Ever got stuck with mirroring the muscle weight with standard #Maya skin weights mirror tool? Well mirroring weights in Maya is based on the world space XYZ transformation co-ordinate of joint or influence object. Maya muscle objects on the other hand is frozen in transformation, as a result we are unable to mirror weights and usually stuck with painting the weights on both sides. Well for some cases this is a nice choice since we have asymmetry in deformation but for the most the time, this is frustration to repeat the same thing on the other side and a waste of time. Asymmetry can be created with simple corrective shapes, no problem!
Well there is a clever solution to this problem. Why don't we just go on to attach the influence objects to create a single mesh. Selecting left and right influence nurbs object (muscle mesh) and attaching them to create a single mesh! There you go, that was SIMPLE! All you need to do, is paint the weight on the left and the mirroring works like a charm! Pheewww... that saved us some time.
Hope this rigTip comes handy to you:)
If you want to learn more about Musculo-Skeletal deformation, check out these Mini-Workshops at Puppeteer Lounge!
