A:M Rigging
Rigging & Relationships
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Hello all- When I activate the obj sequence exporter from the choreography(rt-click chor, Plugins, OBJ ...), am I supposed to get all of the models and their actions in that choreography contained within 1 sequence of obj files? I know there are 3 options... all in one...single models... and single models in one obj. None of them seem to give me what I expect, which is the same models in the same relationship to each other and doing the same actions as I animated together in the choreography. I'm thinking it is meant to be a 'one model/sequence at a time' exporter as opposed to the entire choreography (minus lights, cameras of course) Anyone else happen across…
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
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A new user request. How to make a vine grow and wrap around something. -the vine ("plant") has regular spline rings along its length -every spline ring has its own bone -every bone is "path constrained" to the path that wraps around the column. -the "ease" percentage for each bone is keyframed to make the bones travel up the path in order. Look in the PWS timeline to see how they are staggered. - the leaves were made to sprout with a pose slider, but that part didn't turn out so well VinegrowingMP4.mov PRJ: GrowingVine06.zip
Last reply by nimblepix, -
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Hey Guys, I have a winged character and I set up a few poses for wing positions on the "right" wing. I figured I could copy/ paste mirrored the keys in additional poses so that the "Left" wing would have the same poses also. Is there a way to get this to work. I tried to copy the bones on the keyframe in one pose and "paste/ Mirrored" in a different pose. But that doesn't work.. Do I need to renaim the bones a certain way? I remember doing this operation with cps fine. But bones don't seem to paste mirrored. Nothing happens at all. Thanks, William
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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Hello, I am trying to use models using the rig "steave headgizmo V2" on the V17 or V16 version on win.64bit. but "CEyebrowsCentre, CEyelids, CMouth and CCheeks" no longer work. Do you know what is wrong with this rig in V.17? What needs to change to make it work again?
Last reply by Malo, -
- 11 replies
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There are two things I'm considering doing with the model I'm working on in my Hit-and-Run work-in-progress, but I don't know if they will give me problems when it comes time to rig the character. First is trying to do something other than the standard T pose. I find the T pose makes it a lot harder to position bones correctly for the shoulders, and slightly harder for the elbows. The normal approach is a cylinder for the body, and then cylinders coming out for the arms using 5-point patches to match up the cylinders. I was instead thinking of having a T with only the shoulders, and then the arms descending from the shoulders; sort of like a cylinder for the b…
Last reply by Gerry, -
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Hey everyone. I have some % pose sliders set up on a character. I want to create a Null or Nulls to control these sliders by translating the null side to side & up/ down. Does anyone have a guide to get started doing that? Thanks so much. William
Last reply by NancyGormezano, -
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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, -
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So apart from my copy of the Rear Window set being cursed, something I'm beginning to suspect, what rational reason is there for bones within a rig, in this case the LiteRig, to just stop working after a time and/or randomly rotate themselves? The first casualty was the Lower Hip bone which died altogether on me, followed a little time later by the Neck bone randomly jumping out of sync with the head bone. At first I was sort of able to work around these but now the neck thing is happening nearly every time I rotate the head. Whilst it is possible to continue without using the Lower Hip bone, its pretty much impossible to animate without having control of the …
Last reply by mtpeak2, -
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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, -
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Greetings, It's been a few years since I rigged anything - I'm wondering what the difference between the 2001 rig - last one I used - and the 2008 as well as the tsm2 rigs are. Also, are there new instructions for the various rigs? I thought I saw an illustrated rigging walk-through (using thom?) the other day but can't find it again. Any points in the right direction(s) would be much appreciated. Thanks, Douglas
Last reply by mouseman, -
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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, -
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This is for Robcat, if you're out there anywhere. I'm working on cleaning up the rigging on my penguin so I can hopefully finally start doing some test animations with her. The one ring in that model, the one between the ring that makes up the beginning of the neck and the one that makes up the shoulders, would I benefit from removing that completely? It is not really a critical ring but more a leftover from my modeling process. I'm not sure it needs to be there, I guess I can try removing it and see what happens.
