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John Rig


John Keates

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Hi there,

 

I have a rig that I was working on a while ago. I am quite pleased with some of the features. It isn't finished yet and consequently the right half of the body isn't rigged as it should be.

 

 

(**NOTE, ONLY THE LEFT SIDE OF THE BODY IS RIGGED PROPERLY** You may notice odd twitches from the right leg. This doesn't happen with the left. Some of the deformation is off because I removed geometry for the sake of sensorship and copyright.)

 

**UPDATE** I POSTED A MORE COMPLETE VERSION OF THE RIG ON THE BOTTOM OF PAGE 1

 

Here are some instructions and notes (please forgive my wierd naming conventions):

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

LEGS

 

The main control bone is the large one that points backwards. This rotates at the heel.

 

There is a bone to raise the heel and swivel at the ball.

 

The toe will orient like the main foot control unless you move it directly.

 

There is also a bone for rotating at the ankle. It is recommended that this is only used when needed (when the foot rotates whilst not on the ground).

 

The knee is controlled by the foot and there is a slider to turn this on and off. There is also a bone which can aim the knee independantly of the foot.

 

Back

 

There is an arse bone which can be rotated and translated. Translation is independant.

 

There is a pelvis bone (pointing forwards)

 

The back bone can be rotated and translated like the arse bone. Translation works better than with the arse bone however as the defomation of the stomach looks nicer. It can be translated up as far as you like and rotation still works nicely. It would be possible to link this to a pose for maintaining volume.

 

ARM

 

Credit goes to Carl Railard for the basis of my arm rig. I started mine from scratch but using some of his basic high-level ideas.

 

When you start off, the arm is controlled by a large bone. This can be rotated and traslated (for shoulder movement). - Note that the collar bone moves quite nicely when the shoulder moves - it has its own bone.

 

The large bone can be steadied with "Left steady Arc". There is an odd movement when you ease this in which I can't figure out.

 

Notice also that the end of the shoulder connects to the bicep bone more as the arm is raised. This means that the shoulder moves only a little when the arm is down but more when the arm is up. I worry that this would not be the easiest feature to install into different models but I like it. Occasionally, when extreem positions are used, this will twitch. I can easily build in the ability to get rid of this twitch in the beauty pass.

 

There is a null at the end of the large arm bone and this is used to bring the hand closer to the body. Where possible, this is the way that the arm should be bent. There is also a bone for moving just the forarm. It is best that this is returned to its original positoin as much as possible.

 

There is a pose "left IK Floating/Ark left". This is used to get IK rather than FK. The movement is reasonably smooth between the two. When using IK, the elbow is controlled with the large bone as it was before

 

There is also an option to have the elbow point to a null behind the back using "left aim elbow at Mid chest Null/Arc follower". This can be blended in and will take effect in IK or FK

 

HAND

 

This is a basic 2001 hand rig. I havn't decided whether I am going to work on my own yet. I probably will.

 

The hand can iether orient like the forarm or like the floating IK null. It can be blended between the two.

 

HEAD

 

I havn't rigged the face yet, that is going to be a biggy.

 

The head auto-levels and this can be eased off with "Orient head like level"

 

I built in a system which makes the head leveling ease out automagically where a level head would be un-comfortable (where the torso is horizontal). This automation can be eased off with "Head orient Mediator"

 

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

That is about it. I am looking forward to reading what people have to say and seeing any animation tests done with this rig. Plese feel free to ask any questions or suggest improvements, however, it is a while sinse I made this thing so an exact account of how it works will only come with some effort on my part.

 

Have fun.

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John, it took me a while to get a look at your rig. You've got quite a few fun toys in it, very cool. The shoulder movement is nice, the only problem I saw with that was that the chest doesn't move when shrugging. If I can get some time I'll do more messing with it.

 

Thanks for sharing.

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John,

I confess I don't know a bit of what I'm looking at when I look at a rig but I've got to say... Your setup is awesomecool! That is my new word for what your rig does automatically and intuitively.

 

I plan to play more but this model is acting like it is alive and moves right where I expect it to go every time.

 

You obviously put some thought into this one.

