TSM2 problems

[Eric2575]

I have created a quad skeleton for my T-rex and can't get past assigning cps to the rig. The problem is that the rig has so many bones in it. Attached is a pic of the model with the rig. The spine has five bones, the legs have seven bones, the neck has five bones, etc. I have absolutely no clue how to assign cps to all these bones. Looking at other models from the AM Extra CD only added to my confusion. None of those models have all the extra bones the TSM2 rig adds. Most of these models have one or two bones for the neck, spine, etc. The assignment of the cps seems pretty straightforward in those models.

 

The TSM2 documentation doesn't help either. The basic instruction just shows a basic setup for a human, and even that is sparse at best.

 

I have contacted Anzovin and have not gotten any help other than telling me that the instructions to the program are on the CD. I have spend over $100 on the program and have heard nothing but praise for it, but am not intelligent enough to get it to work. I would really like to get the hang of this program, so any help is greatly appreciated.

 

HELP

[robcat2075]

Wait a minute, aren't you the clever guy who made that cool Nautilus model?

 

Ok, I can't bear to see a grown man cry... about TSM2.

 

Well, a really good answer to your question would require some study of the skeleton of a real TRex and some theory of how their skin and muscles were attached to their bones.

 

It looks like you've gotten the legs and tail right. Next you start craning the spine bones into better positions. Use the manipulator buttons so when you move a bone, it's children follow. Don't just click and drag. Start with the spine bone at the base and move up. I've marked up your drawing with some approximate guesses for where they should go. I've also added some suggestions about simplifying the mesh.

 

Since the Trex walks on his hind legs, and his front legs are really more like arms I would consider choosing the "biped" option for the front legs on the quadruped tab. those will probably make more sense in this situation. You'll still have to crane them into position.

 

For the neck you might try the "short" option since TRex doesn't have much of a neck anyway. That will give you a one-bone neck.

 

Assigning CPs takes alot of trial and error no matter how you're rigging something. Assign some then creat an action for your character to test the motion out in. See what you get and then go back and make adjustments. You'll probably find the need for CP weighting or for fan-bones to handle CPs that lie at the junction of two body parts. Assigning the 100% to one skeleton bone will likely be too severe.

 

If you look at the Trex on the A:M (made before CP weighting) site you'll see they added a zillion fan bones to try to handle all the different ways the skin could slide as the trex moved about. It still has some tearing.

 

Hope this helps!

[Eric2575]

Thank you Robcat for remembering the Nautilus. BTW, let me clarify, I'm not crying, that's just the salty ocean air collecting under my eyes

 

First off, thanks so much for your help. I looked over the T-rex and found your eye for deleting cps excellent - did that. Now, the middle cp's in the joints should be left for fan bones? I will work on that also.

 

Your short head (not meaning your head) suggestion was great, no more gazillion neck bones. That leaves the spine bones which you have also helped me clear up quite a bit.

 

The two rear leg rings which you have marked in green are a bit confusing still. Most of the green outer ring has it's cps taken up by other bones. In other words, the whole ring will not be controlled by a fan bone, but just the rear portion of it, correct? As for the second inside green ring, will that complete ring be controlled by a fan bone, or also just part of it?

 

Below is a pic of the changed model and bone structure for your inspection. Since I have no experience with fan bones, I will have to read up on them and see about installing them tonight.

 

I really appreciate your help with my learning process. Soon the T-rex will be stalking it's dinner.

 

Eric

[robcat2075]

If you knew how little of this I've actually done, you'd think twice about taking my advice (i'm more theory than practice), but...

 

Actually, for your first experiments, I'd suggest using CP weighting (instead of adding fan bones) to average the effect of two bones on a set of CPS.

 

for example at the hip joint you might the make the ring I colored purple 25%thigh and 75% spine. Make the Orange ring 50-50. Try it, see how it works. You may find that one "ring" may need to be treated as several small groups , each with different ratios of influence.

 

Fan bones, CP weighting... they do about the same thing, but fan bones preserve the shape of rings at extreme angles, while CP weighted rings tend to squish.

 

For obvious joints like knees and ankles, it's probably safe to do a fan bone from the start. Fan bones are usually only practical on light meshes, but that's what A:M is all about.

[Eric2575]

Ok, gonna give this another shot. Questions: 1. Is the placement of the body bone just a matter of convention, or does it serve some other purpose to set it at the end of the spine? 2. Does the size of the head bone matter, and if so, why? 3. Is the body bone used mainly to pick the model and move it around?

