Mechadelphia

Hi Everyone. Alright, I have posted the new rig(s) at my website with some brief notes about what's new. You can download the file from there and check out the notes thats I have there at the moment. I will update the notes to include more detail soon but I just wanted to get the update out in the meantime. If you have already installed Saucy Rig version 1c or earlier then you do not need to reinstall everything from scratch. I will update my page with a video about the process soon. If you have any questions or need clarification on something about the rig then just let me know.

Hi Everyone. It has been quite awhile since I have posted in this forum but I wanted to let you know that I have an update coming soon for the Saucy Rig. It is primarily a major fix for the behavior of the IK legs. The knees have a tendency to get a bit wonky when rotating the pelvis control. That problem was caused by the way that I parented some of the bones but that is fixed is in the new rig. I also have 2 additional rig types that you can swap in in case you may prefer a different way of controlling the body (you'll see...) I also made a few minor tweaks to improve the usability a little bit. Anyway, I will let you know when I post the new rig file(s). I am hoping to post it by this Wednesday or Thursday. I want to thank everyone that has tried the rig and I thank all of you that have complimented me for it. I really appreciate it. I have not read all of the post yet where some of you have had trouble. When I post the new rig I will also answer those questions if they have not been answered yet. If you have any questions in the meantime then please let me know here. Take care.

Hi Rodney. I don't think that you should do that because rigging is an advanced topic and my understanding of TaoA:M is that it is meant to be an introduction to the basics of animation. I think that TaoA:M delivers the core animation concepts quickly and allows a new animator to build confidence in thier abilty to animate with fair results almost right away. Knowing how to rig is not nescessary to work through TaoA:M. If you were to add in depth rigging concepts to TaoA:M I think that it could be disheartening for aspiring animators. I do think that that more information on rigging should be presented but I think a better approach would be to have a separate volume for more advanced topics. A similar suggestion was made years ago here: mtpeak2's thoughts. To add to that... Rigging, along with other topics such as texture mapping, simulations, lighting etc (Edit: wait! I almost forgot hair!) could also be expounded on in a new volume. So, if someone learning with TaoA:M wants to learn more after working through the lessons, then they can go to the more advanced volume or TaoA:M. What do you think about that?

Steve, I Iooked at the model with the rig and and found an issue but it was not the one you described as far as I could tell. I fixed (reset) your model's rig though (I fixed your model's version 1c rig but then I put version 1.5 in it after). I'm not sure about what caused your problem but make sure you follow the install tutorial directions exactly, particularly with which "User Properties" to set to "Not Set" after export from the Action window. Anyway, you should find the file in your e-mail shortly.

Hi Steve, I wasn't kidding. Just send me the model so that I can look at it. I can't determine what the cause of your issue is by looking at the video. I will look at it and then let you know what I find.

Hi detbear, Matt is correct; you can do all/ any of that work at any point during the process. Matt says he does it towards the end. I do it at the beginning. It can work out fine either way. Whatever you are comfortable at any given moment with is the right way for you. Right now, I recommend using v18 when setting up the Saucy Rig becuase of some added features that make things a little more easier to work with. You can use v17 though and probably v16 as well but I have not tried it with v15 or earlier. I don't know anything about motion capture so I am not able to help you with that right now.

Hi Steve, That is somthing that could happen in version "1b" and earlier of the rig. I fixed that issue in version "1c" of the rig and that version has been out since January 12, 2015. (I'll paste the notes of the changes to the rig in my first post of this thread). If you are using version "1c" then something else else going on with it. Just e-mail the model to me and I'll take a look at it.

Thanks Robert. I went to learn a little more about Maya at its website. I'm not sure what to say about it yet aside from I find it a bit expensive. If I were making a living from using it then I would find the price reasonable. What makes it so "ghastly" to you? I think that I will start a reel with my own rigs that I have made in Animation Master to start off with and then later I will add more to it along the way once I get better with using additional software. I've been doing more research into this kind of work and I get the impression that it is not a very stable line of work because of the amount of temp jobs that I see and layoffs that I have read about in the past. I will still keep reseaching the topic and continue to develop my skills in the meantime. I will also have a closer look at Barry Zundel's web site as you suggested. Thanks again.

How does one get a character rigging job? I've been giving this some thought for awhile and wondered what may actually be involved in finding a character rigging job. I am not nessesarily talking about getting a job with one of the more well known studios; I just want to know in general terms what kinds of things are involved in the process. What are some of the aspects involved in making oneself an attractive prospect to potential employers? What kind of things do you need on a resume? I imagine that we all need to start small and then work our way up along the way. I find plenty of information on various websites on information about finding character animator jobs but I don't find much on character rigging jobs. What I have noticed with job postings from various companies that produce animation is that most of them specify needing to have knowledge of Maya Well, I don't know much about Maya at the moment but I guess if I really get serious about this then I'm going to have to study it. Also, I imagine some kind of rigging demo reel would be nessesary. Is such a thing used in that line of work? What kinds of things would go into it? Since it not hard to grab someone else's work from the internet and claim credit for it how would one prove that they created the rig or rigged the character(s) in the reel? How does one demonstrate that they have the abilty to rig well? If you have any experience in this area I'd appreciate your advice on the matter. Thank you.