 

Bravo to you Sir! :)

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the only problem I saw with that was that the chest doesn't move when shrugging.

That is a deformation issue which happened when I deleted some geometry. I didn't bother re-doing cp wieghts. It isn't all that important as far as the rig is concerned and would have to be done differently for different charactes.

 

Hey Roddders, thanks for the comment. "awsomecool"... I like that :)

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Hey, Master John....

 

Holy catfish, this is a great rig! I've been working on other projects lately and hadn't seen this till now. Ken nailed it when he said "this model is acting like it is alive and moves right where I expect it to go every time". I like the location of your foot and leg controls. It's very easy to select the bone you're after the first try. The knee pointer is in a good spot, too. I was a bit skeptical at first. Also, I love the separate upper and lower body control.... this puppet moves so naturally.

 

The large bone can be steadied with "Left steady Arc".
This didn't make sense to me. Can you please enlighten me on what this does?

 

David and Rodney, it's good to see you've checked in here.

 

You mentioned it's been awhile since you worked on this. Didn't you ever finish it? Have you animated anything with this rig yet? Do you plan on finishing it? Will the Johnrig be available for large amounts of cash? ;)

 

Thanks so much for sharing this. I look forward to your reply.

 

Mark

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Hi Strohbehn,

 

Glad you like the rig :)

 

The 'arc steady' makes the large arm bone stay at the same orientation when the pelvis rotates. It makes her look like she is tit-rope walking. I guess this would be good for if she is holding a plate of food or whatever.

 

No, I havn't animated anything with this yet. The full version of the character is meant for an animation but I havn't had time to finish her as I ended up getting a bit perfectionist. Infact, my gallery animation was meant as a bit of light reliefe from rigging her shoulder deformation.

 

If I could find a way of selling the rig then I would, but I'm not sure that it would be possible now that I have given most of it away. Never mind.

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Ken nailed it when he said "this model is acting like it is alive and moves right where I expect it to go every time".

 

Hey! Ken is great and all but that famous rave belongs to me! ;)

 

... and what I say is fact. Everyone check out the rig for yourself and find out.

 

I haven't had time to play with your rig much more John.

I would like to see a limit placed in a few areas such as when the arm is brought across the body. Something that would halt the movement to keep it from deforming the ribs/chest area. But hey... that might have been in your full rig.

 

As a reminder to everyone checking John's rig out only the one side is set up.

If you test the wrong side you'll leave forever wondering what the big deal is. ;)

 

Good show John. :)

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Hey John,

 

I'm also playing with your rig and .... I REALLY like many parts of it.

 

I've been back engineering the Anzovin rig (yep ... totally legal ... ask Steve) and have been building my own rig based on this, the 2001 rig and other ideas.

 

Your rig has made me stop and think ... wow! I hadn't thought of that!... thanks so much. Give me a bit more time and I'll comment further (I'm absolutely stretched for the next 3 months, so forgive me if I seem a bit slow to add my comments/observations .... but I will try).

 

All in all an excellent new alternative, with many promising possibilities.

 

Thanks,

 

Gerard

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Hey Garard, Thanks for the comments. Feel free to back-engineer my rig as much as you like, I don't have any copyright either would you believe. :P

 

I would be interested to see if you can improve the way that legs work in extreem positions. At the moment, her leg flips out when the foot is high and close to the body. This can be fixed with the knee control but still, it should be improved.

 

Hi Rodney,

 

I'm not really a fan of angle limits. I prefer to be able to make any kind of movment I like in animation and then worry about deformation at the extreems later on.

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  • 1 month later...

hey guys, first i wanna introduce ma self. i'm new here

 

i don't have any sharp and smart post you guys, but it's nice enjoying my time in this forum.

 

master john, i like your work alot!!... you gimme a bright clue of rigging. thanks

 

:D

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:huh: I have read in some other threads about using copy-paste in a text editor to "mirror" properties, could that be used with this rig?

Yeah,

 

Sorry, I am busy and havn't gotten around to it. Here is the process:

 

>Make sure that everything on the left side of the model has "left" in the name (that is the characters left - or our right as we look at him/her)

 

>Destroy everything on their right hand side (making sure that there arn't any splines filling in the centre seem

 

>Save out as a seperate model

 

>Make a bone which is a master bone - into which all other bones go. This should be exactly on the centre and not at an odd angle (use the bone position properties to set this).

