itsjustme

Very cool, Andy! The stuff that drives me nuts usually ends up being something simple that I overlooked. I'm glad you found the problem.

Sorry it took me so long to get back to this...the Project file is missing the "Room112bug_final.mdl" model and the "short_walk_twist.act" Action, so I can't tell if there would be any slippage while the character walks. About all I could tell is that the path works fine. If you post the missing stuff, I'll take another look at it.

For modeling humans, try Colin Freeman's Cooper tutorials or Matthew Krick's tutorials. For mechanical modeling, try Roger Reynold's site. For paid tutorials, you could try Will Sutton's modeling tutorial or Barry Zundel's tutorials. Hope that helps.

Posting the Action might help in diagnosing the problem...the entire Project would probably be better though.

Some of these might be helpful: Paint software: ArtRage (free version), Artweaver (free, Windows), GIMP (free), Inkscape (free, Windows & Linux), Pixia (free, Windows), Project Dogwaffle (free version, Windows). Audio software: Audacity (free), Skale Tracker (free, Windows). Video software: Virtualdub (free, Windows), Quicktime Pro (around $30), Cinelerra (free, Linux) Text editing software: jEdit (free), celtx (free).

Go into the "Help" menu and select "About Animation Master"...the version should be listed on the window that pops up.

Putting an "Aim at" constraint on the eye bone with the target being a null in front of the eye will get the eye aiming done. Make an on/off Pose, in that Pose apply the "Aim at" constraint. For the pupils, I just use muscle movement in a percentage Pose. Make a percentage Pose, in that Pose at 100% go into Muscle Mode (F7), select the spline ring that defines the pupil and scale it. I made a face rigging tutorial a couple of years ago that might help...it's here. Hope that helps.

Hi David! A (nother) question... :-) If I do as you say above (except instead of using the bicep bones, substitute in the sleeve bones, yes?)... then will the sleeve mesh expand out to accommodate the muscle flex? And, will it somehow do this even when the bicep is rotated and the arm twists under the sleeve (while the sleeve does not twist)? Is that clear? In other words if, from the default model position, you rotate the lower arm forward to flex the bicep will the front of the sleeve push outward to accommodate the flex... and... if you then rotate the bicep so that the lower arm rotates upward and the flexed muscle rotates from the front to the top will the shape of the sleeve somehow morph from the front upward to the top to still cover the flexed muscle as it rotates up? The best I can do at describing it. Sorry. Thanks! Rusty I think I understand, Rusty. The sleeves won't flex at all unless you use the "Animation_Controls/Squetch_Controls/ARMS/sleeves_squetch_like_bicep" Pose...which can be added to a model by dragging it from the quick fix version of Squetchy Sam that I have posted in this post. It will be in the next update to the installation rigs, but for the next week or so it will be there. I think the installation stuff I sent you has that included. Hope that helps.

Also, don't forget to reset the compensates according to the text file that comes with the installation. If you run into any problems, you can post, PM or e-mail me. Good luck with the installation, Heiner!

Nice! Fantastic work, Satyajit! You and Nep are putting together a great project so far.

Hey, I'm sorry for suggesting that the Squetch rig has bugs. That was stupid of me and I don't know what I was thinking of. You, David and others have worked hard to provide this really cool rig and your support (especially to me) has been exemplary. I think I was having a brain fart. :-) My only intention was to make a few suggestions that might help you. To a person with my background 'all' complex systems, whether from NASA, IBM or the US Army Corp of Engineers (or anyone) have 'bugs' -- esoterically, mathematically it is impossible for them not to. Iandependent studies done in the early 80s by all of the aforementioned institutions concluded this and probably planted this mind set in my head and sadly, experience reinforced it. For the most part, this is one of those lofty, theoretical, mathematical views that does not pertain to the real world that much. In this case the system is not constrained to normal or expected usage and is wide open to any circumstance. Rusty As Mark said, the dynamic feature wouldn't have much of a chance to have a bug...although there is always a possibility for a bug somewhere in the rig. We do our best to fix anything that pops up. If anyone runs across anything, let us know and we'll do our best to track it down and provide a quick fix.

I vote for adding jiggle. We could also add some to the thighs, calves, biceps and face.

Double-check that you have re-parented everything the way that it is in Squetchy Sam. If that is correct, unhide all of the hand bones and check to make sure that the 'Z' rotation on the thumb bones is the same (in Bones mode). Those are what I would check. If either of those aren't the problem, I'll have to take a look at it to figure it out. Hope that helps, Rusty.

Oh damn I knew that... but does image 2 indicate the areas to take them from and where to move them to? I think I need a nap. :-( r Edit: Sorry for the brain fart. After reading everything again, I'm almost certain I see light. I'm pretty sure you understand, but I'll re-state it to be safe. As Mark said, you only re-parent the bones with thumb in their name. Hope that helps, Rusty.

