A general workflow for weighting
Setup:
- Put your character into an extreme pose (which is still realistic though, do not push the borders into senseless areas)
- keyframe the pose (rotation & location) on the time line (frame 0)
- put the pose into the pose buffer
- advance the timeline (to frame 60 for example)
- paste the pose to opposite side
- keyframe the pose (rotation & location) on the time line (frame 60)
- Now use the Timeline handle to scrub over the poses and inspect your weighting between frame 0 and frame 60
This way you can quickly check transitions without need to move the bones all the time by hand. You can define as many different poses as you like on the time line and scrub between the poses as needed. I found this an extremely easy way to test my weight maps.
Create initial weights:
- either start with empty weight groups,
- or let initial weights be generated (automatic from bones, or from bone envelopes, or by weight copy the Avastar weights)
- inspect and locate inconvenient areas.
break down to bone weight editing:
- Select individual bones and try to improve the weights.
- Use the Bone copy/generate tools
Break down to vertex weight editing:
- Using Vertex weight editing tools to adjust single vertices.