I was exporting a skinned character from Maya to Cal3D (free skinning library) fine, but then I cut up the mesh in Maya using Mesh|Extract (with Separate option checked). Though within Maya the skinning works, the Cal3D exporter doesn't find bone influences any more when I export the mesh pieces. I need the mesh split up since I need to apply different shaders to different parts. Please help! I don't know what to do. I'm a beginner with Maya and I can't figure out what the problem is and why after separating it into parts it works in Maya but no longer in the exporter. Perhaps the exporter expects that the skinning is the last node in the history for meshes, but then I don't know how I can split up and reattach the mesh while retaining all the painstakingly painted weighting on this rig :(

Hi, I've run into simliar issues. I'm not certain exactly how to solve your problem, but I have a tip for saving your skins so you can modify the mesh and then reapply the skins that can be time consuming to redo. Go here: http://www.comet-cartoons.com/melscript.php and get that comet mel script. There are several handy tools in it, one of them being cometSaveWeights. You set it to use the world cordinates instead of the vertex order and save it out and reapply them anytime. Very,very useful. There are other simliar scripts on highend3d. Good luck.

Hi, thanks for the reply. This looks promising, but when I select the mesh and click the << button which then puts "skinCluster9" in the first box, and I set a directory to save to, then click Save, I get
"Error: cometSaveWeights: You must select one or more points/vertices to save."
I tried selecting by vertices instead of object mode, but then the << button doesn't work...