itsjustme

If I remember correctly, you had an issue previously caused by resetting the compensates incorrectly...I would double check what you have with what the installation rig has in the "Animation_Controls/Arm_Controls/right_arm_FK_IK" pose as far as percentages when the pose is on and off, you might have something flipped still. The ring around CP's happens when there is more than one bone assigned to that point. That is CP Weighting and how it works. I show quite a bit of CP Weighting in the A Face Rigging Method tutorial and a little in part 5 of the Squetch Rig Installation tutorial (I don't think that has been released yet). Hope that helps, Steve.

My guess is that you turned on the pose inside another pose somewhere...at least that makes sense. Hope that helps, Steve.

Set the "Animation_Controls/FACE Interface/FACE off/Joint Controls/Split Controls" slider to "0" in the Pose Sliders menu.

Not a problem, Steve. Mark Strohbehn's tutorials on setting up the FACE interface will help you with the eyelids, they are located here. Mark is setting up a face using muscle poses instead of bones, but the eye setup he uses is compatible. Hope that helps.

The lip geometry bones are located as children of the "lip_base_main"...under several bones located there, actually. The lip geometry bones are named like "lip_lower_left_1_geom", "lip_upper_left_1_geom", etc. There are also children of those geometry bones that are designed for curling the lips named things like "lip_lower_left_1_roll_geom", etc. The pose sliders for moving the lips are located at "Animation_Controls/Face_underlying_controls/lips". There are individual up/down poses in the "mouth_ud_individual", left/right in "mouth_lr_individual", the in/out poses have "IO" in their name and the curling poses have "curl" in their name. The methods used in the Squetch Rig are similar to the rig used in the A Face Rigging Method tutorial, but there are a few improvements/changes and it has been adapted to work with the FACE control system. An example of a head rigged using the older tutorial is located here. That will give you a rough idea, but not the whole picture. If you have access to SVN, the Tinman is completely rigged with the new setup...along with a couple of character specific modifications that wouldn't be on a normal installation. I'm trying to get back to finishing the Squetch Rig Installation tutorial, it will have more specific information on the updated face setup. I'm hoping to get more done on the tutorial in the next couple of weeks along with an update to the rig itself. I'm still pedaling, Steve.

Extremely nice work so far! The only critique I have is that the fingers on the hands may be too long...it's hard to tell, but the right hand fingers seem long on the front view. Other than that, fantastic.

I think the first character you rig will take you ten times longer than any other, Steve. It's just about familiarizing yourself with the system. Once you know how to do it all the way through, the fog will lift. Don't worry about breaking things (save a lot so that you don't lose anything), tear things apart, do things wrong...that's the best way to learn anything. You'll never make those mistakes again.

That's the idea with CP Weighting, Steve. You can assign as many bones to a point as you want...I'm not aware of a limit at least. The only thing to keep in mind is that the percentages have to add up to 100%. If you don't make them add up to 100, the software will do it for you and you might not get the results you were after. Hope that helps.

Yessir, we are on the same page. I've got four or five modifications/updates that will be in the next Squetch Rig release...I'm hoping to get it done in the next week or so.

The face poses are pretty empty until you tweak them for the character you're working on. I haven't gotten to that point in the installation tutorial yet (I hope to get there soon), but the "A Face Rigging Method" tutorial that I made will give you sort of an idea for some of it and Mark Strohbehn has made some FACE installation tutorials that help bridge the differences. I'm pedaling as fast as I can.

All good points, Mark. I took a look at some of the weighting on a couple of TWO characters and did some experimenting...I could convert the hips_geom to be more of a thigh fan bone. I'll look at the elbows, I'm thinking you're right there as well. Thanks again!

If you have v12 installed, you can just get the DLL files from there...that's what I generally do.

Nice catch on Steve's model, Mark! I'll take a look at this tonight...maybe I missed something. Thanks!

Hmmmm, you've got something really strange going on in there, Steve. Did everything up to this point appear to happen as it did in the tutorial? The bones look like they went to the right places...the legs look like they need to be straightened on their "Y" axis, that may be part of the problem in the legs. I'm getting all kinds of flipping on the rotation of the leg bones and some really strange behaviors, like the thigh and calf bones separating instead of remaining attached. It's probably staring right at me, but I'm not thinking too straight at the moment. I have to get to bed, but I'll pick it up again tonight.

