Movie Mistake 27

[mouseman]

I'm going back to work on the old Eggs, Potatoes, and Bacon animation I had submitted to MMC ... what, 5? 6?

 

Anyways, as far as suggestions, one person had mentioned that one of the characters seemed to freeze sometimes. I thought a neat way of making him continue to move was to implement a breathe pose. I can just have it go up and down periodically; it could go up just before he begins a phrase, and go down as he completes it.

 

I created the pose, did some muscle (control point) changes to make his chest expand, and then did some skeletal changes to make his Back2, Head, and Neck move. I then went to the existing chor, created a new chor action, and had the slider value for the new Breathe pose vary between 0 and 35-50 as appropriate for a test period. Then I clicked "play" and ...

 

His hands are moving when they shouldn't. In the 2001 rig, the Right (and Left) Hand Target are both under Back2. Thus if Back2 moves, so do the hands. Rats!

 

The best laid plans ...

[itsjustme]

I'm going back to work on the old Eggs, Potatoes, and Bacon animation I had submitted to MMC ... what, 5? 6?

 

Anyways, as far as suggestions, one person had mentioned that one of the characters seemed to freeze sometimes. I thought a neat way of making him continue to move was to implement a breathe pose. I can just have it go up and down periodically; it could go up just before he begins a phrase, and go down as he completes it.

 

I created the pose, did some muscle (control point) changes to make his chest expand, and then did some skeletal changes to make his Back2, Head, and Neck move. I then went to the existing chor, created a new chor action, and had the slider value for the new Breathe pose vary between 0 and 35-50 as appropriate for a test period. Then I clicked "play" and ...

 

His hands are moving when they shouldn't. In the 2001 rig, the Right (and Left) Hand Target are both under Back2. Thus if Back2 moves, so do the hands. Rats!

 

The best laid plans ...

 

I don't think you need to scale the "Back2" bone, Chris. The chest expansion using muscle movement should be enough for a "breathe" Pose. The other motion would be handled using spine and head rotation and translation.

 

Hope that helps.

[mouseman]

I don't think you need to scale the "Back2" bone, Chris. The chest expansion using muscle movement should be enough for a "breathe" Pose. The other motion would be handled using spine and head rotation and translation.

 

Hope that helps.

 

I didn't scale it, I just moved it. The reason I moved the bones was that I sat in a chair, breathed in deeply, and noticed that not only did my chest expand (muscle movement), but I also slightly moved my upper back, neck, and head (bones).

 

I can probably do the pose without moving the upper back, but this is a case for the 2001 rig where it is clear that because of dependencies, if you move higher-level bones (such as pelvis, back, back2, shoulder) after lower-level bones (hand, or hand target), you mess up the positions of the lower-level bones. This can be frustrating for anyone that is not intimately familiar with all of the ramifications of the rig. It can also be frustrating for anyone that has a need to go back and clean up animation.

 

A quick look at the squetch rig ... it looks like when FK_IK is on, the hands stay where they are. I think the target in question is not directly below the geometry for the back and shoulders. This is how I was expecting (incorrectly) the 2001 rig to behave.

[itsjustme]

I don't think you need to scale the "Back2" bone, Chris. The chest expansion using muscle movement should be enough for a "breathe" Pose. The other motion would be handled using spine and head rotation and translation.

 

Hope that helps.

 

I didn't scale it, I just moved it. The reason I moved the bones was that I sat in a chair, breathed in deeply, and noticed that not only did my chest expand (muscle movement), but I also slightly moved my upper back, neck, and head (bones).

 

I can probably do the pose without moving the upper back, but this is a case for the 2001 rig where it is clear that because of dependencies, if you move higher-level bones (such as pelvis, back, back2, shoulder) after lower-level bones (hand, or hand target), you mess up the positions of the lower-level bones. This can be frustrating for anyone that is not intimately familiar with all of the ramifications of the rig. It can also be frustrating for anyone that has a need to go back and clean up animation.

 

A quick look at the squetch rig ... it looks like when FK_IK is on, the hands stay where they are. I think the target in question is not directly below the geometry for the back and shoulders. This is how I was expecting (incorrectly) the 2001 rig to behave.

 

Oh, sorry for the misunderstanding, Chris...I should have read more carefully. You could make a modified 2001 rig by changing the parenting of the IK hand targets.

[mouseman]

Oh, sorry for the misunderstanding, Chris...I should have read more carefully. You could make a modified 2001 rig by changing the parenting of the IK hand targets.

 

Or I should have been a little more clear!

 

I'm a little nervous about modifying the 2001 rig. 1. The project is close to being done, and I'd be afraid of messing up the rest of the animation; 2. I have some smarts for rigging, but not a huge amount.

 

On the next project, I'm definitely switching over to the squetch rig. From what I can tell, there will probably be far fewer of these kinds of "gotchas". (And that's largly your accomplishment! Which everyone is hugely grateful for!)

[mtpeak2]

Add 2 nulls to your action or chor and translate the hand targets to them and have the hands orient like them.

 

You can do this in a pose as well. Create a new on/off pose, add 2 new nulls by righting clicking in the window (action objects). In the off position, turn the nulls inactive and active in the on position and hide the hands and hand targets. In the on position constrain your model to the nulls as mentioned before. This setup will not affect any animation you've done, just set the default pose to off in the user properties. You can add the 2 nulls to the model at the same hierarchy as the foot targets and constrain the hands and hand targets in a pose as well. This is a pretty simple setup to add to the 2001 rig.