itsjustme

Squetchy Sam is free and you can use him for anything you like as far as I'm concerned, Dennis. I'm using him as my "test bed" for the rig, so he's always going to have the latest updates in him.

In cartoons, you often see the eyes rotate in different directions (like after the character is hit hard by a pan). Is it possible to allow for complete control over the rotation? I could add that, although there is still the ability to use the individual eye targets by unhiding them using the "Show Eye Targets" Pose in the "FACE Interface" folder. Do you think I still should add it, Dhar?

I haven't figured it out yet, Ramón...but, I found out that GetTime() worked. Just so I understand completely, what is it you're actually trying to do? Maybe there's another way to do it. I'll have to look at this some more tonight/tomorrow.

Here's the next update... Changes in this version: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fixed hiding of left_bicep_fan_geom in the "show_geom_bones" Pose added "sleeve_squetch_like_bicep" Pose corrected compensates sheet errors added euler limit on thumb controller's 'Z' rotation changed the "roll like" on the wrist fan bones to an "aim roll at" did some re-parenting in the installation models for making the bicep_fan, bicep_base and thigh_base bones neater fixed a toe problem when going from IK to FK and back to IK added "ear_right_manual_movement" and "ear_left_manual_movement" Poses "lips_to_jaw" Pose renamed "lower_lip_to_jaw" added "Maxilla_to_LowerTeeth" Pose (for keeping the lips together when needed) increased the accuracy of the eye aiming made the "eyes_aim_at_Master_EyeTarget" Pose an on/off Pose so that it could be like an IK/FK switch...the "Master_EyeTarget" will follow the other set of controls when not in use (the v11.1 version doesn't work the same). added some controls to control eye-crossing...there is a bone for each eye located above the "EyeAimerBone" that rotate on their 'Z' axis to control the inward/outward movement of the eyes. added support for the BVH output of Luuk Steitner's facial motion capture software "Zign Track" re-worked the face setup so that Pose sliders could be used to set limits and enforcements made hips null always have a 0,0,0 rotation during installation in the Posable installation rig --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Posable installations will now have an added final step of importing a model that has the setup Expressions for the face in it...the Expressions didn't play nice with the installation Poses. There is a text file included in the Posable installation ZIP that lists the changes in the installation method. The face setup has changed quite a bit...hopefully, everyone will find it easier (that's the goal, at least). The "face_setup_11_12_2007_instructions.zip" contains a PDF file with a step by step explanation. The location of the origin of the cheek bones has changed, they now have their origin near the bridge of the nose...look at Squetchy Sam's rig for an example. There is a quick PDF tutorial in the "Using_Zign_Track_with_FACE.zip" that explains how to use the output from Luuk Steitner's "Zign Track" motion capture program with the FACE controls in the Squetch Rig and standalone FACE installations. I included as much as I could in each ZIP file...I had to separate out the instruction PDF's so that I wouldn't have ZIP's larger than 2 MB. The "InstallRig" plugin is included in each installation ZIP, the DLL's necessary for the "InstallRig" plugin to work in v11.1 are included in the v11.1 ZIP's. Thanks to Robert Holmén, Dhar Jabouri, Ken Heslip, Jeff Bolle, Rusty Williamson, Luuk Steitner, Mark Strohbehn and Mark Skodacek for their help with these improvements. If anyone finds a problem, let me know and I'll fix it as fast as I can. Mark Skodacek will be posting the Posable installations very soon. I'll try to have the Quadruped versions posted in the next day or two. ---------------------------------------------- EDIT ---------------------------------------------- In the list of additions, I forgot to mention that there are now fan bones for the mouth and eyelids (another great idea from Mark Skodacek). These will eliminate the need for any SmartSkin on the eyelids for me...there may still be an occasion where SmartSkin is necessary, but this will make it more rare. ---------------------------------------------- EDIT ---------------------------------------------- The next update is located here...the rigs in this post were deleted. The Zign Track instructions haven't changed, so they are still here.

I'll take a look at it late tonight.

Could you post a simplified Project with some instructions for how you are getting the error?

I'm sorry, I've been pretty busy as well, Jeff. I saw the post, but I didn't get around to responding. The change in the shoulder looks a lot better.

