paint on Maya for Rigging. Thank you for making this video! You should at least work on a Udemy Maya lectures the way you engage people is amazing.

[@lego1168]

For some reason my paint wieght system does not at all work like this? My paint weight system is red, blue and yellow, and does not let me paint it, I have to select each little square of the mesh to change it.

[@K_drama_dil_se]

thank u so much mam for this helpfull video

[@alexperezacevedo5888]

Awesome explanation!!!

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thank you!!

[@mooooooon9296]

thank you for making this good tutorial .

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Glad it was helpful! Thank you for watching :)

[@FF-FAN9999]

for some reason(maya 2020) RMB+shift shows paint select vertices but not the paint weight tool (although im on the Rigging "mode). Any idea why that might be?

[@ankitaggarwal384]

Best part in rigging 👍

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Lol! Most people hate it, but I find it very relaxing. :)

[@TheBackRoom_Gaming]

Why does this happen - I bound all my joints to the mesh but some of my joints dont show up in the paint weights influence list?

[@michaelalcantara9522]

do you had a video on how you make the joints the whole body?

[@krishnaavrilcg1136]

Hey I did the whole body weighting maps, now I exported weight maps and divided head and body seperate to add blendshapes to head, when I try to import now, Its not working as expected, does this becoz we made two different meshes??

[@badhairstudios]

Thank you …very helpful

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Glad it was helpful! 😊😊

[@kleous7473]

why does my maya freeze and crash when i go to the component editor? seems like it doesnt like that part :/

[@sgimancs]

Many thanks!

[@iamfilipz3289]

Thanks Monica

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

You're so welcome! 😊

[@Conceptsofsanket]

Hi, can you make a tutorial where you ad extra joints in the clothing and skin it ?

[@swapnilnikam9742]

you are awesome.🤩

[@Edisius95]

How do I do all the vert and poly selecting stuff?

[@ernestoggg4873]

Love youuu!! Thanks for this!

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thanks Ernesto! I really appreciate it. :)

[@ericbruunk9120]

you are the best

[@viruxmenx]

Well.. skin weights are so frustrating, I hate that when I m painting somewhere it recalculates the weights in the other controlers next to it.

[@osegueraadrian20]

can you do a video on how to simulate a ball pit for an animation

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

That's a cool idea. If I have time, I'll try to make it. :)

[@ankitaggarwal384]

Thnks for this tutorial

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thank you for the support, Ankit!

[@dacugna567]

I have a Q, when I try to edit weights on a allready rigged charac, after i paint what i need to change and go on to the next part i want to edit, the last edit seems to go away.. any suggestions? locking and unlocking doesn't change a thing..

[@sagarmore4968]

Thank You

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

You're very welcome!

[@birdlady4067]

I wonder how to make facial rigging and what null-node is. I have big trouble in basic rigging. It was fuckin hard and know I realized why we have less rigger than any other position. Hope you make some lecture about RIGGING BASIC in further.

[@birdlady4067]

I cannot understand what my teacher is saying about RIGGING.. He says about "zero out" and "controllers" or.. Anyway, thank you for making great video.

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Rigging is hard, that's why they get paid big money! Make sure to watching my first tutorial which goes over the foundations of rigging. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z6jZlYSvZ6uXntk Null-node usually means a group (ctrl+g) with no models under it. Just a blank node. The nice thing about these is that you can move your models around with manipulating the actual geometry. It's a rigging trick. :)

[@jakerafil3982]

This tutorials really saved my ass

[@amrito9580]

XD

[@malte9614]

i dont get how u managed to be able to turn the head with neck and head ctrl ill try it but it doesnt work

[@rhettpeter83]

I followed these tutorials from the start and had the same issue. I tried to solve it for weeks but with my deadline fast approaching I ended up just removing the neck controller and having the head controller as the sole controller, pivoting at the top of the neck and adjusting the rest with weights

[@solider191]

Question will the full tutorial be put onto udemy when it is completed

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Sure, I can do that. :)

[@curlyt8198]

Great thx ❤️

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

You're welcome! 😄

[@jayaseelanpalani2120]

Love it

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thank you!

