itsjustme

Since you're replacing a Squetch Rig head with another Squetch Rig head, you won't need to delete those Poses. The only thing that will probably be needed for those Poses is to reset the compensate on the "head_and_neck_orient_like_chest" Pose.

I haven't heard anything, but I assume it's still being worked on.

When you save out your model, you could include the rig version in the name...that would be one way to do it, Rusty.

Yes. Not really, the rig is complete, but the bone hierarchy has been split up for installation. The InstallRig plugin restores the bone hierarchy. In an Action or Choreography, the rig has Poses that hide all of the bones not used for animating...you can unhide whatever you need using those Poses. In the Bones window, the Poses don't apply, but, the InstallRig plugin will unhide all of the bones with "geom" (the geometry bones) in the name to help you assign CP's if you use that window. I use an Action to assign the CP Weighting for the most part, but I use the Bones window to rough them in. Sure, you could do that. How well it works would be dependent on the geometry changes. You could do that...that's what Rusty was asking how to do, sort of. That's the same kind of plan Rusty is using, his is slightly different. Having a generic character that you tweak the geometry of to make new characters should work fine. Hope that helps.

The Squetch Rig is different from a lot of rigs because the parenting of the bones isn't done in the same way. In a standard rig, all of the bones that the geometry is assigned to are parented much like the control setup. The Squetch Rig isolates each individual geometry bone so that you can squash and stretch every individual joint (and in some instances it's subdivided further than that). That makes it where you can't just drag a control bone in the Bones window and have everything that that bone moves follow, because there are a lot of bones that are tied to it using constraints instead of parenting. If you tried to use the 2001 Rig installation method on the Squetch Rig, you would have a tangled mess. To get around the problem, I put in "INSTALL" bones. I tore the rig apart and parented everything so that moving the "INSTALL" bones (using the rotate, scale and translate modes or poses in the Posable installation rig that Mark Skodacek made) would move everything correctly. The problem with that, is then you would have to go through and delete a couple hundred bones and re-parent everything manually...unless you use the InstallRig plugin (thanks to Noel). The InstallRig plugin deletes any bone that has "INSTALL" in its' name, reparents the bones using the hierarchy that is in the bone's name after the word "INSTALL" and unhides all of the geometry bones when in the Bones window. I made a tutorial that shows the process of making an installation rig that is located here...with that information, you could make your own installation rig that can use the InstallRig plugin. Once you get the bones in place and run the InstallRig plugin, you are left with resetting any compensates that need adjusting (there's a list included in the ZIP file) and CP Weighting. In the Squetch Rig, geometry should be assigned to bones with "geom" in their name. The Wiki page for the Squetch Rig has links to every version of the Squetch Rig, add-ons and tutorials. At the bottom of the page is a standalone version of the FACE setup, three different versions are included (one with just FACE, FACE with tongue bones and FACE with the entire bones setup). At present, I don't have a separate set of hands...but I can always strip out a set if necessary. Let me know if you still want them. I think I covered the questions...if I missed something, I can always try again.

No offense taken. I use MirrorBone a lot, it should be a part of everyone's workflow. Steffen did a fantastic job on it and his other plugins are just as good...well worth downloading all of them, in my opinion.

Yes. I'm sorry for the 'email hiccups'... this is a forum but it seems that stumbling 'cause written messages aren't always clear isn't confined to email... my bad.... it happens. Thanks!! Rusty Not a problem, Rusty. If there is something about the explanation that isn't clear or incorrect, let me know and I'll see if I can straighten it out. It's hard sometimes to get a procedure across with just text. Don't hesitate to ask if something doesn't go as expected.

Using the Posable rig, remove (as in get rid of) everything related to the head except the head bone... leaving the posable rig for everything below the neck and the head bone. If I'm understanding (maybe I'm still not), isn't that what I outlined, Rusty?

Maybe I'm confused, Rusty...the instructions I outlined are for if you have a face and head on a character that you want to keep the rigging for and want to replace the rest of the rig. The instructions for the character deletes everything except the head and face/FACE stuff, the instructions for the installation rig deletes only the head and face/FACE stuff. On the Posable installation rig, you will still need the main head "INSTALL" bone so that you can get the neck to end in the correct place. Is that what you need?

Okay, I believe this is the answer, Rusty: If you have a character that is already rigged with a version of the Squetch Rig, and want to keep your current face rig, FACE controls and weighting (for the face and head), here's what I would do: On your character: 1. Move the "body_SQUETCH_base/body_SQUETCH_pivot/body_SQUETCH_character/base_bone/head_orient_like_chest/neck_control/head_manual_control" (along with all of its' children) and the "body_SQUETCH_base/FACE Interface - Master" (along with all of its' children) to the top of the Bones folder (which would put it on the same level in the hierarchy as the "Master_EyeTarget"). 2. Delete every bone other than the "Master_EyeTarget", "FACE Interface - Master" and the "head_manual_control" (and their children). 3. Delete all of the non-FACE related Smartskins. 4. Delete all Poses except in the following folders: a-"Animation_Controls/Face_underlying_controls" b-"Animation_Controls/FACE Interface" c-"Show_and_Hide_Rig_Components/hide_all_eyeblink_nulls" d-"Show_and_Hide_Rig_Components/hide_face_setup_bones" e-"Show_and_Hide_Rig_Components/hide_FACE_non_tweaking_bones" In the Posable installation rig: 1. Delete "Master_EyeTarget", "blink_main_INSTALL", "HeadProxy_INSTALL", "face_INSTALL" and the "FACE Interface_INSTALL_body_SQUETCH_base" (and their children). 2. Delete the "head_manual_control" bone and its' children (it's under one of the children of the "head_INSTALL" bone). 3. Under "Groups", delete the "FACE_groups" folder. 4. Delete the FACE control labels in the modeling window. 5. Delete all of the FACE related Smartskins. 6. Delete the following Pose folders: a-"Animation_Controls/Face_underlying_controls" b-"Animation_Controls/FACE Interface" c-"Show_and_Hide_Rig_Components/hide_all_eyeblink_nulls" d-"Show_and_Hide_Rig_Components/hide_face_setup_bones" e-"Show_and_Hide_Rig_Components/hide_FACE_non_tweaking_bones" Now, after saving both of those models, import the character into the Posable installation model and go through the normal Posable installation method. After you have run the InstallRig plugin, re-parent the "FACE Interface - Master" bone as a child of the "body_SQUETCH_base" bone and re-parent the "head_manual_control" bone as a child of the "body_SQUETCH_base/body_SQUETCH_pivot/body_SQUETCH_character/base_bone/head_orient_like_chest/neck_control" bone. It shouldn't cause a problem. Hope that helps.

