A:M Rigging
Rigging & Relationships
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It has been a long time since I have rigged something more complex then a door or a window. And boy did I forget everything. What I have is an electric train pentagram. (For those who don’t know it is the device to draw power from the over head wires). I did some rigging on it but I am drawing a blank on how to set it up. So the user can raise or lower the pentagram. Since this is going in the Contributors Cue with the GG1 I would like to have it set up with easy of use in mind. Pentagram.mdl
Last reply by DJBREIT, -
- 9 replies
- 993 views
I'm working on a model of a trout, and I've got the model and texturing down. Now I need to rig it so that I can start animating. I'm not very good at rigging, so if anyone could give me some pointers, I would be very appreciative. I want to animate as few bones as possible to make animations smoother. The current problem I have is that, whenever I turn a bone along the body, there is a noticeable crease that forms. I've worked a bit on it with bone falloff and CP weighting, but I just lack the experience in this area to make it look believable. I tried looking for a good fish bone system on the CDs, but I couldn't find one.
Last reply by nixie, -
- 7 replies
- 550 views
Hi - I have used the 2001 rig to rig the 5 characters that I have created, and it worked fine, but now I need to learn how to rig a non-stardard character. Is it possible to modify the 2001 rig to the extend to rig this dinosaur character that I created? Any suggestions on what direction I need to go next would be much appreciated. Thank you - Eric
Last reply by flashawd, -
- 23 replies
- 1.7k views
I'm animating a logo for a friend. The original logo consists of simple pen or brush strokes. The "arms" are the handle and spout and the "legs" are just two zig-zag strokes. This should be easy to rig and plenty of squash-and-stretch is spot on for this type of character. A picture of the logo is attached. I'd like to use the TSM2 rig, but the challenge here is that the "hips" and "shoulders" will be offset by 90 degrees (hips side to side like normal characters, but "arms" fore and aft like the coffee pot it is). Since the the various parts are abstract and not actually connected, I'm hoping I can set it up in a normal T pose, then rotate the arms and "body" of…
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 3 replies
- 665 views
I have a finished toon car that I am trying to rig. I'm not sure how to rig the wheels so that they work in the way they need to. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Last reply by camzilla, -
- 1 follower
- 2 replies
- 534 views
Hi guys, I was going through a great book called "Matchmoving" the Invisible Art of Camera Tracking. The first tutorial has you parent a camera to a null as a simple camera rig in 3d. So you move the null to control the camera. Now I'm using version 13 of Animation Master. It seems as though I'd have to create a model that has a camera in the model to do that. But this type of camera does not seem accessible once you drop it into the choreography like the default camera is. You can't delete the default camera and have this camera with a rig take over from there either. Perhaps I'm just doing it wrong. Does anyone have any suggestions on parenting objects in the chor…
Last reply by Frank Silas, -
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- 13 replies
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One approach to rigging a book with pages that need to turn and not look like cardboard. I did this for Kevin Detwiler's "Adventures with Boomer" show. RiggingABook.mov Here's a shaded render of the book and page turn in action. The edges of the pages were set to "render as line" so they would appear to have slight thickness as real pages do. pageturn.mov
Last reply by Rodney, -
- 2 replies
- 644 views
Does anyone have any ideas for rigging a book with turning pages? I'm thinking I do an empty cover with a bone on each cover and spine then pages with a bone that is in the same place and parented to the spine bone. First I need a photo album, then a storybook. The album's pages could stay quite stiff, but maybe some more bone chains with dynamic constraints might make the storybook pages look "floppier?" (more like paper). The photo album is for my current project, the storybook may be for something else. If I design the album first and then the storybook, the person who wants it wants pages to rip out and fly away (gasp!) so I thought I could keep the pages in the …
Last reply by sbk, -
- 3 replies
- 949 views
I have a character that holds a staff and from it is a hook from which a lantern will swing back and forth. But what I want it to do is to swing naturally rather than animated myself if at all possible. So Basically the character will move the stick itself, then depending on the direction, speed, and etc the program will figure out how it will react.
