markw

Thank you Mark & Nancy for the clarification, I see we have more animating options with this rig than I for one was previously aware of!

In the 2008rig, with IK Legs and Arms "OFF" there are quite a few bones you can directly animate with all of which have the word "Geom" at the end of their names; Shoulder Bicep Forearm Hand Thigh Calf Foot Toe Turning on "Show Right/Left FK Finger_Thumb" will reveal all the finger and thumb bones of a hand, if you should ever need to move any of them individually. Their names also end with the word "Geom" I would note that both the bones used for animating the Head and Pelvis have the word "Controller" at the end of their names. However there are corresponding bones ending with the word "Geom" but they should have been hidden automatically during the rigging process. I don't think you should be animating with these two "Geom" bones. All I can say is I've never used them and in fact you have to turn off the Head and Pelvis Controllers in order to see these "Geom" bones again.

Hi Simon, I'm not too sure what you are describing there? I'm only seeing key frames being made as and where expected when using the 2008 rig here. Can you post any screenshots or maybe even a screen recording of what you are seeing?

Thanks for making that Robert I had no idea A:M could do this. More invaluable information!

Well I think I might pitch in here as well with some suggested viewing. First I really liked Barry Zundel's videos on Character Animation. Not so much a step by step "how to" but more a running commentary about what he's doing as he goes. This next one though is an absolute must watch! Its short, at around 17min but very informative and was made by our very own Robcat! Its called KeyFraming Options and you can find it here on his screen cam tutorials page. (Appropriately its the first video. The sounds a bit low on it so you may want to turn your speakers up!) http://www.brilliantisland.com/am/amtutorials.htm

Hi Simon, If you've not already got them, the ever reliable Barry Zundel has a series of videos on Character Animation, number 4 of which is an hour on playing in the curve editor to fines things, well worth watching, as are his other videos on modelling. They all were made some time back, so some things are different in A:M now but easily 99% is still good solid information! Link: http://www.barryzundel.com/home/Tutorials.html

I see we've had a visit from a spamer this morning, one myrakern279. Not that we get many here but could there be a "button" on the forum pages to let users report a post as Spam. Should first time posters be allowed to include links? myrakern279's signature link is definitely of an adult nature!

There is something very appealing about wanting to dress our creations its true but (and you know where this is going!) I would say to you loose any and all geometry that can't be seen. It just makes life easier and animating is hard enough as it is! Also you might want to consider setting the 'Bicep-Fan-Bone' so that the bone dose not "store roll" and assigning the sleeve Cps to it and not the Bicep-Geom-Bone. This will stop the sleeve twisting with the upper arm (which generally doesn't happen much with shirts, jumpers, jackets etc…), whilst still following the arm's motion. Sometimes though and it depends on each model, this doesn't work so well and I've added an additional bone at the top of the bicep instead that follows the bicep's motion but as stated before dose not store roll. In any event with short sleeves like you have here I wouldn't assign any sleeve Cps directly to the Bicep Bone. As always with this stuff experimentation is key!

I'm afraid you're not going to like this answer but no I've not had any problems so far with those two settings, sorry! Could the snap angle not be sticking because its less than a degree? Mine's set to 1. For very fine changes I zoom in and then hold down the Option key as I rotate things. This overrides the snapping from one degree to the next. Snapshot of my settings as of a few minutes ago;

Dose anybody know why these numbers are displayed in the first place? What use could their information be put to? Indeed is there anyone here who dose or has used them?

Hi Simon, I don't think there is any built-in Help for the Mac version of A:M anymore, hasn't been for a long time. We just have the downloadable PDF to look for things now.

Cue theme from 'The Twilight Zone'...

Nicely summarised Gerald. I for one would find this a most valuable feature addition.

Sorry about that, no it's not your eyes Paul ! I meant to post the project as we'll yesterday but somehow didn't!? When I noticed today I added it to the post. 40℃ here and no air-con, makes the brain sluggish and a bit fuzzy I fear!

Hi Paul, Dynamics could still be an alternative to cloth but as you found its not without its own settings to endlessly fiddle with! And it will never be 100% automated, you will still have to go in and tweak things at key points. As for DC collision detection, I too gave up with it. The results were usually quite wild! Anyway, I've attached a very simple shirt setup here which may be of interest. This uses an idea that Nancy told me, that of using a "Master" control bone at the base of a chain of bones that are using Dynamic Constraints so that you can have better control over their behavior. Before using the Control bone, you will first need to "Bake" the Dynamics in the Choreography. Next play through it and note where there's any pass through of geometry. Key the Master Control bone (without actually moving it) just before and just after geometry pass-through. Now at a suitable point between these two keys its safe to adjust the Control bone to move the mesh just far enough away to prevent the pass-through. (The attached .Cho has had all the above done to it) Baked_Shirt_DC.cho Shirt_DC_Test.prj

Hi pixelplucker, I think this is because you have the rotoscope setting 'On Top' set to 'On'. I have no idea what 'On Top' is supposed to do, I always leave it as 'Off', but yes if you turn it on it will cut off any bias handles that are covered by the rotoscope.

I second Rodney's Wow! I am in awe of you Sir!

My first thought is; "are they really unassigned?" With your model in 'WireFrame' go into 'Bones' mode. If a CP is really unassigned it will be Black. If assigned it will have the colour of the bone it is assigned to. To double check this, click on a bone and all Cps assigned to it will start flashing with the selected bone. If you want to triple check, open an 'Action' window and see if the Cps move with the desired bones. In the PWS 'Groups' the same Cps can belong to many different groups which in turn can be called anything. Looks to me like some automated feature in the assignment kicked in and made this group for reasons best know to itself! Save an incremental version of the model and then I think it would be safe to just delete the group from the PWS and carry on.

Funny, I was just thinking the self same thing

Well done Sebastian!

Wow Jason! Though I too find that time hard to believe I think something must be off somewhere. (But oh what joy if true!) Probably best to run the test more than once to be sure no matter what results we get any way. Robert stated that the render output in A:M's preferences; Tools > Options > Render tab, should be set to "use settings from: The Camera" Those settings are;

Hi Sebastian, I'm not sure from your description but I may have seen the same problem as you when using the LiteRig a year or so back and I'm not sure it is the LiteRig causing it per say. For me it wasn't that the CP wights were wrong but that the bias settings for the splines passing through them were altering just a little each time a joint was moved and so the distortion effect got worse and worse. CPs that were not parts of joints never showed any distortions. Closing down A:M and then reloading the project fixed the distortions but they would creep back in again every time I played through what I was working on. However these bias distortions were not evident when it came to rendering so long as I had not played/stepped through the Chor before rendering to file. I never saw this affect in an action window but that maybe just because any given joint never got rotated enough times for the effect to show. I would suggest rendering out a few frames and see what you get. I reported all this to Steffen and in the next A:M that he released it seemed fixed but I had also stopped using the LiteRig by then. Maybe this issue has crept back in again in 17g? As for the LiteRig itself I'm not a big fan. When it works its a nice rig to animate with but I'v always had problems getting it to work properly. The 2008 rig would be my first choice now.

Happy Birthday!

I have to agree with Sebastian and also say it needs a more definitive end. Something to tie it all up. The hospital idea would have a certain irony to it… With the cliff top shot of him, maybe you could have him throwing the flowers away there and we see them falling as he walks away. Just to clarify about the clouds, here's a snapshot of the lines. Is that caused by the texture maps? or something else?. I don't recall seeing them in earlier posts…

Yay another one Happy Birthday Paul !