Attaching a hand

[Roger]

Hello,

 

 

I'm getting to the point where I am finalizing the construction of this dragon model, and I have to attach a hand, where the hand has 12 pts at its beginning, and the stump of the wrist has 8, I believe.

 

This has always been the most difficult part for me....I generally try to model parts separately, and then attach them later, as that has always been the way that has worked best for me in the past.

 

However, due to AM being different from polygon modellers, it doesn't seem to make sense to do that anymore.

 

When I am trying to join to parts with disparate numbers of points, the simple solution is to make sure that each end has the same number of points and then connect them up. However, when I start adding points to a piece of geometry that has fewer points, I always end up screwing up the underlying geometry to the point where I no longer have valid patches, and it turns into a nightmare trying to get back to having valid surfaces. Sometimes I can do it, sometimes I can't, and even when I can it doesn't seem to look quite right.

 

So, when building a character, do you guys generally model the whole thing all in the same project, or split it up? I imagine I could do that, by grouping splines and then hiding the groups that I don't need, so I can concentrate on the particular piece I'm on.

 

The biggest difficulty that I still seem to have with spline modelling is that sometimes my splines seem to do wierd things, and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason why. Like, when I am inserting additional splines to "patch up" (pun not intended) a hole that has opened up, sometimes they appear to loop back on themselves, other times I get these wierd "waves" or distortions. I don't often seem to have these neat, orderly grids that all of the really good modellers seem to have.

 

I will post a picture of the wireframe of the foot I am working on right now, to illustrate what I am talking about. I got everything closed off fine this time, but it just looks odd in wireframe, and has a few artifacts in shaded mode.

 

thanks

 

Roger

[bentothemax]

I usually model parts in differant models, and copy and paste them into the base model.

 

Usally odd splinage is caused by odd ways of laying splines. Sometimes though, it can be because of messed up gamma or bias.

 

My models... usually have a few artifacts in shaded mode, its just how 5 point and 3 points draw, but usually when rendered (with porclain) everything is smoothed out, and looks great.

 

If you havn't already, readint the giraffe tutorial, espeacialy the part about hooks, is extremely helpful for ataching mismatched splines

 

Best of luck!

 

Ben

[pwknox]

This happens all the time. Use 'hooks'!

 

First you need a set of splines to connect. The easiest way to do this is to extrude the last spline ring on the hand and then delete the ring . This will leave the 12 control points dangling (nothing attached).

 

With your hand of 12 splines and wrist of 8 splines, you should connect all of the 8 wrist splines to 8 of the dangling hand splines where they are most natural. You will have 4 splines that are left over. Grab one of the dangling control points and make it hook to the 'stump' on the wrist. On the PC you do this by dragging the CP and right-clicking it to make the hook.

 

Take a look at the online help and search for HOOKS the example there is exactly what you are describing.

 

Phil

[TeresaNord]

Roger,

I'm actually learning how to attach things right now too. The Giraffe exercise seems to be a good place to start (that's what I'm working on right now). David Rogers new book "Animation:Master A Complete Guide 2006" would probably be helpful too. It has a bunch of good information. Anyways, sorry I can't be of more help to you on this issue.... Good Luck

Teresa

[Roger]

doh....

 

Thanks pwknox. That made things a lot more clear, and should keep me from having to play "whack a mole" with trying to patch holes that keep popping up.

 

I'm going to try that now. I will probably still do the giraffe tutorial, after I reinstall AM ( not the best way of resetting the tools>options settings, but the only way I could find that would work)

 

I would have wasted all day though trying to do it the way I was going to do it.

 

thanks again

 

Roger

[Roger]

This happens all the time. Use 'hooks'!

 

First you need a set of splines to connect. The easiest way to do this is to extrude the last spline ring on the hand and then delete the ring . This will leave the 12 control points dangling (nothing attached).

 

With your hand of 12 splines and wrist of 8 splines, you should connect all of the 8 wrist splines to 8 of the dangling hand splines where they are most natural. You will have 4 splines that are left over. Grab one of the dangling control points and make it hook to the 'stump' on the wrist. On the PC you do this by dragging the CP and right-clicking it to make the hook.

 

Take a look at the online help and search for HOOKS the example there is exactly what you are describing.

 

Phil

 

Ok, I tried extruding the last ring, I get a new ring etc. But when I try to delete that ring, it doesn't leave any splines behind it just deletes the ring as well as the new patches that were extruded. Am I doing something wrong?

 

Roger

 

This happens all the time. Use 'hooks'!

 

First you need a set of splines to connect. The easiest way to do this is to extrude the last spline ring on the hand and then delete the ring . This will leave the 12 control points dangling (nothing attached).

 

With your hand of 12 splines and wrist of 8 splines, you should connect all of the 8 wrist splines to 8 of the dangling hand splines where they are most natural. You will have 4 splines that are left over. Grab one of the dangling control points and make it hook to the 'stump' on the wrist. On the PC you do this by dragging the CP and right-clicking it to make the hook.

 

Take a look at the online help and search for HOOKS the example there is exactly what you are describing.

 

Phil

 

Ok, I tried extruding the last ring, I get a new ring etc. But when I try to delete that ring, it doesn't leave any splines behind it just deletes the ring as well as the new patches that were extruded. Am I doing something wrong?

 

Roger

 

 

Nevermind, I figured out what I was doing wrong. Thanks again.