Blender: Bone Weight Copy Script 3.0 (12-24-2013)

*gerra6* · December 8, 2012

Bone Weight Copy script v.3.0 (12/24/13)

This is a replacer for the Blender Boneweight Copy Script. It serves the same function, but is intended to be much more flexible and powerful.

Speed

The first advantage this script has is speed. In my tests to date, it has roughly a 400x speed advantage over the version packaged with Blender.

Quality

When the "Ring Search Algorithm" is enabled, it tells the tool to treat the selected regions on each mesh as similar structures. It will attempt to match up the outer edges of the selected regions. From there, it will iterate inwards in a ring like fashion, matching up vertex targets by their distance ratio from the edge to the center. In practical terms, this means that with careful selection, this tool does an extremely good job copying otherwise difficult to match weight painting, such as breasts or butts with significant size differences.

Flexibility

Instead of generic quality controls, this script allows you to precisely tune the number of vertices that should be averaged together to generate the copy weight. Similarly, you can set precise limits on the maximum allowed search distance.

Bone Group Selection

The tool allows you to specify exactly which vertex groups you want copied and which should be left untouched. This means that you can easily copy, say, tail bone weights from one mesh to another without affecting any other bones.

Using the tool:

Let's start with an impossible task. Transfer BB Weightpainting from an HGEC-A Cup to a Mega Manga Cup mesh.

Before

Your first step is to select the area that you want copied. We're going to use the ring algorithm, which means that for best results we want an area selected as a series of concentric circles.

So, select a vertex at the center of the region of interest, in this case, the center of the nipple.

Select the mesh, tab into edit mode, and select vertex at the center of the right nipple.

Next hit Control + until the entire region is selected

Hit tab, select the other mesh, hit tab again, and select the center of the right nipple on this mesh.

Once again hit control + until the entire region is selected

Hit tab to return to object mode. With the destination mesh selected, hold down shift and select the source mesh.

Click on Object -> Scripts -> BoneWeight Copy 2.2

The settings in the tutorial image are pretty good settings if I am looking to exactly copy vertices. If I wanted to get averaged weights, I'd increase "Vertex Targets".

Note, I have selected "Mirror After Copy". This means that I will only be copying from one side of the source mesh, but that the vertex groups will be mirrored (R/L) to both sides of the destination mesh.

Click OK.

Since "Select Vertex Groups" was selected, a second menu appears. This contains a button for every single vertex group found on the mesh. Select the ones that you want to copy, leave the other alone.

This feature allows you to specify precisely which vertex groups should be copied. In this case, I am interested in copying BB Breast weightpainting, so I select all of the relevant OP bone groups.

And the results

And the automatically mirrored left side

Compared to the Original

Note: The weightpainting was intentionally exaggerated to better demonstrate the fidelity of the copy. Ordinarily anything other than light blue is very bad for BB weightpainting.

Explanation of Menu Options

Vertex Targets

This tells the tool how many vertices on the active mesh should influence the weight assigned to any given vertex on the context mesh.

A 1 here means that you're getting an exact copy of the weights of a single vertex, higher numbers means that you get a weighted average (by relative distance) of the boneweights.

Max Distance

How far (in Blender distance units) should the tool look for targets before giving up

Override Distance

Select this if you want to guarantee that every selected vertex finds a target, no matter how distant.

Select Vertex Groups

Specify exactly which vertex groups you want to copy

Use Ring Algorithm

This is an important one. A simple nearest distance algorithm isn't always the best way to find the most *similar* vertex targets. Selecting this tells Blender that you want it to use the Ring Search Algorithm (developed originally for the Lattice Generator) to find the best matching vertices.

When does this work well? Well, it is at its best when asked to compare vertices that have been selected via the "Grow Selection" option in Blender select a single vertex and hit (Control +) until the desired area is selected. It tends to do best with cones, tubes, sphereoids...essentially any shapes that have nice circular or oval cross sections.

