How to stop T-Stance legs from melting together

[Kuraudo]

Dear Members of this huge community,

First of.. Nice to meet you all!
I've been a roamer for a long time now..

(Using Maya/Blender/3dsmax) < forgot to post what I'm using
I've been ninja'ing all the information I could and studied all the threads closely to see how I could mess around with some of these amazing models.

I wish to use some models from Kingdom Hearts for a specific short I want to make.. I need the models to be bendable etc.. so I rigged them to act like it, but whenever I have the models play around their lower-legs are connected.. shoes/kneecaps etc ..

I've been looking how to edit this properly, but I've been wasting a lot of hours in trial and error..

Is there anyone able to tell me how to adjust the legs/shoes/kneecaps so they don't melt together?

My sincerest apologies if this isn't the right area to ask this..
But it's the start of a small project and I've been spending an entire weekend on this, I'm addicted to messing around with models now..!

[valforwing]

I agree with you, the KH models are full of this problem.

[gagex2z]

Dear Members of this huge community,

First of.. Nice to meet you all!
I've been a roamer for a long time now..

(Using Maya/Blender/3dsmax) < forgot to post what I'm using
I've been ninja'ing all the information I could and studied all the threads closely to see how I could mess around with some of these amazing models.

I wish to use some models from Kingdom Hearts for a specific short I want to make.. I need the models to be bendable etc.. so I rigged them to act like it, but whenever I have the models play around their lower-legs are connected.. shoes/kneecaps etc ..

I've been looking how to edit this properly, but I've been wasting a lot of hours in trial and error..

Is there anyone able to tell me how to adjust the legs/shoes/kneecaps so they don't melt together?

My sincerest apologies if this isn't the right area to ask this..
But it's the start of a small project and I've been spending an entire weekend on this, I'm addicted to messing around with models now..!

There are a couple of ways to fix this problem. Most of them require some level of modeling skill though.

I can help you fi you're using maya. I'm sure blender and 3ds max has a similar set of options.

Your problem is caused by one of two things. One, the verts are overlapping so when you bind your geometry to the bones the weighting doesnt know to keep the legs separate. this can be fixed either with the component editor and setting each vertice' weight to 1 the opposite side. I usually set it to 1 on the opposite hip bone, then I go into the paint wieghts tool options and spread out the weighting information to the knee and foot respectively.

The other thing that can happen is the verts themselves actually fuse together. this is a much more difficult problem though still largely surmountable.

To fix this first check if the model is made symmetrically. Meaning, if the left or right side of the model is the same. If so then line teh model up so it's centerline is on the grid line int eh front view then carefully select all the faces from the waist up and hit

mesh

extract.

This will open the model from the waist. Hide the new top geometry so you can see in through the hole in the waist and select the faces of the opposite leg. then delete them. This shoudl leave you with half of a lower part of the character. then

mesh

mirror geometry or

duplicate the mesh and then scale it with a -1 in x then go in and manually merge the verts on the centerline while avoiding the overlapping legs.

you should now have the verts separated then you can re attatch the top part or leave it in peices for easier rigging.

[valforwing]

I mostly just save it as a 3ds and hope that the parts are separate.

[Naruto200Man]

I usually seperate them by selecting the polygons modifier, selecting the polygons I want to be seperate and click detatch
I'd make a tutorial, but I'm lazy XD

[fire]

Yes agree with you. Awesome strategy.