Does DS 4.6 officially support non-normalized weightmapping?

Kattey

I've noticed that in DS 4.6 if two bones have strong weightmaps that affect the same area whose weightmaps are no longer 'subtracting' from each other like in was in DS 4.5 to total 100%, and it is possible to have two or more strong weightmaps affecting the same area at teh fullest.

Is that true?
If yes, is that default mechanics, or they are only working for me like that because I switched off normalized maps on my Weightmapping Brush tool and when I'd load such item back into new scene it will auto-normalize itself again? Do non-normalized maps are saved in the product as non-normalized maps and do they seen as such in brand-new DS 4.6?

Richard Haseltine

Yes, DS 4.6 optionally allows non-normalised weight maps. The default is still normalised, but you can turn it off (for the whole figure) in Tool Settings. The advice is, I believe, to get the rigging finalised for the conforming bones with normalised on, then to turn it off for ghost bones if needed.

Midnight_stories

This really good it was one of my pet hates about the DS weight mapping plus I think it will do a better job converting over to poser, Good info Richard Thanks !

Kattey

Richard Haseltine said:

Yes, DS 4.6 optionally allows non-normalised weight maps. The default is still normalised, but you can turn it off (for the whole figure) in Tool Settings. The advice is, I believe, to get the rigging finalised for the conforming bones with normalised on, then to turn it off for ghost bones if needed.
Thank you, Richard.

Do you know, is there anything special I should click or unclick in my figure so DS 4.6 won't normalize it automatically on load? I'm asking because:
The default is still normalised, but you can turn it off (for the whole figure) in Tool Settings.

I'm wondering if I save and load such figure, will it load normalized or non-normalized for another user?

Richard Haseltine

The setting is stored with the figure, although it's set via the Tool options pane it is an item property (like joint rotation order).

Kattey

Richard Haseltine said:

The setting is stored with the figure, although it's set via the Tool options pane it is an item property (like joint rotation order).

So as long as I set it in Weightmapping Brush tool, it will be stored?

Should I set it for each bone, or it is set once and for all figure?

Richard Haseltine

It's a per-figure setting, which is why you want to do the weight-mapping for the conforming bones (which almost certainly need to be normalised) first, then switch it off and add any extra maps that need it off (and leave it off, of course).