Last reply by Sean delgatto, -
- 1 follower
- 5 replies
- 896 views
I have started rigging my first character and have run into some difficulties. I am a newbie so I am sure alot of the reason why there are problems is my lack of understanding. There are so many hidden bones in the AM 2001 skeleton and the new squetchy rig that I am sure this is a great deal of my stress. I have purchased TSM 2.0 and have had reasonable luck with it. But I am the type that wants to understand the background of the rig. Are there any tutorials you could recommend? I have watched David Simmons, Shawn Freemans, and show some back bones tutorials. It may be the way I have modeled my figure that is causing some of the problems especially at the joints a…
Last reply by itsjustme, -
- 1 follower
- 4 replies
- 783 views
I have no idea what to do when it comes to rigging, and i think it's really holding me back because I can do some ok modeling but I have no idea where to start when i want to animate anything. I really need to learn how to use constraints and stuff, and I know there's probably some obvious place to start learning but I looked around and I must have missed it. Where should I start? I think i'd like to rig some mechanical models.
Last reply by rbjohnsn, -
- 11 replies
- 913 views
ok ive been thinging if using the aim at constaint with the gun is a good idea. this is what ive come up with so far. i just cant figure out a way to make it work when the gun is being held by a model such as tom. here is the model. Gun_8.mdl
Last reply by KenH, -
- 1 follower
- 9 replies
- 875 views
TWO Director, Bob Taylor, wants to meet on Skype with the riggers, (that'd be Mike, David, and Mark). So you guys need to download Skype, and post your Skype name in this thread. Also, what's the best time to get all 3 of you together? (Remember to include PST, EST, MST, whatever).
Last reply by itsjustme, -
- 5 replies
- 607 views
hi I'm rigging my characters legs and i put nulls as a target for the feet. when i move the foot back and tilt it forward the foot twists. (see picture) its fine after i roll it back straight but is there a way to keep the rool handle in the right direction. thanks. ps. i used this site tutorial http://demented3d.com/tutorial/toontutoria...gging/legs.html except i used nulls instead of foot targets
Last reply by mtpeak2, -
- 11 replies
- 1.3k views
Does anyone know a good tutorial ( I don't have the cash for tsm) for setting up a rig that goes from A to Z. I'm having alot of trouble with A:M's auto assign bones because it always grabes mesh in parts that I don't want it to. And my character has a vest, so this is making things really hard. Will this pan out with cp weights (which is also refusing to work)? Also I'm having trouble desiding how I'm going to manage the vest. Should I use constrainted bones or try my hand at fabric to get a more realistic look. Any suggestions?
Last reply by NickHutson, -
- 9 replies
- 959 views
I have installed the (v12_2001 Skeleton_Squetch_five_fingers) with (12_FACE_with_bones_12_05_2007_installation) and the Relations group order are different. In what order should they be to make them work right?
Last reply by itsjustme, -
- 28 replies
- 2.7k views
I have made a WOTW tripod modal that i want to use in a fan film but i cant get the rig i want on it it has a rig already but its not the one i want i want it to be like the 2001 rig but with a tripod not a biped and a easyer way to animate the tentacles but you don't need to do the tentacles if you don't want to but yes i would apreshiate it if one of you could rig my tripod here's the modal [attachmentid=14885] tripod3.zip
Last reply by cuboos, -
- 2 followers
- 19 replies
- 3.2k views
Hey everyone, I have a rigging question.....for ideas. I have a few of my own concerning this, but I wanted to get some feedback. I have a mesh/ human character. There are currently no bones or rig. However, All the joint motions are already on sliders. For example, there is a slider that bends the legs. There's a slider that bends the bicep, etc. In other words, the joint motions of the character are all on individual sliders. These move the mesh as though bones were already present. I want to place a rig on this character that utilizes these sliders. Obviously, the skinning, weighting is in the slider motions already. I thought of some kind of M…
Last reply by zandoriastudios, -
- 1 follower
- 3 replies
- 777 views
I'm looking for a simple rig for a six legged (hexapedal?) insect. I've searched the forum but was not able to find anything about the topic that could help me. Does anybod know of such a rig of any kind?
Last reply by agep, -
- 30 replies
- 1.9k views
can I please get a list of available rigs with opinions on each and pros and cons? I plan to try to master installing and using just one rig and would like to know what each one offers. Thanks. Gene
Last reply by TheSpleen, -
- 14 replies
- 1.7k views
I need some help in how to rig an robotic arm that have hydraulics. How to make the hydraulics expand and so on. see attached image, that shows one part of it. this is the wip thread wip thread
Last reply by agep, -
- 5 replies
- 681 views
Hey, you may have already seen me ask this in my WIP thread, but I thought I'd post it in this forum as well as it seemed more appropriate. I've just started rigging a tortoise character with the 2001 skeleton and all was going well until I opened him up in the choreography and suddenly his legs had become bowed. I'm quite tempted to install the squetch rig, but for now I really wanna get this problem sorted. Any help is, as always, much appreciated.