For Best Results, only copy L or R vertex groups when using this method, not both.

Mirror After Copy

If you selected the Ring Algorithm, chances are you only copied vertex groups from either the left or right side. Select this option to automatically mirror those vertex groups.

A warning about the Ring Algorithm Button:

The optional Ring Algorithm (demonstrated in the instructions) is very powerful, but it was designed to be used in conjunction with very careful vertex selection.

This option is designed strictly to copy small, stubborn, sections of the mesh that are otherwise nearly impossible to copy. It will not function on excessively large areas or the entire mesh.

If you receive any errors while using this tool, double check your selected vertices on both meshes and, if necessary, disable the Ring Algorighm.

With any luck at all, this script should be bug free. Please let me know about any bugs or weirdness you encounter.

BoneWeight Copy 3.0 Download:

Combined Blender Scripts Package

Archived Downloads

2.3.a BoneWeightCopy2_3a.7z

Change Log

2.3 to 3.0:

1. Significant improvements in performance, quality, and reliability

2.3 to 2.3.a

1. Bug that resulted in an error message if no target vertices were found in range has been resolved.

2.2 to 2.3

1. Bug that prevented the tool from working if "Select Vertex Groups" was disabled has been resolved

*movomo* · December 18, 2012

Sometimes this fails to start.

http://www.mediafire.com/?kfbs172cybyu2yy

This is the blend file in question.

I tried to use this script ( I don't need this for this file but anyway, I just wanted to run the script)

It fails when I try to copy from upperbody.001 (layer 6) to upperbody.004(layer 1). It's the chest piece of the armor. cmd window reads something is wrong with line 1, 936, 1020.

*gerra6* · December 18, 2012

Sometimes this fails to start.

http://www.mediafire.com/?kfbs172cybyu2yy

This is the blend file in question.

I tried to use this script ( I don't need this for this file but anyway' date=' I just wanted to run the script)

It fails when I try to copy from upperbody.001 (layer 6) to upperbody.004(layer 1). It's the chest piece of the armor. cmd window reads something is wrong with line 1, 936, 1020.

[/quote']

I took a look at the Blender Setup. The problem is actually fairly straightforward.

Boneweight Copy 2.3a will only attempt to copy boneweights for selected vertices on selected meshes. Unfortunately, if a mesh is selected that has no vertices selected, the script gets a bit angry and spits out an error message.

But yeah, don't attempt to copy boneweights to a mesh that has no vertices selected or from a mesh that has no vertices selected. Even without the error message it wouldn't work. This is by design.

I'll probably add a handler with a pop-up message for this type of situation in the next version.

So to copy weights to all of the armor pieces at once, do the following. One by one, select each piece of armor that you want to copy weights painting to, tab into edit mode, hit 'a' until all of the vertices are selected.

Once that is done, select the meshes that you want to copy from. Join them into a single mesh object (this is important, but optional...the tool will only copy from a single mesh object at a time.). Hit tab and make sure that all of the vertices are selected, once again.

Then just run the tool.

*movomo* · December 18, 2012

..Oh my god. nevermind. how stupid I am.

*gregathit* · December 20, 2012

Ok, I "think" I am trying to do the same thing that Movomo was talking about but I am getting errors so I am probably doing something wrong. What I am trying to do is make the dress I converted from DMRA to HGEC-GMR not clip when the breasts start bouncing. I am trying to copy the breast weighting to the dress chest area so they both bounce the same. After importing the outfit (it already has the body) I then delete the skelly and:

1. I select the upperbody in object mode.

2. I tab to edit mode and hit A to get all of the upperbody selected.

3. I tab back to object mod and select the dress.

4. I tab to edit mode and hit A to select all of the dress.

5. I tab back to object mode.

6. With the dress selected I then shift+select the upperbody.

7. I run the tool (version 2.3a).

8. I disable the mirror button since I am doing the whole upperbody at once.

9. I click ok, and..........

Bang! Error:

File "", line 1, in