Smart Skinning

[flashawd]

Hi - I did the Smart Skinning for a character I am working on for the Thigh, Calves, Pelvis and Back bones - that all came out great. So I bring the T Bear character into an action w/ the IK Leg Setup Turned "on" and I move the Hip Target down and it result in what you see on the pic - as if I didn't Smart Skin anything. Can you Smart skin a Target? What am I not getting here? Thanks - Eric

[flashawd]

Sorry, forgot the pic

 

[Mechadelphia]

Hi - I did the Smart Skinning for a character I am working on for the Thigh, Calves, Pelvis and Back bones - that all came out great. So I bring the T Bear character into an action w/ the IK Leg Setup Turned "on" and I move the Hip Target down and it result in what you see on the pic - as if I didn't Smart Skin anything. Can you Smart skin a Target? What am I not getting here? Thanks - Eric

 

Hi flashawd

 

It can be tricky to say for sure where the problem lies since we don't know how your model and rig are setup.

 

It sound like you may have accidently set your Smartskin on your FK leg controls instead of the actual geometry bones of the model itself.

 

If you set the Smartskin on the underlying geometry bones then your smart skin will always work when you switch from FK to IK and back (since the geometry bones always move the model's geomtry at the base level regardless of your rig's IK/FK mode).

 

You said that you used Smartskin on your character's back. How does the back's Smartskin behave when you switch too IK legs?

 

Dig a little deeper in the rig to find out exactly which bones have the Smartskin applied to them and let us know. If I can spot the problem I will help you with the solution.

 

Good Luck.

[flashawd]

Hi Mechadelphia -thank you for your reply. I just went in and it looks exactly like you called it - smartskin is not on direct geometry. The problem is when you click on and highlight the "Right Thigh" bone and right click "New Smartskin" - when it opens up the window to do the new smartskin the thigh bone disapears - so you have to turn the "IK Leg Setup" on to see the bone. What am I doing wrong - if I can't see the bone when I go directly to the smartskin window I can't do the smartskinning? Thank you again - Eric

[Mechadelphia]

Hi Eric,

 

I'm glad that you zeroed in on the problem.

 

Just so that you know... you are not doing anything wrong.

 

You may be overlooking a detail that is very easy to overlook when setting up these sorts of relationships in your rig.

 

From what you've described it sounds like you have set bone ON/OFF visibilty keys in your Pose(s) that control your FK or IK controls (it's possible that they could also be set in other poses too.).

 

There is nothing wrong with that, that's Ok.

 

For the sake of simplicity try this:

 

Delete the Smartskins for the bones that you mistakingly applied them to.

Click on the model that you want to work on in the "Project Workspace".

 

Check in the "Properties" window for your model and inspect your User Properties.

 

This will have all of the Poses that you defined for your model such as your FK and IK switching.

 

You'll notice that to the right of the Pose name there will be an indicator that tell you what percentage the pose defaults to in an Action, Pose, or Choreography window. If the pose is an ON/OFF pose it may indicate on or off.

 

It is also possible the the pose may indicate "Not Set".

 

For now, Right Click on the percentage or ON/OFF that is indicated set them all to "Not Set". This is to help prevent accidently setting a key for your Poses in your Smatskin.

 

Now go into your model and create the Smartskin on the geometry bone that you want set.

 

When you are done and exit out of that Smartskin relationship, you can set your poses back to your default percentages.

 

That should do the trick for you.

 

Try it out and see if it works. If it does not let us know and I'll get more details from you about this so we can get you back on track.

 

Good Luck.

[flashawd]

Hi - first of all I want to thank you for taking the time to help me with my questions - you and a lot of people in this forum are more than generous with your time and it is much appreciated. I did exactly what you said to do and it worked perfect. I will use this for all the characters I model from here on out. Have a great weekend - Eric

[Mechadelphia]

Hi - first of all I want to thank you for taking the time to help me with my questions - you and a lot of people in this forum are more than generous with your time and it is much appreciated. I did exactly what you said to do and it worked perfect. I will use this for all the characters I model from here on out. Have a great weekend - Eric

 

Hi Eric,

 

I'm glad that you worked it out.

 

Rigging is not the easiest task to learn so if I see anyone trying to really "get it" I'll do what I can to help out.

 

You were on the right track; all that you needed was a nudge in the right direction.

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Take care.