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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How do you create (3) pose sliders to control the RED, GREEN, and BLUE channels of a groups diffuse color? I thought it would be as easy as creating the slider and setting the red to zero at one extreme and 255 at the other extreme but this did not seem to work. Thanks,
Last reply by TNT, -
Resizing rigs
by MJL- 10 replies
- 915 views
Gene and I are conspiring once again, and I'm trying to help by making a couple of variations of the elf model, shorter, fatter etc. I had no problem changing the mesh but I had to move some bones. I could find no way to select the whole rig in bones mode, so I had to move one bone at a time. Shorter, I had to rescale leg and such and drop the arms. Keeping the bones in approximately the same relationship to the CP's assigned to them. But they ended up being difficult to animate with. I'd be willing to bet that this is ground that has been traveled before by someone, and was just wondering if there are any tips or suggestions that someone might share. thank You…
Last reply by NancyGormezano, -
- 11 replies
- 886 views
Okay, here's the problem. I've created a new on/off pose relationship/control for a model. What I want to do is turn on 'Render as Lines' for a group and then set it off in the off position. Here's the rub, the control or setting 'Render as Lines' is NOT visible from the pose... even after I click the 'show more than drivers' icon. Can this be done? or am I stuck using some kind of workaround, such as a separate model for the item I want rendered as lines and just turning it on/off in the choreography? Any ideas would be welcome... thanks!
Last reply by mtpeak2, -
- 6 replies
- 2.2k views
Hi this is probably a dumb question, but how do I make the geometry of a hair emitter render as invisible while the hair still shows through? I thought maybe the transparency of the geometry could be set to 100% and that wouldn't affect the hair emitter. Upon a multi-pass rendering, the hair disappears. I feel like there is a simple answer to this... This model was made before I discovered the treez plug-in, by the way... Adam
Last reply by NancyGormezano, -
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- 6 replies
- 2.5k views
https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4tVfDV?fbclid=IwAR2fkqeXJbfuLUdEps4tKH516IRb4gut5gSFtBP8xjYdo6-KHHXs7XeLzJw Had seen. I want to do this for different numbers of triangles and other polygons
Last reply by serg2, -
- 6 replies
- 829 views
Hey Riggers, anyone out there actually take the time to go through the relationships tutorial that I posted? Not that I would be offended if you didn't, but I think that people might be neglecting this aspect of the software.... only cause I definately had been neglecting it until I used it in place of an expression I was trying to use. Since then, seems like I can't stop thinking about how to use them. Anyhows, take a look at my site, it's in the free section. And if you did go through it..... some feedback on your results would be cool.... to help make any future tutes better(mine or yours). Thanks dudes/dudettes Mike Fitz www.3dartz.com
Last reply by seven, -
- 3 replies
- 629 views
I created acouple of eye poses with sliders clicked edit relationship,although the points and and splines show in the PWS tree when I try to select them they do not become selected,Am I missing something obvious ,tried 12.0n ,11.1 PC/XP Any advice as always is appreciated
Last reply by 3DArtZ, -
- 6 replies
- 1.1k views
Hey guys, after messing with the relationships feature in A:M, I put together a tutorial demonstrating how to drive the strength of a decal with the rotation of a bone.(not all that complex, but maybe someone could use the info) I should have it up tomorrow or tomorrow afternoon as I am still messing with the layout of the document a little bit. And yes, I'm sure someone out there is wondering.... it's free. It will be a pdf and a project file I'll post when I upload it to my site. Mike Fitz www.3dartz.com www.vrcops.com
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
- 14 replies
- 1.6k views
Hey Guys, I finally got a chance to post that Relationships tutorial I mentioned last week. Now I've been having all sorts of web hosting problems, so please bear with me if downloads are a little slow. I put a pass word on the pdf file, I don't know why, I just did... "3dartz" - pretty easy to remember. I'd like to put together a bunch of these over time, so I gave it a little name and format that I'd like to stick to if I do more of these. I hope someone finds this useful, as I for one think the relationships feature in the software is incredibly useful. Also, Wilhelm Lendt of the SoulCage Dept. provided the model/constraints. Please let me know about any …
Last reply by 3DArtZ, -
- 12 replies
- 824 views
Hi guys, I'm working on an anime style head, and I found myself thinking it might be easier to just not have an eyeball, and instead make the eye part of the face. But to do it that way would require me to use a bone to control the position of the decal for the pupil. I can't figure out if this can be done, or how to do it. Any thoughts?
