itsjustme

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.

13s is the minimum needed to use the Posable installation, but, any v13 should work fine for using the Squetch Rig. The FACE controls can be unhidden in an Action or Choreography using the "Animation_Controls/FACE Interface/FACE off/Joint Controls/Split Controls" Pose in the "Pose Sliders" menu..."0" hides the FACE controls, "1" unhides the controls that link both sides of the face, "2" unhides the controls that split the sides of the face, "3" will also unhide the individual eyelid controls and "4" will unhide the eye socket bones. Hope that helps, Jake.

LOL! I've got the same dream, George. I don't think it will ever get that easy, but it can always improve. Thanks, George. Not a problem, Mike. Your testing and input on the things we're building are payment, it helps us a lot. Yessir, I've got a thing I'm putting together for Bertram's gut and "love handles" that could be an add-on. It's got a few areas that I need to adjust (that's what I'm going to work on tonight), but I should be sending you something to critique soon. I'll also send you the updated installation rigs for review.

It's been over a week since my last Bertram post, so I figured I had better post so that this section didn't appear dead. I'll pin this thread so that it will be easy to take a quick look to see what I'm bashing against my skull at that moment. What I've been doing is updating the biped Squetch Rig installation rigs, working on a possible add-on for the rig, started the Squetch Rig installation tutorial and started modeling a prop. Since most of those things are inter-related, they will probably all get finished at the same time...I'm using Bertram's rig installation to troubleshoot the rig and add-on, and as the model for the tutorial. Sorry for the delay on the things I'm going to release.

Just because he lacks modeling talent doesn't mean he should jeopardize his morals to make a movie. I'd like to think that it should go without saying (tasteful, that is) but who really knows what is going on in the minds of others on the net. "Tasteful" could mean a lot of things...later he clarifies that he's referring to porn. Saying, "As long as it isn't porn" is different than saying "As long as it's tasteful", don't you think? Good luck on the project, Darkwing.

It could be done, but you would have to make the overall rig different depending on exactly how you want it to work. If you want each part to be completely independent of the rest of the body and put into any rig, you would lose some of the things that rely on other parts...like steady shoulders, steady arms, auto hips, etc. It could be done though. If you want each part to be plugin parts to add up to a whole character that all use the same rig, you could do it by changing the installation some. So, that could be done as well...just differently. It's not a bad idea, but it would take a lot of work either way. To me, the second method would be the way to go, that way the number of variables is reduced.

I did a little messing with the latest version and think a couple of things would be decent additions, but not deal-breakers at all. I like how the thumb works with the Gizmo, but it would be cool if there was an option to exclude it. I got some good hand positions with it as-is, but I can see how it could be beneficial to have it independent. I think putting some "Rotate Only" manipulator limits on the toes would be helpful. That's all I could come up with in the way of suggestions...very solid, Mark!

Darkwing, have you ever heard the phrase "Looking a gift horse in the mouth"? You have someone willing to help you if you help them in an even trade and you want to have final approval on their project?

I haven't had a chance to look at the latest version, but I should get to it sometime tonight.

Jeff Lew has a couple of rigged characters that he made in v10.5 that you could use...they are here and here. There is an old version of Squetchy Sam that works in v11.1, here...he's rigged as well.

If there's enough geometry and it's weighted well, you can get some decent results. I have an early Quicktime test posted for Bertram's hands here that isn't too bad on the finger squishing. I'm going to be doing quite a bit more with it, but that is a good start. There aren't any fan bones in those fingers, just a bone for each joint...there is plenty of overlapping in there.

This is the first time I've looked at the updated hand controls, so I'll mash my comments together a little. The updated finger controls are pretty cool. What I think would be a good addition are carpal bones, so that you could cup the hand. Just some bones with "aim at" and "scale to reach" on them would do the job, translating the finger controllers to move them. For the Gizmo, it appears to do the job. As with any new system, it took me a few minutes to get used to it, but I think it works great. Lots of great stuff, Mark!

There are a few places that need some work, but it's looking good so far, Caroline. Fun clip!

2GB of RAM should be more than enough, I don't think increasing the virtual memory will make a difference, but it can't hurt to try it. I don't run Vista, so I'm not sure how much RAM it ties up...have you tried turning off some of the services running in the background?

Wasn't it about disabling "Aero"...or whatever the fancy desktop crap is called in Vista? I remember that caused some problems.

Is it a realtime rendering problem, Kevin? If so, try using OpenGL instead of DirectX. Do you have hair turned on? Turning that off would speed things up. What model are you using? How many patches are in that model? How many objects are in the scene? How fast is your processor? How much RAM do you have?

For the face, I do it all by hand, Caroline. The upper teeth, upper gums and upper throat is going to be weighted to the head at 100%, the lower teeth and lower gums are going to be 100% weighted to the jaw and everything else I adjust as needed. I haven't used falloff for setting up a standard character.

Very nice, Eric!

Okay, first, if you twist anything like that, it will get thinner, gedo831. In that image, you are rotating the bone on its' 'Z' axis, so, that's what will happen. An arm or leg would rotate either on the 'X' or 'Y' axis depending on how you set it up, but the 'Z' axis will always cause a loss in volume when done the way you have your example...it wouldn't if the bone were turned sideways and positioned at the knee, but that's not what you have. Next, you've got a lot of Control Points for a knee or elbow there. For every joint, make sure you have three spline rings and at least one spline ring between each joint. This image of Squetchy Sam's arm should illustrate what I mean...you could put more if necessary, but that amount of spline rings can do the job. Sam can be downloaded using the link in my signature at the bottom of this post. Lastly, if you do run into problems with losing volume on a limb when bending, you can use different CP Weighting, fan bones, more splines or Smartskin to correct it. Hope that helps.

I posted a video tutorial showing how Bertram's eyes were modeled here. In order to keep the Tutorials thread for this project easy to navigate, I'm going to have the comments/critiques/corrections for each in a different location with links to the actual tutorials. The ZIP file includes a twelve minute and twenty-five second H264 encoded Quicktime video tutorial, an example eye model and the iris map for the example model. This is an updated version of a tutorial I did several years ago, so, it may look familiar to some people. I have changed the way I'm making eyes slightly and didn't have a full video tutorial with audio posted, so I decided to post this update. I'm also using this as a "dry run" for how I'll be putting together the updated Squetch Rig installation tutorial. If you have any comments, critiques, questions or corrections, please post them in this thread. Hopefully, the tutorial is helpful to someone.

Here is an eye modeling tutorial. In the ZIP file there is an H264 encoded Quicktime video tutorial, an example eye model and the iris map for the example model. In order to keep this thread "tutorials only", please post any comments, critiques, questions or corrections in the thread located here. Modeling_An_Eye_Tutorial.zip