Maya® Studio Projects:

Weighting

Quaternion weighting helps skin deformations tremendously. You no longer need additional bones to help support the volume of skinned parts; you only need to add joints where your character needs them, making the process far more intuitive.

This also helps with the weighting process. Instead of the skin caving in at a bent joint, the volume is maintained, causing the skin to penetrate the opposing side. You can counteract the penetration by painting weight from the opposing side. You can even mix the quaternion weighting with classic linear weighting to have the skin lose some volume in the area, creating the illusion of collision. Both options create a more lifelike fold in the deformation. In the first project, Jack is weighted to ...