beginner rigging question

[cribbidaj]

I am confused about reusing a rigged model with relationships built in a new pose for multiple actions. When I create a new action the default "use model" option just lists the models I've rigged before setting constraints and smart skins. How do I go about saving the model with it's constraints and smartskin edits intact for multiple actions and choreographies?

 

Thanks,

Chris

[Noel]

I am confused about reusing a rigged model with relationships built in a new pose for multiple actions. When I create a new action the default "use model" option just lists the models I've rigged before setting constraints and smart skins. How do I go about saving the model with it's constraints and smartskin edits intact for multiple actions and choreographies?

 

Thanks,

Chris

 

Don't completely understand your question, but I'll try to answer it anyways.

If you add a pose or smatskin to a model, you can use those poses or smartskins in any new or existing actions. Only catch is that if these actions are in another project you'll need to save this project before the other project will be able to use those poses. (This means that your model must be saved as a seperate file (linked instead of embedded in the project) for the other project to be able to use it.

[cribbidaj]

Noel -

 

My lack of understanding in the rigging process has made it difficult for me to discern what is actually going on, but I'll describe it another way. I have saved models after adding control bones and the control bones are not assigned (or not activated) when I create a new action using the model. This is different from my earlier claim that the constraints and smartskinning weren't being saved with the model, but no less perplexing to me. How do I activate the control bones in my new action?

 

Thank you,

Chris

[wwoelbel]

Hi Chris;

 

I am truly no wizard but maybe my fumblings can shed some light on the problem?

 

First of all, I am using v12.0K on a PC (It can make a difference)

 

What I did was lathe out a sphere as a new model and put a single bone in it. I assigned the CPs of the upper half of the sphere to this bone.

 

I then created a new action for model1 (the default name of my sphere model. No surprise, the sphere showed up with the single bone. When I wiggle the bone, the CPs on the top half of the sphere wiggle with it.

 

I closed the action window and went back to my modeling window. I added a new bone as a sibling of the first bone (parent is the root or model bone) and gave it the remaining CPs.

 

I then right clicked on my action and selected Edit with Model1.

 

The new bone was present and when wiggled it jiggled the CPs on the lower half.

 

I also tried doing this without closing the action window in the middle. I was hoping to have found a weird little bug but, alas, the bone showed up in the action window as soon as I created it.

 

=================

 

Are you editting the action with the same model that you are making the skeletal changes to?

 

You used the phrase "control bones". Are these bones that work on geometry bones through relationships? If so, did you turn on the pose that controls those relationships in the action?

 

Bill

[Noel]

Noel -

 

My lack of understanding in the rigging process has made it difficult for me to discern what is actually going on, but I'll describe it another way. I have saved models after adding control bones and the control bones are not assigned (or not activated) when I create a new action using the model. This is different from my earlier claim that the constraints and smartskinning weren't being saved with the model, but no less perplexing to me. How do I activate the control bones in my new action?

 

Thank you,

Chris

 

It may be that you made a pose but didn't turn it on.

On the model's properties set the value you want on the userproperty corrisponding to your pose.

They default to not set, but you can chage that to what ever you want there, then each new action will start with those values. Otherwise you have to set the pose values in each new action.

See the characters' users properties on the cd

[cribbidaj]

That was it! I had not turned the pose on! I guess that is why they are called on/off poses, huh? Thank you for your quick and knowledgeable responses. Sorry to have missed the obvious, but I'm still trying to comprehend many of the choices in the A:M interface. This forum is invaluable. Thank you.

 

-Chris