Where are you looking? If you are looking in the User Properties of the model, right mouse click on the Pose and select "Edit Relationship". If you're looking in the PWS (Project Workspace), look in the "Relationships/User Properties Relationships" folder. No. Seriously? You have the option of building your own rig from scatch, building a rig following Barry Zundel's tutorial (I hear it's very good), using the 2001 Rig, using TSM or rigs built by other users. The Squetch Rig is still moderately difficult to install. If this is your first installation, I would recommend the 2001 Rig...there are no compensates to reset in that rig. How are you trying to assign control points? Have you watched any tutorials on how to do it? There are several...there is a "Tech Talk" on this page and there's a quick tutorial here. There are others if those don't do the job for you. As for installing the 2001 Rig, have you watched the "Show Some Backbone" tutorial on this page? If you just want a simple rig, I would recommend the 2001 Rig. Hope that helps.

Any model can be rigged with any rig, but, if the character is already rigged it will take less time to just work with the installed rig rather than install a different one...unless the installed rig can't handle what you need it to do, then you would just end up fighting with the installed rig. Hope that helps.

The Squetch Rig is a rig that has squash and stretch built into every joint along with built-in controls for the face, limb bowing, IK/FK switching for seamless transition from IK to FK (or the other way around), an optional single-bone hand control (Steves Hand Gizmo) and a lot of other built-in stuff that would make for an extremely long list. The Squetch Rig is what is being used in TWO (TinWoodman of Oz) and has continued to be worked on throughout it's production (there's going to be another extensive update soon). The installation method differs from the 2001 rig and is more difficult...it will get easier, but for now it is still moderately difficult. If you are new to rigging, I would recommend the 2001 rig to start. Once you get a good handle on rigging, the Squetch Rig will make more sense you you. In my signature, there is a link to the Wiki. There you can find links to example videos, installation versions of the rig and Squetchy Sam. If you want to do some messing with a character rigged with the Squetch Rig, Squetchy Sam is kept up to date with each release. Hope that helps.

There are stomach_IO and chest_IO bones that are for the in/out movement on those areas...weight those last if you're going to use them (the other stomach and chest "geom" bones are the main ones and should be weighted before transferring any weighting to the IO bones). The eye socket geom bones are so that the weighting can allow for the eye sockets to move and rotate...there are videos here and here to illustrate what the eyes should be able to do when the weighting is finished. The thigh fan bones is to smooth the weighting between the lower torso and the thighs. The sleeve bones can be ignored if your character doesn't have short sleeves. Hope that helps, Jeff.

Congrats Tom and Rich!

I don't understand what you mean by the above comment. I did this -- I think, and couldn't tell what bones were assigned to what because of all the cp weighting. I then removed all the cp weighting, but it looks like the bones are now assigned sort of randomly -- as in their assignment doesn't make sense to me. Thanks for the help and on the smoking, only that's been just a few days. Hopefully it sticks. I'm probably not understanding what you're asking, Jeff...not unusual. If you can take another stab at explaining the problem, I'll take another stab at it from my end.

13 MB is a pretty big file...how long is the animation?

Before resetting the compensates it's going to be pretty ugly. You're going to want to reset those before doing any serious weighting. The rig should end up looking exactly the same as it does in Bones mode when you open an Action once all of the compensates are reset. Sam's rig isn't any different after weighting...weighting just assigns the CP's to the geometry bones. So, to see him before weighting, you just click on an empty area of the model window in Bones mode and then select all of his CP's. Congrats on quitting smoking, Jeff! It's an extremely hard habit to break.

You'll have to reset compensates on both sides...the MirrorBones plugin won't do that. In the Posable installations, you'll only use the MirrorBones plugin for copying weighting. Hope that helps, Jeff.

If you do the weighting in an Action, the weighting is a permanent part of the model once you save the model...the same as if you did the weighting in any other window (except any other changes won't become part of the model). I would reset the compensates before doing anything more than roughing-in the weighting...there's a text file of instructions included with the installation rigs. Compensates are part of "translate to" or "orient like" constraints...they allow for the bone to maintain its' position when the constraints are applied. If a bone is set to "translate to" without a compensate, the bone will move to the bone it is set to translate to. If the same constraint is applied with a compensate, the bone will stay where it is and maintain the same distance from the bone it is set to translate to. I show an example of this in the original Squetch Rig installation tutorial at the beginning. There are quite a few compensates that need to be reset in the rig since the compensates are set for how everything is positioned in Squetchy Sam, so things might look strange until everything is reset. To reset a compensate, you set the enforcement of the constraint to "0", hit the compensate button and then re-enter the enforcement that was originally there. There are some compensates that need to be reset at both the 0% and 100% (or off and on) of the Poses they are in. The "upper_lip_to_Maxilla" Pose you will have to do differently...on those constraints, set the rotations on the bones to "0" on 'X', 'Y' and 'Z' axes (it's just a different way of resetting compensates...the usual way doesn't work on the constraints in that Pose). Hope that helps, Jeff.