 

Itchin to get back to fan bones and cp weighting. Will keep you posted.

 

Thanks Rob

[robcat2075]

Ok, gonna give this another shot. Questions: 1. Is the placement of the body bone just a matter of convention, or does it serve some other purpose to set it at the end of the spine?

I tend to use the body bone as a hip bone that moves/rotates the whole upper body in unison so it seems good to have ti originate from a spot that would be the hips

2. Does the size of the head bone matter, and if so, why?

no, but the origin does. that's where your head will appear to rotate from.

3. Is the body bone used mainly to pick the model and move it around?

It moves the upper body without moving the IK feet. For example, when I'm animating a walk I'll animate the up/down motion of the body on the body bone instead of the pelvis which only moves the hip area.

[Eric2575]

This is going from bad to worse. I tried adding fan bones to the joints and ran into trouble checking the results in an action window. When I move bones in the Action window, they squiggle and squirm all over the place and my T-rex looks like it melted in an inferno. I read somewhere that I need to use the rigger in order to make it all work, so I did that. After it rigged the model, I tried opening another action window only to find that now my T-rex did not move at all as I manipulate the bones.

 

Wait, let me correct myself - some of the bones move without the mesh coming along, and a few move the mesh. The result is a messy smooshed mesh, see pic.

 

I am almost ready to throw in the towel with TSM2, rigging, and animation. I've spend so many hours working on this only to get the results below. Ok, now I'm crying for real, sob, sob, sob!

 

This sucks!!!!!

 

Another side note. I noticed that after I used the rigging wizard, all my tail bones turned black and lost all their cp assignments. This also happened to the pelvis, torso, and head bone. This off course explains why the bones in the action window don't move the mesh. The $100,000 question is: Why did this happen during the rigging process?

 

I need an expert on the TSM2 suite to please help me. TSM2 was supposed to make this easy, not give me an excuse to go to the psych ward.

[luckbat]

Seriously dude, please read the manual when you have a chance. It explains how the process works:

 

TSM2 will go through the process of adding a control system for your character. If you're in Bones Mode in A:M, you can watch as the systems are automatically added, and the geometry bones are hidden for your convenience. This process will take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on the complexity of your model and the speed of your computer.

 

There's even a picture of the black control bones right below that.

 

You might also benefit from watching the TSM2 sample movie, which depicts the process from start to finish:

http://lib1.store.vip.sc5.yahoo.com/lib/ra...pes/TSM2-01.mov

 

If some of your CPs aren't moving at all, it's because they aren't assigned to any bones in the pre-rig skeleton. (No CPs should be assigned to the black control bones.)

[Eric2575]

Ok, it's not 4:00 am anymore and I've had some sleep. Please, lets keep the "dude" references out of this and get TSM2 working, since I am not the only one who is having problems with it. I really do appreciate any help anyone is willing to share, and I also realize that I have to do my own leg work. It just shouldn't be this difficult.

 

I actually contacted Anzovin because I could not find the manual with the TSM2 suite. I was informed that the manual is in one of the subfolders of the Mac Tools folders. After searching that tree, I found it to be in: D:\Mac Tools\TSM2Mac\HXT Backup\TSM2\manual.

 

Now, beat me with a stick, but I am a PC user and would not look under Mac Tools to find a manual for a program I installed on my PC. You may find this nitpicky, but the manual should be in it's own folder right in the root directory - period.

 

That's all I'm gonna say about that!

 

Now I will print every page of that manual, watch every included movie over again (Ive already seen them several times), and start from scratch.

 

Btw, Luckbat, are you a member of Anzovin? If not, are you telling me you had not problems with TSM or TSM2 and got your model rigged and animated without a hitch? I could maybe understand a biped, but not anything more elaborate. Maybe that's my problem, I should not have started with my T-rex.

 

Again, I'm not trying to cause any trouble, I'm just frustrated and would like to get this to work. Nuff said, back to the drawing board and the MAC manual from start to finish.

[luckbat]

Btw, Luckbat, are you a member of Anzovin?

No, just a fan.

 

If not, are you telling me you had not problems with TSM or TSM2 and got your model rigged and animated without a hitch?

Pretty much. My current WIP animation has one character with a TSM1 rig and another with a TSM2 rig. So far the rigs are performing admirably.