[@dance8455]

Thnks for your videos, are great

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Thanks for watching! :)

[@RavageStudio]

When i bind skin my legs dont bind? you know why?

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Is it separate mesh? You need to make sure you select each individual piece of geometry before binding. I hope that helps!

[@RavageStudio]

@@AcademicPhoenixPlus I figured it out. I apparently didn't select all joints before binding, even though they were highlighted.

[@elian3151]

When i try to remove the part which shoulden't be affected by the arm in the component editor. It does so. But something weird happens when I try to zero multiple effected parts. Many parts of my (different) model are affected by the movement of his arm. The whole hip just magically streches out to the hand and the arm, almost like the hand is pulling very hard on the skin without even touching it. But that is not really the weird thing. The weird thing is when I zero out multiple parts, it somehowe resets the parts I just zero-ed. So it deletes the proces I made by resetting everything. Now I tried selecting less vertexpoints or loading each components individually, nothing worked yet. I tried the internet: no luck so far. Maybe you know what I am doing wrong?

[@elian3151]

Love the series btw, its great help with my schoolproject!!

[@elian3151]

I Kinda figured it out. I shoulden't zero the parts that I don't want to be moved. I should do it the other way around. I am completely lost as why this is logic but.. ok then hehe. I somehowe succeed doing this by selecting only one or two vertexpoints. But now I got a point where the hip (the part that shoulden't be moving at that place) doesn't occur in the component editor. I can only zero out the fingers of the hand; the joints in the fingers. Ring_jnt1 etc. So I have no idea which of those joints to zero, and I can't zero all of them because that would reset the whole proces: the total needs to be 1,000.

[@elian3151]

Tried it with painting, but I am not able to paint away what should be painted away. Neither can I add influence. The brush and all the options show up, that's no problem. It's just that nothing seems to get painted.

[@elian3151]

Never mind, I set the value of the hip to 1,000. It worked!

[@hazemmahmoud5774]

You are awesome as usual Monike :) , I always need a reminder about Maya's weight paint because it has few tricky things, I weight paint in Blender & Daz Studio but not sure why I fail to do the same goodness with maya lol

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

You got this Hazem!

[@wolf-marks9353]

is there a way to fix a mistake without starting from zero?

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

It depends what type of mistake. You can always fix painted weights. If you need to add geometry to your character, then you'll have to rebind. If you need to add joints, you'll need to rebind too. It really just depends what is going on with the rig.

[@SumroGaming]

Thank you so much Can you make cycle animated.

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Yep! I'm working on this now. This is the first video. :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z5fEpnqNbLKIarc

[@רזראובן-ט9פ]

i have the same error she had at 5:07 can anyone know how to fix it? it ruin my project and i cant fix it

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

I'm sorry to hear that. Usually Maya crashes, it saves a version of it (gives you a path when it gives you a fatal error). It's also recommend that you have save in iterations (v1, v2, v3, so on) of if the file corrupts, you can go back to an earlier version. Corrupted files happen more than we like, but it happens and we have to be prepared for it. I hope you get your file resolved!

[@kutuzoff2x2]

fatal error, love Maya )

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

I happens. I hoped you saved!

[@CVerse]

Can't be a Maya video without it crashing lol

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

😄

[@pascalkienast711]

this is the most disgusting part of 3D! but good video

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

It's the most frustrating but rewarding when it works 😀

[@william_chidube]

So I went ahead and was painting weights then I deleted the history...

[@TrenchKyle]

8:05

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

👀

[@crazy_gamer8540]

this why maya is better than blender

[@benwil1785]

Maya's weight painting tools are shockingly bad

[@underbelly69]

blendshape facial expressions next?

[@AcademicPhoenixPlus]

Here you go! kzbin.info/www/bejne/aHTIXqamiLtjqJo

[@underbelly69]

@@AcademicPhoenixPlus nice one!