pwknox

I have not used the 2008 or Squetch rigs, yet. They seem to intimidate me. But this one doesn't seem so bad so took Robby for a spin. I made him do a standing broad jump. The rig is great, the controls are intuitive and well placed. I didn't expect the legs to squetch, but for Robby this seems natural. Great job guys. At one point I seemed to get the knees stuck backwards. I cannot seem to get them to point in the forward direction again. What is the trick to this? The knee controls don't seem to do it. Thanks, Phil

Rodney, I like the JohnL3D method. I did a little more playing around with both methods. I learned a little more... JohnL3D method casts shadow. Render as lines does not. JohnL3D method deminished with distance. Render as lines does not; the line is just as thick in the forground as in the distance. I had a little trouble getting clean sharp lines with the JohnL3D method. It is probably my technique. I tried a cookie-cut and it does not render properly with muti-pass. Single pass it works well. I tried a color map with a transparency but it shows the patches underneath. I think that the best result was a transparencey map with a color map applied as well. Multi-pass can be used with a transparency map. Question: What is the difference between a cookie-cut and a transparency map? The cookie-cut seems to be a subset of the transparency map. Why have both?

Not that I know of. Shift-K is a hot key that will disconnect a them, but only one at a time. Sorry.

I just tried it as well and learned a few things. If you want it to look like a net then none of the splines can make patches. I did the grid wizard thing and got similar results to yours. Then I disconnected the splines and then got good results. Good luck.

I spent a few hours assigning CPs. The body works really well. What is the secret to getting the face interface to work? The interface is in front of the face but onle three of the controls work. The toungue roll works. The eye control at the top works. The rotate interface control works. None of the others seem to be doing anything. I unhid the geometry bones and they don't seem to be moving. Any hints? Thanks, Phil

Confound it. I can't reproduce the face high problem. Frustrating, good but frustrating. I opened a new project and imported my JD_pre-installrig model (the face interface was in the right place). I then tried running the install rig plug-in from a bunch of different contexts. They all worked correctly. Humpf! O well, I must have mucked it up before. Sorry to send you all on a wild goose chase. Phil

In the modeling window, bones mode, and actions it (face interface) is about half a "JD height" above his head. Ah ha... I think I understand what you are getting at. If I was in an action when I translated the "FACE Interface - Master" bone down in front of the face, I would expect it to be still up high after the install plug-in. Ummmmm..... I don't remember. When I get home tonight I will make sure I am in the modeling window\bones mode when I move the bone and when I run the plug-in. Thanks, Phil

Simple question this time. After running the Install Rig plugin, I noticed that the face controls were back above the head. I assigned the CPs. How do I get the face controls back down so that I can play with them? I am in a action now. Phil PS: I am not sure that this is the place for this question. Edit: I started poking around. In the "Constraints (do not touch) Relationships" I found a few constraints on the "FACE Interface - Master" bone constraining it to the "head_control". The enforcement was set to 0%. I set it to 100% thinking it was an oversight. Well, I figured out why it is labeled "do not touch" Ouch! Things went wacky in a hurry. I will now sit down and wait patiently for your answer.

Something I tried which avoids the deadly yellow triangle. After I translated the "Face Interface - Master" bone and before I ran the install plug-in. 1) "Save As" the JD_export model and name it something else. 2) Start a New Project 3) Import the model you just saved. 4) Run the Install Rig plug-in No yellow triangle this time. Strange. Good but strange.

I am getting the dreaded yellow triangle when I run the install rig. Here is what I did. 1) Reboot computer (just to make sure) 2) Start AM 13s 3) Open new project 4) Import "JD_export2" 5) Delete Install Poses from model, delete install relationships 6) Translate "Face Interface - Master" using the translate manipulator (thanks for the clarification). 7) Run the InstallRig plugin from the model window. ZAP! JD_export2.zip I re-downloaded the install rig this afternoon (5/6/2007). It was in the "Getting Started" post. It is called "13s_Posable_Five_Finger_Squetch_Rig_05_02_2007_installation.mdl". Any ideas? Thanks again, Phil PS: I feel like I'm being a pest.

To: Mark, That fixed it perfectly. Thank you so much for taking the time to track it down. To: Mark and David, I would like to thank you both for donating so much of your time to providing such a great tool, making it easy to use, and then teaching us how to use it. Thanks, Phil

Here is the Project and Model if you need it. pwknox_RAWM_2.zip I really appreciate you looking into it, Phil

OK. I have completed Steps 1-7 again and I have a stupid question. When translating the "Face Interface - Master" bone, I am not sure what you want here. 1) If I simply select the bone, hold the CTRL key and drag. The interface and the camera stay put and only the "Face Interface - Master" bone moves. Is this what you want? 2) If I simply select the bone and drag. The entire interface moves. Is this what you want? 3) If I select the bone and whack the "n" key (putting the bone in translate mode), hold CTRL key and drag in the Y direction. The entire interface moves. Is this what you want? What is the purpose of holding the CTRL key when dragging bones? What are we trying to make it do? The picture you provide shows the bone being selected but does not show the final product. Where is the interface supposed to end up? How do I know if I did this step correctly? Thanks for your help, Phil PS: I am on a Windows system. Would this make a difference?

