[Bf-funboard] Some skinning feature ideas

[Michael Crawford]

> Michael Crawford wrote:
>> [RE: Making the change a toggle enabled function] I'm cool with  
>> that.  Sounds good.
> If I have (sort-of) convinced you on this, can we get some feedback  
> from others as to whether this is something that can be moved on?

Well i still think it's doomed but i might be wrong.

>> Yeah...  I dunno.  I would suspect it's more intuitive for new  
>> (non-"convert") users.
> Possibly, I cannot really argue either way on that (being a  
> "convert"). On the other hand, most packages that represent  
> influence weights with colour (well, all that I know, but I haven't  
> used the sum total of packages available!) have a "full weight"  
> colour representing a "full weight / 1.0" deformation influence.  
> XSI, Project Messiah,

Now that's a really handy idea.

>> I would think most people would find it easier to judge weight by  
>> color...
> No arguments here. My confusion stems from the fact that the colour  
> value does not mean the same thing from bone to bone, vertex to  
> vertex because the meaning changes depending on how many influences  
> the vertex has and what colour they are.
>> silly idea perhaps.. what about multiplying the value and color  
>> for this hypothetical display mode.
> You would have to explain this to me somewhat better as I do not  
> understand what you mean by this

K.  suppose you take what would normally be the "normalized" view,  
represented as black an white, and multiply that with the color.  Now  
you get what I mean?  This way you display normalized, and non- 
normalized values at once.  then you actually *can* change the  
default view.  for this to work though, lighting should probably be  
removed from weight paint mode and wire made default.

>> Yeah, but whatever you set the "auto-truncate" value to becomes  
>> the effective new zero point (if my brain is still working, i need  
>> coffee).  If you have stray weights now, they're always going to  
>> be bigger than this.
> Correct, but that was always the problem for me with "stray  
> weights". I don't mind having vertices with weights greater than a  
> certain value. If said value is high enough - you can always SEE  
> the fact it is being influenced by the selected bone.

well if you can't see it, why do you care about it anyway?

>
>> Oh shit.  Where did mesh>tube go? Simpler?  eeh.  I'll patch my  
>> source and shut up about it. some obnoxious user is probably going  
>> to raise a stink about it at some point anyway :P
> *laugh* Each to their own. I have found that (in general) changes  
> in Blender have been for the better. The fact that you also still  
> use Blender "implies" you feel the same way (even if you don't like  
> ALL their decisions). With open-source, there is always a way  
> around said road-blocks (Alexander's IBlender is a great example of  
> this)
>> Oh heck no it's not obvious at first...
> This being the very definition of "unintuitive" *grin*

yeah... but you have to weigh intuitive against potential ease of  
use...  (vim is a super efficient editor if you bother to learn how  
to use it, Or you could use notepad)... ok.  extreme example.