Last reply by Roger, -
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Hello All, I can't seem to delete some pose sliders that I want to get rid of. I went to "Relationships >>> User Properties Relationships" and deleted the relationships there, but the sliders still show up when I insert the character into a chor. I saw another post on this but the method didn't seem to work. Version 10.5r Thanks! Brian
Last reply by MATrickz, -
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Hey all, I seem to be getting sort of an "equal but opposite" reaction when moving certain bones--like cameras...after many frames of sitting still, if I want the bone or camera, etc. to pan or move in a certain direction, in the chor, I'll make the move then, when keying through the chor, I find that the bone has, before the previously mentioned keyframe, moved an *opposite* direction in the same distance so that, by the keyframe, it's back at the starting point to do the move I had originally intended. ?? I'm able to obviate this somewhat by going into the timeline and straightening the bone line out, but it's getting frustrating. Almost as if the prog…
Last reply by Darthlister, -
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I just finished concept designs on a new character and will start modeling the head soon. I'm just confused about which type of setup to use for the face/mouth. I've already setup a character with phonemes, I've read through Victor's thread about his facial setup for his Big Bang animation, and I've checked out Jason Osipa's book. All three of these setups seem like they work very well and are easy to use. But how do I decide which setup is best? Is there a best? Or is there only personal preference?
Last reply by williamgaylord, -
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I LOVE the Jeff Lew rig, it's really simple and easy for someone like me . . . but im having a problem. The contraints are setup through an action, and when i try to make a new action, the contraints get all messed up . . . can someone help me?
Last reply by jamagica, -
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Can anyone explain this to me? Two bones, siblings of each other. the left one is "aim at" constrained to the right one, with offsets (so it maintains it's original direction in relation to the target bone) so far so good. but as I lower the enforcement of the constraint, the bone veers from its original direction, then snaps back right at 0% You can't say it was returning it's original direction, it was there already. Is this a feature or a bug? And if it is a feature, what purpose does it serve? Is there a workaround? constraintmovement.zip
Last reply by Maszie, -
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This is a tutorial showing how to make an arm control rig using a method of finding the height of a scalene triangle (used in the current Squetch Rig). It is a more advanced tutorial that assumes you already know how to add bones, Poses and Expressions and have a general knowledge of character rigging. Included in the ZIP file are the video (29:26 in length, 900x600, H264 encoded Quicktime), subtitle file and an example of the rig. scalene_arm_rig_tutorial.zip
Last reply by jason1025, -
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I know this is scientifically inaccurate, sort of a solar wind wrapping around the Earth... I am having success forcing particles around where I want them with forces. This is a technique I use sometimes on Hair, by making a force in the model(child of the head bone) and aiming it and adjusting the magnitude so it constantly blows the hair into a curl, or a style. HERE- I am using 4 different forces: Force1- is set to neg200 and 'collects' the particles, forcing them to sort of wrap around the globe. Force2- is cylindrical, and reinforces force1, the plan was to set it to 'vortex' to get the particles to begin to spiral... need to work on that.(magnitude neg70…
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
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Hi All, OK, I worked up this tutorial on how to model and animate a simple piston assembly like in your car or something like that. This is not an exact setup but simply uses an "aim at" constraint and then uses keyframes for the animations. I might work one up using expressions or a rig...we'll see. Simple Piston Tutorial OT: It's funny when you listen to yourself recorded because I sound ridiculous at times...losing my train of thought...going off on tangents, but hey...isn't that how it always goes when your doing 3D? Cheers, Eugene
Last reply by cuboos, -
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When boning a long tail or neck it seems intuitive to match the bone joint to the spline ring. However, you'll probably get a more natural deformation if the spline ring is in the middle of the bone. PRJ you can play with... TailTest01.prj The top is spline-ring-at-the-joint. The bottom is spline-ring-at-the-middle... Tail Bones800.mp4
Last reply by Madfox, -
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What is IK Damping? It has something to do with avoiding "IK pop"? I can't see an obvious difference when i have it ON or OFF.
