How to transfer weights from a body to clothing in Blender

Painting every bone by hand takes hours. Copying the weights of the body underneath gives a garment that already moves almost right, in seconds.

What you need

• Blender
• A rigged body (the source) and a garment standing on it (the target)

Steps

1. Line them up. The garment must sit on the body exactly as it will be worn. Apply scale and rotation on both.
2. Select in the right order. Click the body first, then shift-click the garment, and go to Weight Paint mode. The garment is the active object.
3. Transfer. Choose Weights > Transfer Weights. In the panel that appears set Vertex Mapping to Nearest Face Interpolated and Source Layers to By Name.
4. Or use the modifier. Alternatively add a Data Transfer modifier on the garment, pick the body as source, tick Vertex Data > Vertex Groups, press Generate Data Layers and apply it.
5. Clean. Run Limit Total (4), Normalize All and Clean.
6. Test and repair. Pose the armature. Loose parts - skirts, wide sleeves, hoods - will need hand painting where they hang away from the body.

Tips

• If the garment has no armature modifier yet, add one pointing at the same armature as the body.
• Transfer from the body version that has the weights you want: a fitted-mesh body gives fitted-mesh weights.
• Smooth the weights once after transferring; it hides small jumps.

Next

• How to weight paint clothing in Blender
• How to rig clothing for Second Life in Blender

Words you do not know? See the glossary. All guides: how-to guides.

This page is a written overview. In the SL Designers video courses you watch clothing being made from start to finish, and our Blender addons take over much of the technical work.