Mesh bone weights are screwed up.

[TomKat93]

The bone weights of my mesh are bad, specifically around the pelvis, knee, and calf. I've tried to copy the bone weights from the pelvis, knee, and calf areas with the unimesh bone tool and extended manual edit, but the movements are awkward.There isn't anything sticking through, though. When the legs move this happens. Images. http://i39.tinypic.com/vipgyf.jpg http://i41.tinypic.com/o75y5v.jpg http://i41.tinypic.com/35jguwh.jpg http://i42.tinypic.com/2v7un3o.jpg
Also, please ignore the black faces and flaps on the legs, because I meant for that. The flaps on the legs are boots. I've tried several times to copy the bone weights, and I haven't gotten it right yet. I just would like to know what I'm doing wrong, because I know it is something, I just don't know what that is. Thank you for any help you can give, guys.

[fakepeeps7]

What are you copying the bone assignments from? What you've got doesn't look that bad... it's just a little extreme, like maybe you copied the assignments from bare legs instead of a skirt. You might need to adjust the bone weights one row up as well, so you don't get such a pronounced bend.

Bone assignments/weights can be tricky, and it's not always a case of doing it "wrong". Sometimes it's just something that needs a bit of tweaking.

[TomKat93]

I had been copying the bone weights from the legs. I had been working on it even after I posted this, I was trying some things, but I think what you just said will fix it. I'm not very experienced with this type of stuff, so I was just kinda confused. Now, why didn't I think of move the bone weights one row up? :faceslap: What you said makes perfect sense. If it is in the exact same place it will bend like a leg, therefore, causing it to be a little extreme. That would probably cause something such as this. Thanks, peeps. :beer:

[WesHowe]

Sharp bends in the mesh are caused by abrupt transitions in weighting from one joint to the next. You can see that where the colors turn sharply from one to another, for example where magenta and purple meet.

As a suggestion, look where you have one row of vertices weighted all/mostly to one joint, and the row above/below weighted to a different one (for example, where the upper and lower legs meet). Make one of these rows 75% upper leg/25% lower leg, and the row below it 75% lower leg/25% upper leg. You should find that the bends are rounder when the legs move.

For even better results, use three rows, 75/25, 50/50, 25/75. This is more art than science, but if you learn to make a gradual transitions in weighting, your meshes will come out a looking lot better during game play. You can space the rows of vertices to gather closer where the bends will be and further apart where there will be less bending, so you don't have to raise your poly count to make a smoother animating mesh.

<* Wes *>

Oh, and the gaps happen because the weights on vertices that are at the same spot (top of the legs) are not weighted exactly the same (same joint assignments and weight values). They probably look good in MilkShape, but when they have different weighting they move in different amounts when animated, causing gaps or penetration.

[TomKat93]

Cool, thanks a lot. This is gonna save me a lot of time. :beer:

[BloomsBase]

I dont know if it was you who asked but i gave earlier the advice that when creating alphaskirt you best use the boneassignements of the body underneath.(butt area)
You prolly did the same with this skirt wich gave the strong animation, you have now a thigh/knee/calve assignement on the skirt that is far from smooth.
In this case the knee area needs to be assigned just the opposite.
Best results here are using a skirt boneassignement and copy these also to the legs.
This will give a strange animation on the legs but you never see those. :)

[TomKat93]

That sounds like a great idea, bloom. :)No, I haven't asked about bone weights until now, because I had not been messing with them much until now.