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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I placed some flowers in the hand of a Figure and put a translate constraint on the model bone to attach it to the hand geometry bone. That worked for the walking and reaction movements in previous scene but, Although I haven't changed the settings or property values, the plants seem to be moving outside of the hand when I animate the figure sitting down. Could anyone suggest what the error might be, and how to fix it ? regards simon
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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Hi! I'd like to constrain a bone with the "orient like" constrain to another bone but with more "enforcement" then 100%. Is it possible that a bone moves twice the speed (or anything higher than 100%) than it's "parent"? I bet it can be done with an expression, but that's a locked book for my brain ... Cheers, David
Last reply by DeeJay, -
- 10 replies
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I've noticed that Ben and I kinda made it hard to find the latest version of our 'Fisheye Lens' so here it is with a little more revision to it and instructions for use in V15... IMPROVEMENTS: I just turned all the options to 'OFF' in the model so upon render it will not tend to 'cast shadows' -'receive shadows'- 'cast reflections' or 'cast occlusion' so now it might render a little faster. INSTRUCTIONS: (Note: This is a V15 model so it may not open in previous versions...) 1- Open BensLens4.mdl and drag it into your choreography 2- Right click on it's shortcut in the PWS and select 'New/Constraint/Translate To' and select the camera as the target... 3- In…
Last reply by photoman, -
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Andy Gibbons has graciously contributed a quick down and dirty tutorial on importing BVH mo-cap files for use with the Squetch Rig. In his own words, "Once you are used to it you will be able to apply the BVH to the rig in about 5 minutes or so". Very impressive Andy! Note: Andy's original tutorial was in Microsoft Word format and I've converted it to PDF format with a few slight adjustments to image size. Any error in formatting is my own and should not be attributed to Andy. Andy has posted a project file with Squetch Thom and BVH action for viewing in HAMR Viewer/WebHAMR HERE. For more information on the Squetch Rig CLICK HERE. Mo_Cap_int…
Last reply by itsjustme, -
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I've got much to learn about rigging. I've learned a lot about constraints and relationships by developing a tree-growth animation rig (another topic later perhaps). Here is a simple character that poses (pun intended) a bit of a challange (to me anyway). He's a spineless little fellow--a Marshmallow! Basically a head with arms and legs... I've worked out rigging the face controls and I've experimented a bit with just one of his arms to learn about fan bones, Smartskin, CP weighting, etc., especially to make the shoulder behave. There are some specific challenges that come with having no hip, spine, and torso. Since he has no waist or neck, his wh…
Last reply by williamgaylord, -
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When I animate I almost all the time select a given bone and then click “rotate mode” and rotate that bone into position. I therefore find it a problem in A:M that the moment I let go of the bone, the mode selection jumps back to “Standard Mode”, instead of staying in “rotate mode”, ready for the next rotate action (or in any other mode apart from standard mode for that matter). I wonder if there is a workaround or a preferences setting I have overlooked to make the mode buttons stick, or if this is a candidate for a feature request?
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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I made a simple auto walk rig. You just load it into an action, constrain the hips to the hip null, and feet to the left and right nulls respectively, then drag the main bone and it walks. You'll probably have to scale your character down to fit it thought, as for some reason I only made it with a 50 cm stride. The only caveat is that it only works in the z direction right now. If someone smarter than I can figure out how to make it work in X as well, we'll have something. Here tis, Cory Oops I dont' seem to be able to attach the file...duh
Last reply by cory, -
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Darkwing asked about fan bones, and especially difficulty rigging shoulders. I'm by no means a rigging expert, but I thought this might be a fun topic just to demonstrate simple rigging stuff. One of the tricky aspects of the shoulder is that when your arm rotates, you don't want your shoulder to rotate. You can use extra bones with constraints to gradually lessen the movement of the mesh. Typically, fan bones are used to lessen the angle of a bone's movement (making the cosmetic bones fan out, hence the name), but they can also be used for roll contstraints. For example, here's a tube with each bone controlling a spline ring. When I rotate the bone at…
Last reply by Gerry, -
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I realise this is a bit of an open question, for which my apologies. I'm working away on a sequence were the figure rises to standing, turn, shifts weight and settles. Thought it was ok until I noticed some joint pops and went to look what was causing it. The interpolation is set to spline. There is a four frame space between one pose and the next but, as you can see, on frames 16-17, there is a definite pop in the joint. Leg_pop.mov Is there a way around that ? The key is on 15, the pop on 16 and 17 and the next key on 20. Its not too big but it is noticeable and, if anyone has a suggestion as to cause and possible cure I would be very grateful. reg…
Last reply by Simon Edmondson, -
- 17 replies
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I've recently finished modelling a female character, entitled Camilla. Up to now, I've only rigged simple things, like bugs and the stuff out of the tutorial, that don't have fanbones, CP weighting and smartskinning. That's all changed now, I've jumped in at the deep-end of the modelling pool, and loving it... splashing around, desperately trying to keep myself from drowning. I've got some questions, that I can't seem to find any answers to... 1. I use the action screen to pose my character whilst CP weighting, the character looks like she's been in a train wreck. Is there any way to reset the pose back to zero, without having to do it manually joint by joint. …
Last reply by Krazyman, -
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- 19 replies
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I've got two gears and a large door. I've given each gear a bone and placed constraints that only allow them to roll. The larger gear is constrained to the first gear so that when the small one turns it turns. Only problem is that the larger gear actually needs to turn the opposite way. Does anyone know what constraints to apply to make this happen, cause I'm stumped.
