itsjustme

There are four "dead-end" splines that I have marked in red...there are a lot of other things that need to be tweaked, but that is the source of the sharp edges. Hope that helps.

For the face rig in the Squetch Rig, the solution was another layer of bones with "aim at" constraints in the "Blink" Poses...I don't know if that will work for this situation, but I thought I would mention it in case it does. It's looking fantastic, Mark!

Looks great so far, Heiner!

You are a scary man, Stian!

I returned to my normal work schedule a few days ago after three weeks with no time off from my job...I haven't had any free time, unfortunately. I started looking at the gut rig again last night and have done some revising. Sorry for the lack of updates, I'm going to have more time now, so I should get a lot done soon.

Very cool, Mark!

Squetchy Sam is completely rigged, including facial Poses...he's free to use for anything you want. Making and rigging your own characters is really the way to go, that way you get exactly what you want. Until you get to that point, Sam might be helpful to you.

Looks great, Mark & Mark!

It would definitely speed up the response on extremely complex rigs.

Sure, but you would have to do a lot of modifying. The easiest thing to do would be to use TSM2, it's free now.

LOL! In Bertram's case, I really wanted functional pockets. 99.99% of the time, pockets aren't an issue...I can't remember a 3D character off the top of my head that actually used their pockets. I didn't want things to just magically appear in his hand or have him go into his pockets slightly off-camera to cheat the shot. I could have done the same sort of thing using Smartskin, but it would have taken longer to set up and I wouldn't have the bones to use as handles to open and close the pockets.

My spare time has been at a minimum for the past couple of weeks, sorry to be taking so long. I did get some time today to put in some controls for Bertram's pockets...he's going to have to be able to put his hands in them. Here are a couple of quick test clips showing how the pockets move with the legs and how the controls work. There are three fan bones with their bases anchored to the same nulls that anchor the legs, those bones have the inner and outer pocket bones as children and the CP Weighting is split up between them to get decent movement. It might need more tweaking of the weighting before it's finally finished. The next little addition that I need to mess with is a setup for the belt buckle, then I can get back to the gut add-on...I wanted to have the lower half of Bertram's body worked out first. pocket_controls_09_17_2008_Sorenson3.mov pocket_test_09_17_2008_Sorenson3.mov

The Path Ease (walk, then wave) tutorial might be a help for you on this one. If there is no previous key on a bone, then it will start its' movement from the beginning of the animation...add a key to the torso so that it won't begin turning until you want it to happen. Hope that helps.

You only have to create a username and password...that's it.

Looks great, Mark!

I spent a couple more days knocking around the Quad and Six Leg rigs, typed up the installation instructions and put together the Six Leg add-ons...it took a little longer than I initially thought it would. Mark is still shaking things down in the Quad and Six Leg rigs while doing the two installations on his plate, I'm now back to the gut rig add-on and then the biped rig while doing Bertram's installation and installation tutorial. A lot of things are going to be finished at the same time.

I added more splineage to Bertram's legs, I was a little too frugal when I modeled him initially. I'm hoping to get the gut rig to Mark in a day or two. I had to spend a couple of days getting the Posable Quad Squetch Rig updated and knocked together a Posable six legged Squetch Rig. Mark is going to be installing them in SO characters (I believe a frog and a grasshopper), so if that goes well we will release them as soon as we're pretty sure we've found any potential problems. We've had the Posable Quad Rig on a back burner for quite a while, it'll feel good to get that out.

The best explanation that I've seen is Yves' Tutorial. Hope that helps, Eric.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the free time I thought I would, so I didn't get as much done as I had hoped, George. I did some CP Weighting on the most recent installation of the legs and that's about it. I think the gut rig is close, there's one thing I still need to add to it...I need to finish the CP Weighting to do more testing. The leg installation is a place that I needed to do some experimenting on the bone placement, so that's what I'm going through. Normally, it would be just about finding the center of the hips, but Bertram's design isn't like most characters. Initially, I estimated too high for the origin of the thighs, so I lowered that and am redoing everything accordingly. The gut rig is set to raise the lower part of the gut on each side (it's adjustable) as the knees are raised, which affects how the CP Weighting needs to be done. I should have some time to work late tonight...I realize this has been taking way too long.

I can't pull a word out of my pocket like "bucolic", so I'll just have to settle for "that kicks ass"! Very cool so far, Mark!

I've been doing a lot of testing on the possible gut rig, re-rigged the legs on Bertram and did a lot of CP Weighting the past few days. I've also put some rotate manipulator limits on the toe and heel controls in the Squetch Rig...I know, that's a minor thing, but I figured I would mention it while I'm at it. I should be able to get a lot done this weekend.

I corrected the problems with the FACE interface (file is attached), it should now hide correctly using the Pose. However, in modeling mode, no Pose will hide anything...you'll have to select the geometry you want to see and then hit the "H" key to hide everything else. The face rig bones don't look like they are being used, you appear to be going for a muscle-based setup. If that's the case, you can delete the mouth, cheek, jowl, ear, nose, tongue and brow bones. You can also delete the "Face_underlying_controls" Poses. In order for the FACE controls to work, you will have to set up your Poses using the Poses in the "FACE Interface" folder. Mark Strohbehn's tutorials for setting up the FACE controls with muscle Poses are linked on this page. Hope that helps, Steve. rigging2_fixed2.zip

Good luck in the festivals, Dusan!

Looks very cool, Mark!

Just a quick update on my progress. I spent a couple of days going over the Squetch Rig installations and fixed a few things...mostly in the four fingered version. There were a couple of Poses that were duplicated, the "z_right/left_toes_IK_pointer" bones needed to have the "z_" added to the name in the four fingered version, I changed the default euler limit on the negative side of the 'X' limit for the calves and forearms to "-10" (since that is going to be pretty common anyway), fixed the manipulator limits for elbow and knee controllers (a couple of them were showing all rotations instead of only the ones needed), added more movement to the installation Poses in the spine, added more scaling to the jaw installation Pose, added some 'Z' rotation Poses to the installation of the fingers and tightened up the bone positioning in the arms and legs to reduce errors (that's what took the most time). Once I get through a complete installation to find anything else that may need tweaking and have Mark go over the changes, I'll get the next release of the biped Squetch Rig posted. Then, I installed the four fingered biped rig into Bertram so that I can do better testing of the gut add-on that I want to put in. I'm in the middle of doing the CP Weighting on the body...I'm going to hold off on the face until I get the gut worked out, send that to Mark for review, then go back and finish the installation tutorial I started. It has taken some time, but I think it was necessary. ---------------------------------- EDIT ---------------------------------- I forgot to mention that the "z_right/left_toes_IK_pointer" bones renaming was in the "right/left_leg_FK_IK" Poses.