Hello, all =) This is my first post here, but I've found this place through Google many times.
My question is this: Is it possible to get the correct weights for polygon meshes which were bound to a skeleton and then subsequently combined?
For example, if you create a two polygon spheres, and a chain of 2 joints within each, and then bound each one to their respective skin, the weights returned from MFnSkinCluster are correct. But if you select the two spheres and then use Polygons->Combine, the skin clusters are not combined so you now have two skin clusters affecting the same mesh.
I was able to get a list of all the skin clusters affecting the newly combined mesh, and the weight data seems to be there, but the problem is, even though I'm passing an array of components which are supposed to correspond to the vertices on the visible bound mesh, and none of the functions are complaining by giving me a bad MStatus, the returned vertex weights for both spheres always seem to start at vertex zero. So I get double weights for one sphere, and no weights for the other.
I noticed that the paint weights tool doesn't work on such combined meshes, so I'm wondering if it's even possible.
Has anyone else ever experienced this issue and found a solution? Thanks!
--Shon