Hiding faces to help paint skin weights

[jase107]

Hi, I'm having some problems hiding faces so I can assign skin weights. Basically I've assigned various polygon selections to selection sets which I can then isolate in the view panel, the idea being that when I paint on skin weights I'm only working on the pieces I need. However the paint tool doesn't seem to know what faces are hidden. I've tried various other methods like using the hide faces option in the bonus tools but that doesn't seem to work with meshes that have smooth binding.
Does anyone have any useful techniques or tips they can share with me? They would be very appreciated.

[naughty]

If you go to my MEL page you'll find a hideSelectedFaces script. you could always try that... it was written for 4.5 but it should work on any version of Maya..

http://www.naughtynathan.supanet.com/data/mel.htmhttp://www.naughtynathan.supanet.com/data/mel.htm

I've never used the bonus tools so I can't say that my "hide faces" MEL is any better but it may be different enough that it'll work for you where bonus Tools didn't...

I've just checked my page, and the hideSelectedFaces.mel currently there is an older version, by all means try it but I've got a newer, improved version ready to upload (when i get home tonight). so don't forget to check back tomorrow!

:nathaN