 

>Use this bone to flip everything else using the manipulator box thing (with the icon at the top of the screen). If the master bone is pointing up then you will have to enter x=-100 to flip it across the x axis (depending on how the roll handle is pointing). Do this whilst holding "Ctrl" to make it move the geometry at the same time.

 

>Load the old model into a text editor and find-replace "left" to "right"

 

> Import the old (unflipped) model into the new (flipped) one.

 

> Drag the "right" bones that are childeren of the centre bones into the corresponding centre bones from the "left" model (eg the legs should be attached to the same pelvis)

 

>Delete the extra centre bones (spine etc.).

 

>Assign the control points of the centre geometry to the centre bones - taking into account cp weighting. (this could take a while as some cps have three bones).

 

>hand stitch the two sides of the model together (to do this, you will first have to delete one of the centre seems).

 

..... phew! .... I think that is it... and I hope you can follow it.

 

It would be great if people did this - it would be a nice contribution to peace and hamony :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Weird!!

 

Very weird.

 

I did the thing with the flopping to the right side and changing "Left" to "Right".... I have done this many times before with other models... I am very familiar with this...

 

So here is the weirdness...

 

I have the right half completely done... ready to go. I test it out in AM all is fine... I have flipped everything... deleted the "other side" etc...

 

The knee and leg bends correctly...

 

Open in text editor... change all "left" to "right"....

 

Now... when I open the new right model in AM, by itself... the knee fan bones are... upside down? Best way to describe it. The constraints are offset incorrectly so that they "orient" in the opposite direction to the shin bone... only the knee fan bones seem to be effected.

 

The other odd thing is that whatever has caused this "problem" also prevents any fixing. I have tried every which way to sunday to delete and redo the orient like and roll like constraints on the two knee fan bones... this is so weird. I delete those constraints and add them back in... nothing... they just don't work.

 

I have yet to go through very carefully and check all the references to "left"... my thought is there may be an errant "left" that might be misspelled? maybe it didn't get changed and is conflicting with....

 

nope... that can't be it cause then it would still work by itself since it wouldn't have been changed...

 

Could it be the bone weighting possibly? Would changing the names of the bones and relationships with an external editor do some odd thing to the....

 

...nope... that can't be it...

 

 

Any insights or similar experiences I would love to hear about them!

 

I love this rig by the way... very nice... at least... I really love the left side a lot!

 

;)

 

Vernon "!" Zehr

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Hi Vern,

 

Thanks HUGELY for your effort and I'm glade you like the rig. I wonder what could be causing the problem? The only thing I can suggest is the old save, close reload thing but I'm sure you will have done that already.

 

Or maybe change the name to right2 instead?... perhaps.

 

Very strange.

 

I wish now more than ever before for that magic "flip everything across" button.

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Thanks to Mark Strohbehn for Doing some spade work on flipping the model across!!!

 

There are still a few things to do.

 

The deformation of the elbow isn't the same. For the righ elbow, I used a relationship wich controlls a pose. I find this to be by far the best method for this kind of 1d squish.

 

Thanks Mark (and sorry I didn't post it earlier - I am just a scatty scatty man).

JohnRig_21c.zip

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Woohoo!

 

thanks for the new version...

 

I have been fiddling with the weirdness I was experiencing without any success.

 

Could it be the smart skin spline references losing its reference?

 

I have never flipped a mode with this technique that involved smart skin. It seems that when I changed "left" to "right" using a text editor... and then opened in AM again...

 

AM was "doing something" that lost or goofed up something in the relationships... what ever was being changed or messed up had to do with changing "left" to "right" externally from AM.

 

I did notice that the smart skin relationship was "renamed" to "knee bent" in the shin smart skin. This is the only smart skin that had a renamed relationship (I never bother to rename my relationships... is this necessary?)

-----------------------------------

How was this version flipped differently is something I would love to know.

 

Anyway... beggars can't be choosers!

