2001 skeleton hand clench problem

[falibu]

i'm trying to add the 2001 skeleton rig to my model in AM v15 and everything seems to work till i start messing with the hands. i've never messed with the hand bones outside of the TAOAM tutorials but from what i gather after going through the forums and examining lady_goodbody.mdl, i have unhid all the hand bones including X finger bone 1, 2, 3 and started assigning the bones of finger to control points rather than assigning them to the general finger.

 

my problem is that when i try to use the right or left hand clench in an action the fingers distort wildly into a mashed up ball at 1% and doesn't change at all between 1-100%. i've tried opening up the 2001 skeleton.mdl from the rig's folder that installed with my version of AM and i started an action for the skeleton to test his clench and by default the mashed up hand bones happens. is there something i don't understand about hands or have i managed to mess up my copy of my 2001 skeleton and does anyone know where i can download a clean set of default models that come with AM without completely reinstalling my software?

 

i tried looking for posts with similar problems but came up empty.

[robcat2075]

I don't know a lot about AM2001.

 

One possibility is to delete the hand clench poses and just make new ones. (they're more for demonstration, one doesn't use hand clenches too often). Select them in the Properties>User Properties and hit delete.

 

 

Another is to not use AM2001 at all. It's rather old. Mark's AM2008 or TSM2(if you're on a PC) are easy, robust alternatives.

[falibu]

I don't know a lot about AM2001.

 

One possibility is to delete the hand clench poses and just make new ones. (they're more for demonstration, one doesn't use hand clenches too often). Select them in the Properties>User Properties and hit delete.

 

 

Another is to not use AM2001 at all. It's rather old. Mark's AM2008 or TSM2(if you're on a PC) are easy, robust alternatives.

 

 

i've been reading a bit about the TSM2 setup so i DL'd it and opened up some of the rigged characters that come with the TSM2 install. one thing i noticed was they didn't seem to work well with AM's preset actions unless i missed something. it seemed to twist the body of the character and swap left/right hands/feet positions. TSM2 seems pretty cool but i think if i started using it now i'd have to redo all my actions and AM's preset actions unless there's a way around that? seems like a lot to get a hand to close around a hilt hehe and may be a job for another day. So far my rigging experience is limited to what is taught in TAOAM book under ch13 add some backbone which uses the 2001 rig, but doesn't cover boning fingers.

 

thanks for the point in the right direction, i had been meaning to find out what the acronym TSM stood for lol. i kept thinking to myself, "are they talking about The Skeleton Model?" and even tried using the eugene_2001rig thinking that's what you guys were talking about.

[robcat2075]

i've been reading a bit about the TSM2 setup so i DL'd it and opened up some of the rigged characters that come with the TSM2 install. one thing i noticed was they didn't seem to work well with AM's preset actions unless i missed something.

 

Actions will only work with a character that has the same rig as the one the actions were made with. Part of it is that the names of the bones are not the same. It's also a problem if the characters aren't proportioned the same.

 

If you absolutely need to use the premade actions then you'll need to use the rig they were made with which, i guess, is AM2001.

 

I almost never use actions so that wasn't a big concern for me. I recommend TSM2 in general because it's easier to install, easier to pose and does all the essential things that we want rigs to do whereas AM2001... not so much.

 

I wouldn't stick with AM2001 just for the hand clenches. But there's no reason you can't just pose that hand manually to do anything you want.

[falibu]

Actions will only work with a character that has the same rig as the one the actions were made with. Part of it is that the names of the bones are not the same. It's also a problem if the characters aren't proportioned the same.

 

i vaguely remember reading something a long those lines but was hoping for the best haha.

 

I wouldn't stick with AM2001 just for the hand clenches. But there's no reason you can't just pose that hand manually to do anything you want.

 

i hear that, i finished reading the TSM manual and it looks really good for a lot of things i want to do. especially with quadrapeds and insects.

 

One possibility is to delete the hand clench poses and just make new ones. (they're more for demonstration, one doesn't use hand clenches too often). Select them in the Properties>User Properties and hit delete.

 

thanks for that tid bit of info. based on that i've come to a temporary solution: i just grabbed lady goodbody's hand relationships and dropped them into my model haha. all of the stock models that i have come with that 2001 rig and all of their hand clenches seem to work but on the 2001 rig itself it was jacked up.

 

the only thing i really know about poses are lips, do you know of any resources on how to pose a clenched hand or poses in general? it seems like posing is a very key ability. i'm guessing i bone the fingers to my finger geometry and then go to an action with and new pose>percentage. not sure from there. i'm going to toy around with it.

test_hand_clench.mov

[robcat2075]

here's a vid on basic pose making

[falibu]

here's a vid on basic pose making

 

 

Great stuff, i have been rummaging through everything i could find to try and learn the fundamentals of poses and you nailed it right on the head. I'm pretty sure if i ever ran into a problem like this again, i have a really good jumping platform to try and fix the problem instead of band-aiding it by using properties from other projects haha.

[robcat2075]

I just saw you're on a Mac. TSM2 won't work on a mac anymore so my next suggestion is the AM2008 rig

[falibu]

I just saw you're on a Mac. TSM2 won't work on a mac anymore so my next suggestion is the AM2008 rig

 

 

yeah my primary editing machine is a mac but i model on my pc. i started fiddling with TSM2 today after i got my unit rigged with the 2001 skeleton to hold an axe which is one of the things i wanted hands clenched for. in TSM2, i got a basic rig to work without fan bones and cog. i'm reading caroline's rigging gala with TSM pdf though and hope to work through it. it looks like it would definitely be worth the change over.