Could someone tell me how "Create Symmetry Mapping Template" works? I tried taking the default Basic Man Skeleton and Man Body, added an envelope and "Create Symmetry Mapping Template". So far so good, but the weight map in red on one side, green in the middle and blue on the other side. What happened to the original colors? How can I see which part of the body is affected by what bone, now that everything has the same colors? Also, when I try to paint on it, nothing happens.
Don't use a symmetry map to mirror weight editing. Insteand, go onto Net View > XSI Net > Tools > General > Weight Maps/Property Maps, and install the "envevelope self mirror" add-on you'll find there.
It will install a custom toolbar with 2 buttons. All you have to do is edit one side of the envelope, when you're done select all the vertices of this side, click on the self_mirror button, and pick the envelope. I used it several times and it works very well. However, since it's a script it's quite slow, when I used it on a 15 000 polygons object it took 10 minutes to perform the operation.
Hope this helps Salutations - Cheers Bernard Lebel
I had this same problem and it drove me nuts til I stumbled on a solution. What's happening is the Weight Editor is looking at your newly created Sym Mapping Template, rather than the Envelope Weights. Here's what I do: (Can't explain particularly why it works, but it works): In the explorer find your geometry's Cluster folder, open EnvelopWeightCls (the default name) and click on Envelope Weights. You should now see the colored weight assignments, and you can paint weights etc. Conversely, if you open the SymmetryMapCls, and click on Symmetry Map, the Sym Map will be displayed.
That said, I would certainly try Bernard's suggestion as well, just thought this info might help, too.
But the thing I don't like with symmetry maps is that it causes a slowdown to your workflow. Painting a high poly count object is slow, mirroring the weights on the fly can nearly kill XSI. So using a symmetry map is good only with light objects. This is why I use the toolbar scripts instead.