Hi Heiner, I’m glad that you are happy with the rig. There is no reason not to add additional bones if you want to or need to add them. You may find it an relatively easy process. For the Saucy Rig, I add fan bones directly to the geometry bones hierarchy of the rig. Take special care to not alter the parent child relationship of that pre-established hierarchy. You can do the same with your own face rig or other customized setups if you want. By putting your customized setups in the geometry bones hierarchy, even though they may not all have CPs directly assigned to them, those setups will stay with your rig if you ever decide to use a different version of the Saucy Rig (I have updates ready but I need to finish writing directions and record a brief video for it). If you were to incorporate rig customizations into the Saucy Rig’s control bone hierarchy then Saucy Rig updates would likely overwrite those custom setups. For staying organized, I recommend using your own naming conventions for your custom bones and nulls when adding them to the Saucy Rig. That will help you easily sort out your custom setups from the default ones when working in the project work space. So basically, add anything to the rig that you like but I suggest just adding it to the geometry bone hierarchy rather than the control bone hierarchy. Good luck.

If I purchase the never expiring licence for the current v18 can I use that licence to also run the previous v17 and v16 as well?

I am using the regular OBS rather than the multiplatform release (I did not notice that there were two different versions before I downloaded the regular version). My tests yesterday were saved as .flv and, as you suggested, the regular release does not have a conversion option so yesterday I used Handbrake to do the conversion to mp4. For some reason the files save as .flv by default but I learned today that you can change it so that it saves its files as .mp4. No conversion needed .

Thank you Rodney for posting this. I had not heard of this software before you posted this so I downloaded it and tried it out. It is working well for me so far. I have been using CamStudio to record my video tutorials but I am going to use this OBS for my next ones because it is outperforming the version of CamStudio that I use in just about every area that I use it for. Thanks.

Hi William, You're welcome! You could have constrained the axe to the hand's keying assist bone or its geometry bone. The IK control is outside of the main skeletal hierachy so that is why you had to make so many tedious adjustments every time that you moved it. I have a minor update for the Saucy rig coming out soon. One of the additions is an option to use the Setup Machine style body/ torso controls.

Thank you for the videos. I found them very useful.

Paul, The settings that I use are slightly different than what you posted here. Make sure that you delete all of the extra bones on the left and right side that were created by the plugin before running it again. Here is a screen shot of what I am using:

Paul, will you please post a screenshot of your settings from the mirror bones dialouge window?

Hi Douglas, I looked at your model. You did a good job actually. You only forgot to right-click on the folder “Rig Installation Settings (Use only during skeleton install process)” and then select “Not Set” from the drop down menu while in your model window (not the Action or Choreography window). If you do that now and save the file then the rig will behave as it should. In IK Mode on your leg, the bones are not supposed to be visible. Use the the Nulls at the feet to position the leg. The three bones that are visible on the right leg in your picture came from you running the Mirror Bones plugin. For some reason it generated those extra bones. You can delete them since they have nothing to do with the rig. Those bones start with the prefix “LeftGEOM…” There are a few other minor things that you should have a second look at as far as your rigging of this model. For example, you missed assigning a few CPs to the pelvis bone. The CP assignments for the feet and thumbs could use some adjusting but overall you did a really good job. If I have some time this weekend I’ll post a brief video of me going through your model and making adjustments so that you can see exacltly what I am talking about.

It looks like you skipped a step or two but I would need to see your rigged model in order to show you how to fix it. Can you post your model file here so that I can help you?

That's a tall order. Would these mentors be working for free? How is what you are suggesting good for Animation Master? You did not make that clear. There are schools that offer this type of instruction already (and they are not free) so you can look into those. or... Rather than asking someone to draw a picture for you can download pictures of just about anything frm the internet and use that as reference or rotoscopes. Model that on your own then post your work in the Work In Progress forum as many others already do now. If you do that here then there will be no shortage of critiques and feedback from the members here. If you get that far (and finish) and you want to rig it then I will help you in that same thread with the rigging part. If you are willing to do what I suggested then you can start now instead of waiting for someone to setup a formal curriculum for this.

Thank you very much for this illustration. I was not able to figure out how to accomplish this until I viewed this post.

Hi Stefan. Assuming 1 thumb and 3 fingers: I would position the thumb and the first 3 fingers to go to your hand and I would hide the bones for the fourth finger (pinky) instead of deleting them. If you were to delete them then it may not cause a problem for your situation but I still recommend just hiding what you don't need. Jost, I never tested this rig with v15 so I don't know for sure if there would be any problems. The only thing that I can think of that could possibly get in the way would be any bugs that were not fixed back in v15 that would interfere with the process. I am not aware of any though. I would go with Chris' advice and try it out since he is correct about the file being standard bones, constraints and expressions. I think that it would work for you.

Hi Heiner. From your web browser you can download the videos by going to the playlist and then right-clicking on the video that you want and click "save link as" (or something like that). That should allow you to save the video locally on your computer.

Thanks for the compliments Nancy. It seems like you watched the install videos but not the overview ones. The nulls do curl the fingers from the middle as well as from the tip. I demonstrated that in the the overview video (#4 Hands). Translate the null up or down to curl the middle of the finger and rotate the null to curl the finger tip (while the finger control rotates the base of the finger). The pose sliders for the hands control the stregth of the curling for each curling function.

Thanks for posting the animation Rodney. The rig does not have those hand clench sliders by design so they are not really missing. I don't even have a hand "gizmo" in the rig because I never found them useful. I tried to keep the rig UI/ controls down to a minimum because I have trouble with using rigs when they start getting a little crowded with controls. I agree with Matt about the task of adding those kinds of controls (hand clench sliders etc...) belonging to the animator rather than the rig author. Also consider setting up "Draggable Poses". It is a method that robcat2075 intoduced in one of his tuorial videos. If you have not watched it i recommend that you do. He does a great job explaining the differences between the draggable poses vs. conventional pose sliders. I'll look for the link to it and post it if I can find it. EDIT: Here it is.