Don't forget to reset the compensates using the included text file, Jeff. Once you run the "InstallRig" plugin, all of the geometry bones will be unhidden in model window in Bones mode...even if you have done some hiding or unhiding of bones, you can run the plugin again and all it will do is unhide them again, nothing else would be affected. Squetchy Sam will help give you an idea of what bones to weight everything to, but every character is going to be at least slightly different. The way I rough-in the weighting is to run the "InstallRig" plugin, in Bones mode hide all of the head bones except the "head_geom_front", hide the fan bones ("right/left_elbow_fan_geom", "right/left_wrist_fan_geom", "right/left_shoulder_fan_geom", "right/left_bicep_fan_geom", "chest_IO_geom", "stomach_IO_geom", "right/left_thigh_fan_geom", "right/left_knee_geom") and the "right/left_foot_shadow_geom" bone (it's located in the same place as the "right/left_foot_geom" bone). Then, I right mouse-click over the model window and select "Auto Assign Bones". That gets enough weighted to make it easy to see the affect of resetting the compensates. Not everyone does it this way, it's just what I do. Weighting one side and then using the "MirrorBones" plugin to copy the weighting from one side to the other will save you quite a bit of time...it's a very cool plugin. Another method to rough-in the weighting would be to use the Transfer_AW plugin which is on Steffen Gross' download page where the "MirrorBones" plugin is located...here. The results of my experiments with the Transfer_AW plugin are here. You could use Squetchy Sam as the "lo-res" model to transfer weighting to the "hi-res" model (your character)...it would do a decent job of roughing-in (I would probably make a modified Squetchy Sam that didn't include the face weighting, to keep it simple). Do as much of the manual CP Weighting as you can in an Action. That way, if you accidentally move something you didn't intend to move, it doesn't become a permanent part of the model. Hope that helps, Jeff.

Save your Action before you export it, then you only have to reload it for adjustments if needed. Hope that helps, Jeff.

You just need to set the "Animation_Controls/FACE Interface/FACE off/Joint Controls/Split Controls" Pose to "not set"....the interface splines will not export if it's set to anything else. Hope that helps, Jeff.

At about 32 MB, that's around three hours of downloading on my dialup...any possibility of a more compressed version, Lee? I've gotten some pretty good results with H.264.

More control of the eyelids was added since this installation tutorial was made...there are short videos here and here that show what the setup can do. Yes, it would be rare for me to use that Pose...but, if the entire eye socket is at an angle, it could be useful. Each eyelid is divided into three now, plus the corners. So, there are controls for positioning each division on the 'X' axis, 'Y' axis and scaling. Hope that helps, Jeff...if not, I could always make a quick video.

If you put "geom" in the name of your geometry bones, you could run the InstallRig plugin and it would make only those bones visible in Bones mode. The plugin wouldn't do anything else unless you set up "INSTALL" bones, so nothing else would be affected. It might not speed up your workflow by much, but every little bit helps.

I use "Auto Assign Bones" to initially rough-in the weighting...just so I can quickly see if I missed something when I'm setting up a rig. It works fine for that.

Not a dumb question at all...I should have worded the instruction better. I'll try to do that in the next release. Turn on the leg FK_IK Poses in the model's Properties by selecting the model in the "Objects" folder in the PWS, go to the "User Properties/Animation_Controls/Leg_Controls" and turn on the "Animation_Controls/Leg_Controls/right_leg_FK_IK" and "Animation_Controls/Leg_Controls/left_leg_FK_IK" poses". Then, in the same folder, right mouse click on the "Auto_hips_(IK_LEGS_ONLY)" Pose and select "Edit Relationship"...this will open that Pose for editing. In the "Auto_hips_(IK_LEGS_ONLY)" Pose, set all of the constraint enforcements to 0% to start. Then, click on the "Compensate" button before restoring the percentages that were initially on the constraints (all of them are 100% except for the "Aim Roll at hip_lower_controller_roll_target"...that one is 50%). Hope that helps, Steve.