I show a similar method in the A Face Rigging Method tutorial, that might help. However, if you are using v13 or v14, you can just use Steffen Gross' "MirrorBone" plugin that you can find on this page. Hope that helps.

I'll have to answer this one tonight...I'm out of time at the moment, but I thought I'd let you know that I saw this and will get you an answer tonight. I want to make sure what I'm telling you is correct, so I'll have to actually go through the steps to confirm everything. Sorry for the delay, Rusty.

All of the bones not needed for animating are hidden using Poses (with a couple of exceptions, like the eyelid bones). You can unhide whatever you want in bones mode, but they will (for the most part, like I said) be hidden in an Action or Choreography. Hope that helps, Rusty.

Did you make the Poses with an Action open? Sometimes the Action gets the changes by accident. Whenever you make a new Pose, close all other Actions and Poses...unless there is some copying between them. Hope that helps.

The Hash Online Store takes credit cards...you can also call them, the contact information is here. Hope that helps.

So, it's a legal copy? Without a "Data" folder?

Sorry I gave the wrong file name, I left part out, I actually tried to save a file called (rabbitwalk1.prj--I typed it all in myself) and then got error and I am runnig on windows xp professional. I recently upgraded from v.12 to v.13 and I have not tried to make file name longer to see if that was an issue or not. So if length is not the issue I have no ideal why it would give an error.. I really enjoy this software and this forum is very helpful. I apppreciate the time anyone takes to answer a post or give advice. Thanks. Were you overwriting a previous Project with the same name? Or did this happen the first time you saved the Project under that name?

I regularly save long file names with underscores instead of spaces...I have never hit a limit. This is on WinXP, but I know on older operating systems like Win98 it might be a problem. An example of a filename I've used would be "v13_Four_Finger_Squetch_Rig_06_15_2007_installation_Foot_Gizmo.mdl"...I've had similarly long filenames for Projects, but I don't remember them at the moment.

Maybe a bone for each button with a dynamic constraint (collisions turned on) on them for the springiness and a path constraint to anchor the button bones to the material (a short spline sticking up off of the surface of the material)? I haven't tried it, but it works in my head.

It looks like the hip null has been moved forward in a Pose somewhere...that's not the only thing it could be, but that's what it looks like. Hope that helps.

I'm not sure I understand, Eric...the difference between the 2001 Rig and the Squetch Rig or the differences between the version of Squetch Rig used in the tutorial to the present Squetch Rig? If it's the differences between the 2001 Rig and the Squetch Rig...built-in squash and stretch on every joint, a face rig and FACE on-face controls, the Hand Gizmo, IK/FK switch (a hand-off of controls so that the arm/leg stays in place when switching), limb bowing, scale-to-reach poses on arms and legs in IK, an IK spine, optional versions with the Foot Gizmo (for characters with hand-like feet), simple toe add-ons for toes that don't need as much as the Foot Gizmo and a tail add-on for bipeds, a relatively easy method of installation that uses poses (the Posable installation put together by Mark Skodacek)...also, a Quadraped version of the rig. I'm sure there are more differences, but that's a lot of it. There have been enough updates to the Squetch Rig since that tutorial to make some things different...for a biped, I would recommend using the Posable installation of the Squetch Rig along with a tutorial located here. You can find links to all other Squetch Rig related things in my signature at the bottom of this post. Hope that helps.

You can set your CP Weighting in the modeling window or an Action...without setting falloff on the bone. There is a Tech Talk on CP Weighting here and I show some at the beginning of a couple of tutorials (if I'm remembering correctly) here and here. Hope that helps.

You could try Super (free)...or maybe one of the other converters on this page. Hope that helps.

I haven't seen it get posted yet, Mark has been extremely busy. I have a copy (what I sent to Mark for review), if you have an immediate need I can send you a link. Anyone that needs it can PM me (I'll PM you Rusty).

While working on the Tin Owl's legs, I found out that somewhere along the line a constraint on the toes in the v12 and v13 installations went missing. This is a fix for that, the v11.1 installations are the same but re-named to avoid confusion. If you have the last version installed (v12 or v13), you can just add an "orient like right/left_toes_IK_manual_pointer" to the "right/left_toes_manual_controller" in IK in the leg IK/FK poses...or, you can replace the leg IK/FK poses and reset your compensates. I also did a little tweaking to some of Squetchy Sam's face poses. The Posable installation rig should be posted in the next day or so barring any complications. If you are using v11.1, you'll need the DLL files located here, there are instructions for installing them inside the ZIP file. You will need the InstallRig plugin for all versions. For the MirrorBones versions, you'll need the MirrorBone plugin. There is more information and additional versions on the Wiki. If anyone finds something that needs to be corrected, let me know and I'll fix it as fast as I can. ---------------------------------- EDIT ---------------------------------- I deleted these files, the next release is located here.