Last reply by Ilidrake, -
- 9 replies
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Have you seen the Pigeon Impossible video? More relevantly, have you seen the PI blog videos? There are a couple on rigging which might give you some ideas (episodes 9, 10, maybe part of 11), even though it's made in XSI. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=19E7DC81F6D1D522 I can't remember which episode it was in, but there was also a rigging trick that prevents legs from snapping when the IK controller reaches its maximum length. Chris
Last reply by itsjustme, -
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As I have been working on a face rig I have found late night thinking has been invaluable. In fact last night just as I was drifting off I came up with an idea of how to hide the rig when the pose slider turns off the rig. Since all my nulls and bones are on a mockup of the face to the side of the character I have struggled to hide the text and mockup when the rig is turned off. I will keep you informed as i will test it this evening.
Last reply by Shelton, -
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Ok.. so here is the beginning of a tutorial on Fanbones, weighting and smartskinning that I promised some time back. I thought I'd put this up to get some feedback on assumptions I'm making to see if you guys wanted more, or if I'd just drop it. This is the elementary part of it.. at least a a somewhat elementary way to apply fan bones to a joint. The problem with this application is that it could easily be done with weights alone. I just thought that it was a more basic use of fans and is a faster way to set up an arm roll. After all that build up here is the text. Its allot but its also the introduction for what I intend to be the "opus" on fan bones. So…
Last reply by pixelmech, -
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Has anyone else noticed that the weight editor is acting quite differently in V16 from the way it did in the past? Say, if you have some CPs and they are weighted 50% to bone 1 and 50% to bone 2, and you want to throw in a 3rd bone at only 20% but keep bone 1 at 50%... so it would be B1-50%, B2 30%, B3 20%... it used to be that all you needed to do was (in the editor) click a bone, enter a value one by one, and 'apply'. NOW- if I put the 3rd bone in there and give it a value of 20... the editor will automatically 'do the math' on the other two and give them 40-40%... but I want bone 1 at 50%... so I click bone 1 and enter 50... but the editor again 'does the math' o…
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
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- 16 replies
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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, -
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Hey guys, I thought I'd make the chapter that discusses installing the IK rig used in the Cog tutorial available for people to look through. It's based on the hash 2001 rig or the Egginton Rig. I thought that this might help people who are just coming to terms with rigging get a little bit more comfortable with the idea that rigging doesn't have to be all that dangerous to do on your own http://www.3dartz.com or direct http://www.3dartz.com/CogRig.html Thanks and let me know if there are any questions about rigging in general that people would like to discuss. Mike Fitz www.3dartz.com
Last reply by 3DArtZ, -
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Is there a key when using the rotate manipulater in bones mode to move in just one direction,as I keep moving at big jumps even when I zoom in I can;t seem to get it fine enough to hit the spot cheers Steve
Last reply by steve392, -
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I have a gun, with detachable magazine and 10 rounds each round made up of the Cartidge and Projectile. Since I want to animate the gun, I cannot parent anything (or can I???) so how best should I 'join' all the parts yet make each part animatable (independant) when 'fired'. At present I have them as a single model each with their own bone - no parent. Cheer
Last reply by higginsdj, -
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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, -
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- 16 replies
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Just wondering if other folks are noticing this: I use the dynamic constraint...a lot. I will notice that I get a lot less 'action' from it once rendered than I do in the animation preview of the choreography...it's almost as if the settings are changed or its losing momentum in the rendering environment or something. I tried a 'Simulate Springs' but I don't think that applies to the Dynamic Constraint...is there a workaround to getting the same action from your preview into your rendered final animations?
