Keeping refereced files in sync with rig

Pipelines
1

Hey guys, I’m trying to get some input on this workflow issue we’re experiencing. We use Maya.

So this seems like a very traditional issue: Source art scenes are referenced into a second file, where the animators skin and rig the asset, but then artists change the asset.

When artists update the asset in such a way that breaks the skinning (anything that changes the vert order) the animators have to re-skin the mesh. Skinning and re-exporting is decently fast, but it does create work. I’m wondering how and if I can help relieve that pain. I can make an asset for each scene that I can test against to at least build a notification system when the vert order changes, so at least they aren’t caught off-guard – but I’m just curious if anyone has any words of wisdom for these kinds of situations. Is there any opportunity for an automated or semi-automated solution? Best practices or tools for a weight transfer?

Danke

2

I would solve that by letting the atrists or the animators just copy the skin weights form the old mesh. If they have similar topology or similar UV-map - they result often comes out great. Also if I were you, I would make sure this happen before you reference in the scene - aka, don’t skin weight on the reference scene, do it in the original.

3

I always had the modelers do at least some of the weighting because sometimes during painting weights, you find issues where the model needs to be adjusted.

At the very least have the modelers transfer the weights over to make sure they’re new model works correctly. Copying weights from the old mesh to the new one while they’re both in the same scene has always been the best solution that I’ve come up with, and it’s quick and easy to do.