Of course the easiest way is to use the Posable installation. For that, you would open up the Action you used to export your model, rotate the thumbs the way you want them, export the model under another name, unhide all of the hand bones by holding down the shift key and unhiding the "left_hand_sizer" and "right_hand_sizer", delete all of the thumb bones, drag the thumb bones from the newly exported model into your character and run the InstallRig plugin. The second way to rotate the thumb bones would be to drag all of the thumb bones that are children of the "left/right_hand_IKFK" and "left/right_hand_geom" bones (they are both found as children of the "left/right_hand_sizer" bones) to the "left/right_finger_thumb_control" bones, rotate that bone in bones mode using rotate mode and then re-parent the bones the way they were when you are done. If you want to correct the model's geometry as well, hold the "Ctrl" key down while rotating. Hope that helps, Rusty. David, What you describe is not possible because the left/right_finger_thumb_control which you want me to move all the children of the left/right_finger_thumb_control to... is also a child of this bone. I can't move the parent and all its children to one of its children... at least not to my knowledge. Cheers, Rusty Well, I've done it several times...so, it's possible. You aren't dragging a parent to a child bone here...anywhere. The thumb control bones are children of the "IKFK" bones (which are children of the "sizer" bones), but that isn't an issue in doing this fix. Drag all of the thumb bones (they are children of the "left/right_hand_IKFK" and "left/right_hand_geom" bones) onto the "left/right_finger_thumb_control" bones (they are children of the "left/right_hand_IKFK" bones), do the rotation corrections in Bones mode and then drag the thumb bones you re-parented back to their original locations. Hope that helps, Rusty.

That is a setup Pose for Steve's Hand Gizmo, it doesn't need to be edited or turned off. The "Left/Right_Finger_End_Joints_Bend_N_Y" Poses can be adjusted to vary the amount of bending the Hand Gizmo will apply to the second and third joint of the fingers. Hope that helps, Rusty.

Of course the easiest way is to use the Posable installation. For that, you would open up the Action you used to export your model, rotate the thumbs the way you want them, export the model under another name, unhide all of the hand bones by holding down the shift key and unhiding the "left_hand_sizer" and "right_hand_sizer", delete all of the thumb bones, drag the thumb bones from the newly exported model into your character and run the InstallRig plugin. The second way to rotate the thumb bones would be to drag all of the thumb bones that are children of the "left/right_hand_IKFK" and "left/right_hand_geom" bones (they are both found as children of the "left/right_hand_sizer" bones) to the "left/right_finger_thumb_control" bones, rotate that bone in bones mode using rotate mode and then re-parent the bones the way they were when you are done. If you want to correct the model's geometry as well, hold the "Ctrl" key down while rotating. Hope that helps, Rusty.

A possible aid to initial weighting would be to use a model that is already weighted and transfer that weighting to your model using the Transfer_AW plugin. I did some experimenting a few months ago and it did a decent job for roughing things in. Here is the post where I gave the process and the results I got...it was just a test, so I transferred the weighting from Squetchy Sam to an un-weighted version of the same model (just a proof-of-concept). Hope that helps.

Sounds like a job for an Action... automated quality control... if you find you miss something you add it to the action and never forget it again. Rusty You're right, Rusty...I should make some Actions for people to use when weighting. I'll put that on my to-do list (it's becoming a long list again). Don't hit "Apply"...I never do, Dhar. Just hit "OK" (or whatever it is...it's not in front of me). The CP's will stay selected (if I'm remembering correctly...if not, it's not hard to re-select them), you'll just have to right mouse click and select "Edit CP weights" again. I'm hearing that old joke in my head..."Doc, it hurts when I do this." The doctor says, "Then don't do that".

That's what I thought too, Rusty. But if you look at Squetchy Sam, hardly a CP is assigned to a bone at 100%. The toe point, which you'd expect it to be 100% toes_geom, is actually weighted to the foot_geom as well. And then there is that "foot_shadow_geom" which came out of nowehere I'm starting at the feet and working my way up. Oh, what is the 'foot_shadow_geom' bone used for? Cheers, Rusty The foot "shadow" bones are for the back part of the foot...the reason they are there is that when the foot is squetched, you don't necessarily want the back part of the foot to stretch backward. Other than that, they move like the foot "geom" bones. Whenever I weight a character, I try to put it through as many possible combinations of positions and squetching as I can to get the best combination. Hope that helps. ------------------ EDIT ------------------ The weighting on your character is going to vary from Sam's, go with whatever gives you good movement...Sam is just a guide.

Several of those five point patches would be better if you used hooks...like at the ear (they would be treated as four point patches if you did that). You also have some dead-end splines, those would cause creases. As for your question, there isn't a button in Animation Master to make all five point patches fill...you would have to select them and hit the button to designate it as a valid patch. The splinemanship tutorials on this site should help you with your spline layout. Hope that helps, Art.

When you render it, does it show up? If so, then it is a realtime rendering problem...you can set it to OpenGL or DirectX in the "Options" menu. Hope that helps.

Could it be your gamma setting, Ramon? Here is a thread that might help with that. Hope it helps.

You could try Will Sutton's tutorial or Jim Talbot's tutorial...they might steer you in the right direction. Hope that helps.

I tend to use "Auto Assign Bones" to start off, just to get it extremely rough (I don't usually use the bone falloff, but there are instances where I would). Then, I work on large groups of points to rough it in better and work my way down to weighting individual CP's. I use some bones as "neutral" while weighting (like the "head_geom_front" bone for the face) to decrease movement where necessary, later the percentages applied to the "neutral" bones tend to be assigned to other bones...I show how I weight things in the Squetch Rig Installation tutorial somewhere near the end. Hope that helps, Dhar.