Last reply by mtpeak2, -
- 2 followers
- 16 replies
- 1.4k views
I have come to the conclusion that I stink at rigging. I get by with a lot of trial and error but it seems to take me for ever. I have the TSM2 rig which works well up to a point. It installs easy and controls the basic movements. All the stuff I need to add like fans, smartskin, and other constraints, the face rigging, etc. is where it all goes south for me. Are there any good reference books for rigging? Howto build the geometry bones, and the control bones. How to place and constrain bones to control a knee or a neck. Is it a layered approach. Pitfalls to avoid. I've seen some books on Amazon but they are always for one of the other ani…
Last reply by TNT, -
- 2 followers
- 21 replies
- 2k views
Now that I am half way throw rigging my model with the squetch rig. I was hopping someone knows of a skeleton rig that conforms to a real human skeleton geometry. Thou I do like the squetch rig It is a lot more then I will need for my hobby project. Ever thou I would like to adapt the hand and feet gizmo’s and some of the face controls it’s a bit more then I need. The stretchability is a little more then I need. Even thou I will probably finish it as I go along for the experience. Dose any one know of a rig with the proper offset hinges for the knees, hips and shoulders? Or do I have to make one my self?
Last reply by DJBREIT, -
- 1 follower
- 7 replies
- 861 views
Earlier today, I completed the lip syncs for a character model that I have been working on - actually, it's a self-portrait of me! Snag is, having created the relationships for the 'Preston Set' lip poses, I realised that I needed these for some other human characters that I have been working on - among them, a character model of me in butler costume with ill-fitting skin wig. What I am finding now is that I cannot just copy the relationships straight to it like in any decent windows explorer. I click and drag the relevant folder to the place I want, but it only returns the negative sound. I drag the whole relationships folder onto the other model and it…
Last reply by DCLeadboot, -
- 1 follower
- 0 replies
- 485 views
Don't know where to post this exactly. I re-rigged the desk lamp on the A:M 14 CD. It is a lot easier to manipulate now. You just have to pull the Null around to position the armature. Rotate the Null to rotate the lamp head. desk_lamp.zip
Last reply by HomeSlice, -
- 2 replies
- 996 views
Hi riggers! I can't find an easy way to have a character raise on his toes. Is there a way to rig something where to whole body will raise with the rotation of the foot controls? Something like a null lifting the whole body except for the toes, with the foot aiming at the toes. Maybe there is an easier way i am missing. Anyway, it would be of great help. Michel
Last reply by nerrazzi, -
- 3 replies
- 666 views
Why would smartskins on my torso be affected by mirroring the leg bones on my penguin? I wouldn't think that would make any difference. Also, if I mirror the right side leg bones to the left, do the constraints automatically mirror along w/ the bones or do I need to do that separately? One other thing I'm concerned about - I noticed that my foot, along with the foot controls, did not mirror when I used mirrorbones. I think it is because it was not a child of the calf. If I want all that to mirror, do I need to make those items a child of the calf and then drag them back to their original position in the hierarchy?
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 2 replies
- 578 views
Well I'm rather new to this aspect of Master. I want to animate my car sliding and turning. I have sliders for the steering and an action for the tire rotation. The sliders are animated. Then when i add the action it overrides the steering and only spins. Any thoughts?
Last reply by noober, -
- 1 follower
- 7 replies
- 883 views
Hi Robcat because of my recent right click issue I lost your script for alternative Fingers in TSM2. Could you post the link for the location with the instructions please?
Last reply by jason1025, -
- 2 replies
- 680 views
Doing a walk cycle for my gecko and it's not much different from a biped walk cycle, but I do get confused about how to keep it walking while constrained to a path. It only wants to cycle once and if I add more repetitions the walk cycle speeds up instead of being spread out over the length of the path constraint. What is chor length vs. crop length? How do I keep the walk cycle repeating without speeding it up?
Last reply by Gerry, -
- 9 replies
- 297 views
Hey everyone! I've been searching the forums for tutorials on rigging a quadraped like canines and felines, beasts of labour etc., but not necessarily long neck animals like giraffes or brontosauruses Didn't come up with any results except for discussions on a few areas of quadraped rigs Has there been any tutorials made on the subject?
