Error: Sum of weights should be 100

[Kuzuri 11]

RPT log is throwing up a bunch of errors like this on a Chopper model:  vertex: 1046, sum of weights is 200, should be 100.

 

I've checked the weights and they all seem to add up to 100.

 

Ordinarily I would ignore the error but the stutter on loading the model when the game writes to the log is very long. What am I missing??

[UK_Apollo 475]

1. Check that you don't have any bone skeleton errors. i.e. a vertex shared between bones

2. Select all objects in the LOD, right click in the Named Selections window, choose 'Weights'. Look for any non-100 weights and change them to 100.

[road runner 4344]

5 hours ago, UK_Apollo said:

1. Check that you don't have any bone skeleton errors. i.e. a vertex shared between bones

2. Select all objects in the LOD, right click in the Named Selections window, choose 'Weights'. Look for any non-100 weights and change them to 100.

I wish I knew this years ago!!

So all the weights should be 100 yes?

[UK_Apollo 475]

Coming back to this briefly, it should be mentioned that vertices in a bone can be weighted (Object Builder > Edit > Edit Mode > Paint Vertices [N]), often to give curvature effects on animation. 

This is commonly seen in helicopter blades, where they droop at rest, and then flex upwards as engine revolutions increase.

In this case, it is intended for weights to be non-100% and setting them all to 100% would not be the correct approach.

 

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Note it says sum of weights.

You can of course paint verts to have weights less than 100% but presumably it expects the skeleton's total vertex weight to be 100% - like if it's weighed 30% to one bone, it should be weighed 70% to the connected bones.

 

Or at least not exceed 70% and create like a 110% weight or something.

For certain when you're animating a weapon or vehicle with regular mechanical animations rather than ones with weights, the skeleton breaks when you have a bone selection that has verts that are also part of parent selection.

e.g. if you have a tank with a "gun" selection for elevating that is included in the "turret" selection for traversing and try to animate it with the skeleton set up as

"turret","",
"gun","turret"

I suppose that would be equivalent to 200% weight of some of the verts in the "gun" selection to the "turret" bone.

So that will break the skeleton unless you separate the "gun" and "turret" selections completely in the model.