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
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- 13 replies
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Does anyone know what rig Jeff Lew uses in his training video? I watched it over the weekend and it seemed so easy for him to use. Granted, he is experienced. But I liked the elbow targets, nulls to control the feet and just the seemingly simplicity of it all. I working through Mike's tut now and I have TSM2 as well. Rigging is the one thing that is literally killing me. I haven't done much animation excecise yet simply because I haven't rigged any of my models to my satisfaction to where I can work with them without them getting in the way. Someday someone will automate all this to where it works perfectly the first time!
Last reply by pixelmech, -
- 2 followers
- 11 replies
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Hi folks. I'm working on a digitigrade character - a bird-person who stands on their toes as birds do, rather than flat on their feet as humans do. In effect, the knee is further up the leg, and the ankle acts as a reverse-bending knee. Look at the leg of a bird or hind leg of a dog to get the idea, if this description is unclear. If you want to see the model in action, a short 3Mb anim of it dancing can be found here: http://www.chromatic-dragonfly.com/newljst...imbusdanceB.avi Anyway, the model's been rigged using Eggington's 2001 rig, very similar to the one on the Hash 2002 (v9) CD. With some adjustments, the legs work ok, but the problem is that the nulls that …
Last reply by 3DArtZ, -
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I have been trying to rig a coffee cup man: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...t=0entry98508 Running into some problems I got some good links on rigging from Fishman: The problem I see is to follow those tutorials. It is just text and images. I believe you need a program with a little more action to tell others how to do it. Emilio Le Roux has done a great tutorial: http://www.moscafilms.com.br/emilioleroux/...spherizecat.htm He is using the free program Wink: http://www.debugmode.com/wink/ Perhaps someone else have some links on good rigging tutorials and how to make easy to follow tutorials?
Last reply by seven, -
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Hello all, Is there an error in the 2001rig in the data file just downloaded from the hash site. When I turn on Ik Arms Setup the right arm points to the sky. Does it do this for anyone else? Thanks in advance to all those who reply. Andrew
Last reply by pixelplucker, -
- 19 replies
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CP weights are a new feature to me. I have only just started playing with them and love what they can do for those troublesome areas around joints. The problem that I am having is with the scant documentation. I have the Techtalk movie but that always throws out a C library error and crashes on both my machines. I don't think it covers my question anyway. What I would like to know is if I adjust my CP weights in an action am I creating values which are specific to that action or am I adjusting the "base" values which I have set up in model mode. It appears that new values are created in an action. Is that correct? Thanks for any info on this.
Last reply by mtpeak2, -
- 12 replies
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HEY! Thru my recent experiments I have devised a rather simple little FISHEYE LENS for Animation:Master V14+!!! AND I want to give it to anyone who wants to experiment or improve upon it! For years, I have felt the renders out of A:M were almost 'too accurate' and wanted to be able to widen the scope of view without the result looking like I simply zoomed out. Recently I had chance to do a quick 'magnifying glass' animation with A:M and the idea struck...why not put a lens right up to my A:M camera? The result is a .mdl file you can use to replace your camera in your choreography (the .mdl has a camera in it...) The adjustments are found in the pose sliders, inc…
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
- 0 replies
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In this thread I suggested that long-tail-like structures be contrived to have the spline ring in the middle of the bones... https://forums.hash.com/topic/49457-tip-for-tails-and-necks-snouts-tentacles/ However, that's not the only option. I made this PRJ to compare and contrast different CP weighting strategies. It has five Actions in it that put this tube structure through some representative and worst-case motions. You can scrub through the Actions' timelines and watch the shape changes. TailComparison002.prj From left to right in each action... 50/50 Fanbone. Each spline ring is 100% weighted to a fan bone that is 50/50 orient-li…
Last reply by robcat2075,