Last reply by kujaibacha, -
- 4 replies
- 1.1k views
Hello all Looking for a step by step quad rigging tut. I wanna build my own ....I dont want it to complex and sense Im a simple fellow with a simple mind I might be able to make a simple quad rig for my Deer model with some help ....well that is one that has control bones .... it's rigged with geo. bones......I think I use to use TSM2 but want something simpler........ Personally I like making actions using pose sliders.....on the setup I have now I do have the neck the way I like it and with pose sliders to control movement and I like the way it works....... Thanks, Mike Deer_Whitetail_14c.mdl
Last reply by Kamikaze, -
- 5 replies
- 934 views
Hey y'all! SO I'm working on an extremely simple character rig, and i followed a tutorial for how to do shoulders without using smartskin (which works great, by the way). And I'm thinking that set-up is irrelevant, because this happens with a lot of my constraints- I open a smartskin simply so that I can apply a constraint to a bone (If theres another way to apply a constraint to a bone, PLEASE tell me!!) I constrain a non-related bone to another non-related bone to execute an 'orient like' constraint. Simple enough. I then set the enforcement to 50%, or 15% or whatever percent i FREAKIN feel like. All is well and dandy, it works fantastically in an action, cho…
Last reply by Paul Forwood, -
- 7 replies
- 805 views
In my animation my character pulls out a sword. I am using the translate to, and orient like, constraints to keep the hand on the sword. However, only the hand follows the sword. The forearm and the bicept don't move with it. Is there a particular constraint i should use to keep the arm facing the hand? Also, is there a limit to how many constraints one can have in a choreography? Thanks, MasterFunk
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 3 replies
- 678 views
So I have a forearm with a number of small bones children of the forearm proper, that control the loops of cps along the arm, these bones are constrained to the hand bone with a rotate like so the motion of the hand when turning drives the shape of the forearm - this works pretty well until a certain angle is reached at which point the bones "snap" and the forearm goes all pretzel shaped, I think it's the dreaded gimbal lock or something like that. Any suggestions? How do people normally rig forearm motion?
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 7 replies
- 1.7k views
A while back when Gollum was all the rage, there was lots of discussion in Maya circles of the spline IK rig used for his spine. And I'm curious to hear what people here like to use. First, a quick explaination of that rig. In it's most simple form, the spline IK rig is simpy two controller objects (nulls or bones) on each end of a spline. When you move them about the spline maintains a nice curve between them. Some bones are then attached to the curve, which then control the geometry of the character. Since it's a spline, it also means that the spine itself can stretch. In Gollum they had a warning system, basically an object that would turn red or green, if the …
Last reply by Raf Anzovin, -
- 6 replies
- 1.9k views
Is there a way to snap bone joints to specific locations in bones mode? I mean, apart from the number boxes in the properties panel (which provide all the joys of character rigging in Microsoft Excel). I fully expected an option to snap joints to spline points—that way you could make a rubber band figure and snap-snap-snap together a skeleton in no time. But I can't find anything like that in the program or in the manual. What tricks do you use for the purpose?
Last reply by nemyax, -
- 1 follower
- 6 replies
- 958 views
Do you pre-rig anotomical parts that you may use in building new models? I was thinking about it today, and it seems like it would save a lot of time to import body parts that already have weights, smartskin, and rigging. You could hold down CTRL to transform/scale/rotate the mesh at the same time you are moving the part into position. Then just drag the bones into the proper place in the hierarchy. You could have eye lids already modeled around an eyball, that already have pose siders for blinks. What do you think would be a natural place to cut up the body, as far a rigs go? I suppose that you could alter the rig you typically install to allow for the hands,feet,h…
Last reply by Hutch, -
- 12 replies
- 965 views
Hi All Got several new problems. 1st I created an eye from 'itsjustme' tutorial *the eye has a contact outside it that will open sideways *created a combination pose that will open the contact and will dilate the eye at the same time *at completion it worked perfect I saved it as a right eye, and a left eye (2 separate models) both worked perfect Now I bring them into my model separately place them. Question 1: why do the eye parts appear in the groups as all separate parts not as a unit or model? (image 1) Question 2: why did only 1 set of pose sliders show up in the model? (images 2&3) which only work the right eye…
Last reply by Rodney,
