[Bf-funboard] Re: Some skinning feature ideas

[Benjamin Tolputt]

Tony Mullen wrote:
> I'm not sure if this was directed towards me, but since my suggestions
> are what seemed to inspire it I'll point out that while numerous
> people suggested hacks or workarounds for the example problems that I
> described, (not all of which I'd been aware of, and I appreciate the
> tips) none of the methods described were similar in actual
> functionality to what I proposed, which I still think would improve
> how weight painting works.
This is something I am in agreement with (to be on the record).
> <snip "poor documentation state" comments>
This is very true. For example, have a look at the Blender documentation 
page for details on Weight Painting. I quote "In this mode dark blue 
represents areas with no weight from the current group and red represent 
areas with full weight". There is no mention of "full weight" being 
something different to what it says. As such, how I read it (and I can 
only assume *many* others do to) is that "RED = 1.0 weight for 
deformation". This is (as nobody here denies) a patently incorrect 
reading, but there is nothing (not even in the Wiki) that corrects this 
plain english understanding of the text.

I personally found the comment a little offensive as I do not believe it 
is the user's fault (as I felt was implied) for not reading all the 
comments & tips scattered across tutorial websites, forums, hell even 
Orange/Blue Elenphant comments.
> So to paraphrase your frustrated quote, I'm saying "but I can find the
> influencing bones five different ways already! the real problem is
> that I want full control over setting one specific weight so that I
> don't have to care about all those other bones!"
A nice summary of my position as well :) I do not doubt that there are 
many ways to accomplish the task of weight painting. I am simply 
suggesting some functionality will make certain common tasks much more 
efficient without affecting the workflow others seem to enjoy.

Regards,
B.J.Tolputt