I want to rig and animate a few simple things but I'm having trouble understanding what exactly the workflow should be.

Say I want to animate a tube with 2 bones. I can capture the geometry points with the bones, but some points are assigned to the wrong bone or not at all. How do I fine tune the weights? Is there a weight-painting tool, or a spreadsheet?

The docs are a bit confusing and lack examples so I'm not sure how best to proceed.

Edit: Details View would almost be good enough but I can only see the values, not change them. If I try to change them, the node becomes locked and the changes are reverted to original.

One or more of these tools from the Character shelf:
- Edit Capture Regions
- Paint Capture Layer
- Edit Capture Weights

I don't get it.

If I change my captured regions then parts the captured geometry deforms wheras I would expect it to remain in its reststate.

If I add a Edit Capture node then the tooltip tells me to CTRL middle click to add to the spreadsheet but where is that spreadsheet hidden? And how do I finish assigning the bones? Press enter does nothing.

Can't I just select points and then, in a spreadsheet-like window, assign weights?

I think adding successions of captureoverride nodes may allow me to edit point weights individually. A bit cumbersome but…

ugh….
you should be able to do 99% of your weighting with the capture regions + capturePaint…if you need to adjust the weights of a single point(s) try the EditCaptureWeights tool in the viewport.

Hmm. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I'm a big fan of the old weight editor in xsi. You select your points and see exactly what bone contributes what percentage to what point, and you can change it all at any time during your asset building without putting down nodes after nodes. I don't find it very easy to guess from point or surface colors if there's a mad bone somewhere deeply hidden contributing 0.5% to a points weight, or setting a bunch to 50% to that bone and 25% to this and 25% to that other one. Well, I suppose it's just a matter of getting used to it.

use EditCaptureWeights tool from shelf as arctor said, it is very intuitive
i find it much easier and joy to work with than in XSI
just select points and you can notice diamond like shapes on bones, those are weight sliders for interactive adjusting weights in viewport
or press Spreadsheet button just above viewport to adjust weights for selected points as you are used in XSI

and with repetitive usage of this tool no additional node is created just the same Capture Override SOP is reused

Oh OK. Thanks tamte, it starts making sense now!

I still don't understand why some of my points deform as I adjust the capture regions. Please see attached image. It's supposed to be a sphere but when I adjust the capture regions the top and bottom parts deform.

I've seen that little diamond slider now that you mentioned it. Clever indeed, but if I move it the tiniest amount away from 0 the selected points go crazy (left image)

What is going on?

http://screencast.com/t/cUTz1Cnx0 [screencast.com]

Oh wow, thanks so much Edward. Many thanks indeed.

I really agree with this user!

the rigging,skinning process in houdini is not that obvious and clear at first sight…

when i creat an auto rig, i really cant understand if that structure is already bones or i must assing the bones before?

i could make the bones influence the geometry and paint the weights, but not more than this

i have experience from Maya and 3ds max on rigging, but i read all docs, saw that tutorial about rigging a quadruped, etc. i tried to make like i see in the video, part by part, but at the end..my mesh was not attached to the rig! i

On houdine tutorials there is lots of info about dynamics,fluids, fire, etc…
but i do think is needed for now (and i see about other posts on this forum)
i very clear tutorial about skinning and rigging a character.

seens to be a lack, its not really a complaint on this great forum.
But just a sugestion that will help a lot of users in here