 

I could maybe understand a biped, but not anything more elaborate. Maybe that's my problem, I should not have started with my T-rex.

As Robcat pointed out, the T-rex walks on two legs, which makes him more of a biped than a quadruped. You may have better luck using the biped skeleton.

 

In any case, the easiest way for me and Robcat (and anyone else who feels like lending a hand) to diagnose the troubles you're having is for you to post a screenshot of the pre-rigged skeleton, or even the .PRJ file itself, if you feel so inclined.

[robcat2075]

This is going from bad to worse. I tried adding fan bones to the joints and ran into trouble checking the results in an action window. When I move bones in the Action window, they squiggle and squirm all over the place and my T-rex looks like it melted in an inferno.

dont try dragging them like an IK chain (since they haven't been rigged yet), just rotate one bone at a time, and only use the Rotate manipulator.

I read somewhere that I need to use the rigger in order to make it all work, so I did that. After it rigged the model, I tried opening another action window only to find that now my T-rex did not move at all as I manipulate the bones.

Don't run the rigger until you've finished your fan boning. But after you run teh Rigger, make sure the TSM constraints are turned "ON" in your action or the rig won't be in control.

Wait, let me correct myself - some of the bones move without the mesh coming along, and a few move the mesh. The result is a messy smooshed mesh, see pic.

 

I am almost ready to throw in the towel with TSM2

remember that needing to assigne CPs and create fanbones is something you'd have to do for any rig

, rigging, and animation. I've spend so many hours working on this only to get the results below. Ok, now I'm crying for real, sob, sob, sob!

I hate it when that happens

Another side note. I noticed that after I used the rigging wizard, all my tail bones turned black and lost all their cp assignments. This also happened to the pelvis, torso, and head bone. This off course explains why the bones in the action window don't move the mesh. The $100,000 question is: Why did this happen during the rigging process?

the bones you assigned CPs to have been made invisible. the bones you see in their place control them but do not have CPs assigned directly. And you need to turn on the TSM contraints for them to take effect

[Eric2575]

Thank you both for being so patient and helpful. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm gonna start from scratch, read the manual from top to bottom after I printed it out, and follow all of your advice.

 

Going humbly back to first base...

 

Eric

 

P.S. Robcat, could you give me an idea of the placement of one of the fan bones that is going to control one of the rear circle splines where the rear leg attaches to the body? Will that fan bone be all by itself, or should it be a child of another bone, like the body maybe? God, I hate to sound like such a NOOB!

[luckbat]

You can download some sample TSM-rigged models from here:

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/rafhashvide.../characters.zip

 

Most of them have fanbones already, so you can take them apart and see how they fit together.

[robcat2075]

P.S. Robcat, could you give me an idea of the placement of one of the fan bones that is going to control one of the rear circle splines where the rear leg attaches to the body? Will that fan bone be all by itself, or should it be a child of another bone, like the body maybe? God, I hate to sound like such a NOOB!

 

suppose you're fan boneing teh elbow of a simple arm. You have the bicep bone and the forearm bone. You need a fan bone so the ring at the elbow is always turned halfway between the two bones.

 

the fan bone will be a child of the bicep bone, an placed at it's tip (which is also where the forearm bone happens to be.

 

assign the CP ring to the fan bone

 

right click>new pose>on/off

 

right click fan bone>new constraint>orientlike

 

click the offset button onthe top toolbar

 

then select the forearm bone as your "target"

 

in the properties for that cnstraint change the enforcement % to 50

 

test it out in an action, not in the pose window.

 

sometimes I have to save and reload a model before the constraint kicks in.

 

 

Typically, fan bones originate at the tip of the bone they are a child of and in the same place as the bone they will be constrained to. The idea is that by being some % constrained to a target they will mimic the target's motion but only partially.

 

simple example attached

simpleArm.zip

[Eric2575]

When I mess up a pose and delete it in the PWS, it's gone, but when I create another pose, the previous deleted poses still show up in the pose slider window. Why is that, and how can I delete poses completely so I don't have a bunch I don't even want?

[luckbat]

You have to delete them from PWS -> Objects -> (your model) -> Properties -> User Properties.

[Eric2575]

That worked just fine, thank you.

 

Luckbat, could you take a look at my last post: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17929&hl= and let me know your input please?

[luckbat]

Okay.