I scalled the head in step 5 a little larger so that the eyes would fit. I learned this from the last time I did an install. The eyes still didn't fit, so I made the head bone larger again. This seemed to work well. My question has to do with the mouth_right_corner_target and the lip_right_corner_geom. In your example, the geom bone and the targer are in the same place. In my exampe, they are about a centimeter and a half apart. Is this a problem? I am not sure why the targets are visible at this point. They cannot be manipulated independently with the pose sliders. Thanks, Phil Edit: Should I be lining up the target or the bone? I suspect the bone, but want to make sure?

I had a similar experience with 13s. This last step Exception faulted on the export model step. I figured that I had done something wrong. So I fiddled this last step a bunch of times. I re-downloaded 13s. I got the latest version of the HTX. I got the latest version of the Rig. I thought I had a working setup at one point. After assigning the CPs in the face, I noticed that none of the face poses work. The NULLS move but they don't move anything else. The face rig controls are in the right place but the boxes and words are sticking to JD's forehead like a tiera. I figure I must have a corrupt file somewhere (or royally goofed something up). I think I will start again from Step 1 in a new folder.

Mark, You were right. For some reason the base bone was too short. It was causing a bunch of limit problems. I changed the base bone and had to readjust everything from Step 2 through Step 6 where I stopped earlier. It looks like things are OK now. You may want to warn folks about this a little earler. Thanks for the quick (and accurate) reply, Phil

Mark, I am having trouble the "translate_cheek_Z_axis" and "translate_nostril_target_Z_axis". I need them to be a little farther foreward, the 600% is not quite enough. Did I scale something else wrong? I put an X where I am trying to put them. Thanks, Phil PS: Great job on these posts. It is a lot of work. It has been very easy to follow. I think I am 'getting' it.

At this point, I realized that I has the rotate snap angle set to 10. I set it back to 1 which is giving me much finer control. I may set it to 0 at a later point. Phil EDIT: Now that I play with it a bit. I don't think that snap angle has anything to do with it. I am clicking beside the pose slider instead of on it. It is making the slider jump. So ignore this goffy idea. I am a sloppy clicker. ;-)

I'm just letting you know that I have started. Phil

O-o-oooo. Me too. Sounds like a great learning tool.

First off, great job guys! This is fantastic. I hadn't touuched the Squeth Rig before yesterday. The posable version took my about an hour to install. It was easy and straightforward. Unhiding the finger install bones was the only thing I had to troubleshoot. I figured it out pretty quickly. Duh. The nostril targets were a little strange. I had to go look at the tutorial to figure out where they would go. I am still not sure what they are for. The jaw dosn't seem to have a "geom" bone. The "jowels" handle the side but what do you do with the chin? Do you assign the chin CPs to the 'jaw' control bone or to the lower teeth bone? When I got around to assigning CPs I had to guess quite a bit on the face. Is there a key somewhere that explains what the different bones are supposed to move? Thanks again. I actually enjoyed the install process. It was a lot of fun. Phil

I reported this on AM:Reports a few weeks ago. It has been confirmed (13o), assigned, worked on, and fixed (by Bob). Yippie! We just need to wait for verions 13p to come out.

Great Job. The clip is very entertaining and quite habit forming. I downloaded it on the first day it came out. Since then I have watched it at least once a day. Whenever my wife hears the "Love Machine" music piping through the house she laughs at me for watching it again for the 'umteenth' time.

My dad has a habit is saying: "Just because you call a tail a leg does not mean that a cow has five legs." I have been tracking this story for weeks now. It seems like a bunch of scientists are in a semantic knot over something that makes no difference at all. How space stuff is classified has no effect on the stuff they are classifying. I am not sure that the name we put on space stuff is nearly as useful (in a scientific sense) as the quantifiable information about it. It seems to me that this is much ado about nothing. I will now refer to the chip of homostatic rock that I can never find on a cloudless nightime sky as "The unplanet Pluto". See, this is fun! Phil PS: Since Pluto is a "dwarf planet", where are the "elf planets" and the "wizard planets"?

Gorf, I don't have a lot of sympathy for you. I agree with steve392. The last three computers I have owned have all been built with a extra CD-ROM just for AM. I include it on the list of components when I am ordering my parts. My current "AM CD-ROM" is a piece of junk that cost me $12.95 (free shipping). I open this CD-ROM with fear and trepidation every year to stick the newest AM CD in there. I am never sure that it is going to open properly after a year of inaction. I figure that the added cost is a small price to pay for having quick access to a great piece of software. Life is full of compromises; this is an insignificant one in my opinion. Phil