I'm still not sure what you're seeing, Steve...what I saw was that the "Channel CP Settings" menu pop up after selecting it. I went through it frame by frame looking for anything that changed and at 21:08 that's all I saw change. I may have a mental block though, I've watched these so much that I sometimes don't see obvious things. What part of the screen?

Where in the tutorial, Steve? Maybe I assumed something that I shouldn't have.

Dude, you seriously kick ass....one of the scariest rigging monsters in the haunted house! The workshop couldn't be in better hands. If I can help in any way, let me know.

Mark, you are an extremely generous man!

For the missing stuff, my guess is that you don't have "Show advanced properties" checked...go to "Tools/Options" (hit "Ctrl+P"), select the "Global" tab, and check the "Show advanced properties" and "Show property triangle" boxes. As for the knee problem...first, unhide all of the bones by selecting the "base_bone" in bones mode, hold down the "Shift" key and hit the "J" key. After doing that, make sure that the leg bones are all in the same location, if they are, it's most likely a constraint problem. If the foot jumps away from the foot control null, adjust the euler limit on the calf like I show in the tutorial. If that isn't it, go back and reset all of the compenates on the legs...before doing that, make sure you turn off the leg poses in the "Animation_Controls" in the "User Properties" for the model first. If that doesn't cure the problem, I'll be happy to take a look at it for you, Steve. I don't know why one of the knees wouldn't work...if you don't find the problem, I'll be happy to take a look.

Don't beat yourself up, Steve. I wasn't trying to be an ass, maybe it came off that way...but I really wasn't trying to do that. I was just trying to help by pointing out how it could be done better. If I had more time last night, I would've fixed everything...I just didn't have time. Also, if I fixed everything you wouldn't know how to fix it yourself. I'm the last guy in the world who would tear into anyone with the intent to harm. Sorry if it seemed that way...maybe I should use more smileys. The chest in/out bone is for chest expansion and contraction...there's also one for the stomach and even one for the hips, that way you can taper the expansion all the way down the torso. The way I assign the CP's to these is to assign CP's to the actual chest, stomach and hip geometry bones initially and then, once that works, I go back and assign to the in/out bones based on the assignments that I have at that point. Anything that is assigned to the chest bone, for example, could be safely assigned to the chest in/out bone. I'd better work on my critique replys...once again, I'm very sorry if it felt like an attack, Steve. That wasn't my intention at all.

Very generous, Jeff! He looks fantastic.

I don't know how I missed your last post here, Rodney...that is a very cool model. It would be good for people to have a standard model to do their first Squetch Rig installation, we just have to get a consensus.

I just realized that I didn't answer one of the questions...the face rig isn't finished being tweaked at the end of this tutorial. I know that part 5 has more setting up of the face and that's not the complete end of it either. The face is the last thing to get weighted when I work on a character. I think that was all of the questions up to this point. Hope that helps.

Here's the assessment, Steve: The leg problem is that the euler limit on the calves needs to have a "-20" instead of a "0" on the negative side of the "X" axis. However, there are a few other things that are problems. First, if you unhide all of the bones in the character (hold down the shift key and hit "H" with the "base_bone" selected) you'll see that the control bones and geometry bones aren't in the same places. That would mean that the geometry bones were most likely moved after the installation process or that translate/scale/rotate modes weren't used. Second, the bones on the left and right sides don't match and the model wasn't made using copy/flip/attach so it will take setting up each side independently. Third, the Hand Gizmo bones aren't in the hand correctly...that may be part of what is causing your finger problem. The thumb problem is the roll handles need to be turned so that they are perpendicular to the angle of the bend. The left side bones appear to be put in better than the right side. To fix this installation, you would have to match the left and right sides by deleting the right side bones, mirroring the left side bones to the right, correcting the placement of the control bones to match the geometry bones, center the feet bones on each foot, set the negative side of the calf euler constraints to "-20", correct the placement of the Hand Gizmo bones, reset the compensate on the leg and arm poses, rotate the thumb bones and then re-weight the CP's. The other option, which might be easier, is to re-do the installation. I have a couple of shortcuts that I can do, but it would still take a few hours. ------------------------------- EDIT ------------------------------- Here is a partially corrected version...I deleted the right side bones, mirrored the left side to the right side, corrected the euler constraints on the legs and corrected the leg and feet bone placements. I didn't reset the compensate on the legs and arms or fix the Hand Gizmo bone placement or re-assign CP weights...but it's a start if you go that route.

I'll take a look at it sometime tonight.