T-Dogg

I'm working on a superhero character, and I'm not sure what is the best way to handle his cape. I don't know if I should use cloth or some kind of bone setup. I like the realistic way cloth behaves, but I also like the idea that bones will give me more direct control. So I ask all the rigging gurus out there... how would you do it?

Awesome tutorial! Thanks for posting!

Wow! Your version seems to have worked perfectly. I am jealous!! It's kind of funny. I've seen several threads where people were worried that TSM wouldn't work with the newer versions of A:M. Looks like it actually works BETTER with the newer versions! I tried redoing my CPM with the same settings you mentioned and it turned out the same as my other convoluted pose. I am still a complete noob at animation. I was trying to make some different types of walk cycles as practice. I rely heavily on CPM, so it's a big deal for me when it doesn't work. When you pay $300 for a program, you kind of expect it to work. But that's beside the point, since this thread is about TSM2.... I think it's a pretty decent rig after I manually fix the leg rolls and add foot control nulls (as a matter of my own preference). A:M problem or not, I still don't understand why CPM doesn't work with the TSM spine when it worked perfectly with my other setup, but I'll figure out how to deal with it. I think the ease and speed of setup far outweigh the problems I've ran into thus far.

So this is a problem with my A:M v13 and not my TSM rig? That kind of stinks. I was hoping it would be something fixable.

Another weird thing about it is that the right and left legs' roll handles point in different directions!!! I thought they would at least be mirrored. It has me completely baffled! Just a quirk of TSM, I guess. It's an easy enough fix though. I just wish my problems with the spine were as easily dealt with. I can't even make a walk cycle as it is. I guess I'll have to mirror the arms & legs seperately and set the pelvis and spine poses manually.

I was wrong. The bones are NOT created with the roll handles the right way. As far as I can tell, the problem lies with the "inter upper leg" bones being created wrong. The "upper leg" bones are duplicates of those, which is why they are also wrong. I've tried setting the "with the roll of "leg"" part of the script to other bones with the correct roll, but it doesn't help things. I wonder if roll was calculated differently in older versions of A:M when TSM was originally created. I have no clue. I just know that something isn't working quite like it should. Since the leg bones in TSM are all vertically straight, you can change the roll part of the script to "rotation 90, 0, 0", but that won't work right if your model's legs aren't perfectly vertical. If only there was a way to set just the z-rotation to 0, but I don't know how. It looks like I'll just have to manually fix those bones for every model after all. I still haven't figured out the spine issue either, but I got side-tracked with this whole leg-twisting thing. I used to think I had at least a rudimentary understanding of rigging, but now I just feel dumb.

Thanks! I never tried that before. I hadn't saved the previous version, so I quickly made a new one. The same thing happened, so it's obviously repeatable. I embedded everything into this project and zipped it. I sure hope you can figure out what's causing this because I'm at my wits end. As always, thanks for your time! TSM_Problem.zip

I can't offer much help. A while back I tried this once myself as well. I was also going for a cartoony look using toon shading, so I figured hair simulation would be overkill. I had a lot of major problems with intersecting, so I tried to make my mesh denser. It still didn't work like I wanted, though. As I recall, I finally gave up on cloth sim and went with bone dynamics. I've seen cloth used in various programs to simulate everything from ocean waves to footprints, so I am certain it could be used for hair. I just didn't have the patience or perserverance to figure it out. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread to see how you deal with this problem. Good Luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Open the model window, select the null (in the model window or in the Bones tree) and look in the Property Panel. Roll Method should be there. I couldn't find it there, but I was able to solve the problem. I opened up my "setup" relationship and selected the null and was able to change the property there. I would, but I don't have any zip software installed. (Using the kids' laptop here.) If you have the basic TSM character (I think he either comes with TSM or was in the hash extras library.) Just try making a pose and then doing a paste mirror. I've also been reading through the legs script trying to figure out if there's a way to fix the legs' z-rotation problem when switching to FK so I won't have to manually rotate the bones for every model. I removed the relationship part of the script and saw that the bones were created with the roll handles pointing the right way. I didn't think a relationship would change a bone's position in the actual model itself though, so I am at a loss right now. One last thing. I've rigged another character and none of the control bones had falloff, so I guess I must have accidentally turned that on myself. Thanks everyone for your time and help.

Try setting the Null's Roll-Method (In the Properties Panel) from "Y-Poles-Singularity" to "Z-Singularity". That solved my problem completely! Is there a way to permanently change this for the model? I was only able to find that opton by opening an action window. Here's an example of the spine problem I'm having. I just threw this one together quickly using the basic TSM guy to see if it also happened with other models. He's not as deformed as my own model was, but he definitely suffers from the same paste mirrored issue. .......................Original Pose.....................................................Paste Mirrored.......................

sorry... triple posted somehow.

oops!

I took one of my previously rigged characters and deleted all the bones and relationships. Then I set up and rigged it from scratch following Caroline's excellent tutorial for TSM2. (THANKS SO MUCH FOR THAT CAROLINE!!!) I'm still getting used to using this new setup, but so far everything seems to work great. My own rig wasn't bad, but TSM2 offers some features I hadn't bothered with adding to mine (like stretching). I have a few questions though. 1. I love how I can rotate a foot back very far with TSM2! The leg on my rig is almost identical to the David Rogers' setup in "Animation Master - A Complete Guide". It's a very good setup, but one thing bothers me. When I have the leg bent back, if I try to rotate the foot back too far it will flip in the oppopsite direction. This doesn't happen with the TSM2 rig. However, I find the nulls on my rig much easier to grab and work with than the control bones of TSM2. So I tried adding nulls to the TSM rig by adding "orient like" and "translate to" constraints to the foot control bones. After I did that, the TSM foot also began to have the same flipping problem as my other rig. So my question is this: Does anyone know a good way to set up nulls for the TSM2 feet that won't change the normal behavior? 2. This one is easier to explain. I was making a walk cycle and when I try to paste mirrored a pose something weird happens to the spine and makes my character try to stick her head up her own butt. (Something I thought only my bosses at work were able to do!) Has anyone else encountered this problem, and is there a fix for it? 3. Why do some control bones have falloff? I thought falloff was only used for bones that have CPs associated with them. I had some other questions that have slipped my mind at the moment, so I'll add them later if I remember them. Overall, I am really pleased with TSM2. It really simplifies things and makes a dandy little rig! I would like to thank everyone at Anzovin for creating it and also for making it freely available.

I also use v13, so I will try to help. When you run the installer and it asks for a location, type in AM's main folder... not the hxt folder like it sounds like you did. In my case it was C:\Program Files\Hash Inc\V13.0. Try running the uninstall and then re-installing it. It shows up for me, although I haven't tried using it yet. It should be under File>Plug-Ins>Wizards. You should see TSM Builder, Flipper, and Rigger.

Got the files via FTP Commander. Thanks so much for posting these! One more question... You said in your first post there were 7 movies. I only saw 5. Have the other 2 been removed?