 

Everything is in place to work with to apply this rig to my own models and the smart skin and cp weights from your model wouldn't apply to mine anyway... kind of silly for me to be worried about this... unless the same thing happens.

 

AM definitely needs a magic "flipper" (not the dolphin).

 

Still a mystery.

 

Vernon "!" Zehr

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Hey Vern,

 

I ended up using TSM2's "flipper" for the skeleton, Text editor for the relationships, copy/flip/attach for the mesh, PHP Weight Flipper for weights, and Mirrorsplines to realign bones and CP's as needed (both have to be exactly mirrored for "mirror smartskin" to work correctly).

 

Any FYI, I was not able to automatically flip the smartskins either. They were lost somewhere in the process each time I tried, so I redid them all.

 

A great big thanks to John Keates for sharing this rig. It's a beauty!

 

Mark

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It is really nice to have some appreciatoin of my rig sinse I speant so much time on it and I really look forward to seeing what people to with it.

 

Hey Mark,

 

What is the "PHP Weight Flipper"? I did a search but couldn't find anything. It sounds really handy.

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..I was not able to automatically flip the smartskins either. They were lost somewhere in the process each time I tried, so I redid them all...

Hah!

I am not insane then?

Good to know.

 

See I had a perfect right side of the model that worked perfectly... all the smart skins were great. It was that text change thing I am sure that screwed stuff up.

 

Nice system. I never thought of buying TSM2 just for the flipper!!!! What a great idea. It would be worth the price even if I rig my own stuff just to have the flipper!!

 

..hmm... maybe they could sell just the flipper by itself... hmm....

 

Learn something new everyday.

 

Vernon "!" Zehr

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Here's the thread regarding "Weight Flipper":

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...11229&hl=weight

 

And here's a link to the actual utility:

http://am.tigerbean.dk/weightflipper/

 

 

TSM2 Flipper is great because it doesn't duplicate the unilateral bones in the center of the model, like the spine, neck, head, pelvis, etc. You get a beautifully flipped skeleton without having to delete any duplicate bones. One thing about this technique, though, is that you have to start with the "right" half of the skeleton for it to work. So for John's rig I had to use a text editor first to rename left to right.

 

Hah!

I am not insane then?

 

Well.... :P

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And here's a link to the actual utility:

http://am.tigerbean.dk/weightflipper/

EEEKKK!!

 

 

(Vern just passed out and fell off his chair... when he wakes up he will have to change his pants.)

 

 

Wow! this is going to be a time saver.

 

now I just need TSM2.

 

How did I miss this thread?!

 

Vernon "!" Zehr

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...

Hello John, I've been playing around with your skeleton rig and I love it! I can get the poses I want quickly and easily without the rig "breaking". Thanks for makin' it! :) I have a question for you or anyone else who can answer it. I would like to use this particular rig in another character, I appreciate your model John but I'm going for something much more cartoony. Say for example Thom, can I transplant this rig easily (push a few buttons) into him or is it more of a problem (Hit head against computer, repeat until unconscious)? I already put a rig in Thom with exercise 13 in TAoAM, that was a bit touch-and-go and the results were unacceptable. How would I go about transplanting this rig, what's with the "flipper"?

 

Thanks again,

Josh

 

p.s. The arm control system is absolutely ingenious!

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Hi Josh,

 

Glad you like the rig!

 

There is a trick to putting the rig in that you might like to try.

 

1. Open My model

 

2. Select all its geometry and move it off to the side (not the bones)

 

3. Copy and paste tom into the model and arrange him around the rig.

 

4. Now you can go into bones mode and to select the bone for a bicep (for example), just select the bicep on my model. Then you can select the corresponding geometry on thom.

 

This prevents you from having to know which are the geometry bones (something which is probably not at all obvious - particularly for the arms).

 

Hope that helps

 

John

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  • 7 months later...

The Fan bones are something that I plan to re-do at some point. I am not at all happy with the deformation around that area.

 

You don't need to use them.

 

There are also some other bones around the back. Some are kinda simulating the movement of the scapula (but only on the left hand side).

 

Sorry that the rig has this mess in it. You can just delete it if you want.

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