Eyes and Bones

[Rob_T]

As I mentioned before I'm working on a new comic that we want to add around the first of the year. I'm trucking along with the models which are pretty much just letters with arms and legs but I had a question or two.

 

Is there a good set of large, expressive eyes (something cartoonish like Keekat or Mickey Mouse) with the bones and maybe some presets out there that I could paste into these models without too much difficulty (and without any problems with me using the eyes for commercial applications)? I did my TAO lessons on adding a rig but that was a really basic lesson and I've not been about to figure out how to add things like EYE Targets or even complex joints like Ankles and hips.

 

Since these characters are not really going to be used for animation (a couple of the comics we may make into animated GIF files but the animation will be very minimal) mostly I'm just posing them so even the most basic bones I've added to them will suffice. Thier Skeletal system is less complicated than the flower in the TAO lesson with all the pedals.

 

I was going to draw the eyes in myself but I really suck at art so the less of it I do the better.

 

The other question that relates to bones is I was wondering if there is an easy way to move bones along with the CP's? I made a very basic rig for the letters that I'm making adjustments to to attach to each model and I know I will have to resize and move those bones when I shange the actual size, scale, or shape of the model and CP's but in many cases I'm just moving them from one spot to another with no scale or size changing. These instances are actuall worse than the resizing because if I actually move the arm or leg I have to them move all the bones associates with that limb, despite the fact that I'm not really changing anything but thier location on the model.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[largento]

Rob, I'm not really sure what you're asking with the latter part, but rigging eyes is relatively easy.

 

There are multiple ways of doing it, but a simple way is to position left eye and right eye bones starting from the center of the sphere and extending out through where the pupils are. Assign the CPs for each eye to the correct bone and then add a third bone in the center between the eyes. This will be your control bone. Create a new On/Off pose and edit the pose. You want to apply offset constraints to the two eye bones so that they will orient like the control bone. Once you've done this, you can hide the eye bones and making sure the new pose is turned on, you'll be able to control the eyes with one bone.

 

Alternately, you can create a Null and use aim at constraints so that the eyes will always point at the null. Then wherever you move the Null, your eyes will follow.

 

Look for some of the basic rigging tutorials to learn about the basic principles of rigging. There are some amazingly complex rigs out there, but basic rigging in A:M is really, really easy.

[HomeSlice]

The other question that relates to bones is I was wondering if there is an easy way to move bones along with the CP's?

If you are doing this in a Model window, you need to select a bone that is associated with the CPs you want to move. Once the bone is selected, hit the Translate Mode, or Rotate Mode manipulators. Then hold down the [Ctrl] key while using the manipulator to translate or rotate the bone. As long as the [Ctrl] key is held down, the CPs will move with the bone.

 

If you just want to reposition a bone after you move some CPs around. Just grab the bone and drag it wherever you want. Once you get the hang of moving bones around, you will kick yourself for thinking it was difficult once.

[Rob_T]

Well sure moving bones around isn't all that tough. But considering the amount of models I have to make any shortcuts help. 26 Letters in the alphabet. + Lowercase letters + numbers 0-9. I'm looking at 62 models and that's just with the one font we're starting out with.

 

I have some shortcuts for dealing with a couple of letters and numbers which knocks a few off that number but I stil have a lot of bones to move around. What I did was create a model of just the arms and legs and then I plop the letter in there and fine tune the CP's and then the bones to marry them up to the letter. Making the arm or leg shorter or longer is no big deal but if I have to move the leg or arm in toto either vertically or horizontally even an inch I have to adjust every bone in the arm or leg to compensate for the position change.

 

I was just wondering if there was an easy way to move an arm with it's bones around.

 

What about copy and past with bones? Would that do it? I'll try it.

 

Lergento, thanks for the tips but I don't know how to do a lot of what you suggested. I might be able to figure it out if I play with it a bit. I'm just kind of crunched for time and thought I would ask if anyone knew of a good set of eyes in the freebie library that might fit my needs.

 

I don't want to try and create my own due to my crappy art and complete lack of experience (other than a very brief TAO lesson) in creating pose sliders for the eyelids and eyebrows and pupil size and all that.

[mtpeak2]

The other question that relates to bones is I was wondering if there is an easy way to move bones along with the CP's?

If you are doing this in a Model window, you need to select a bone that is associated with the CPs you want to move. Once the bone is selected, hit the Translate Mode, or Rotate Mode manipulators. Then hold down the [Ctrl] key while using the manipulator to translate or rotate the bone. As long as the [Ctrl] key is held down, the CPs will move with the bone.

Holmes explains it here.

 

Go into bones mode and select the parent bone in the arm (bicep or shoulder, not sure of your setup). Turn on the translate or rotate manipulator with the bone selected. With the "ctrl" key held down, translate or rotate the bone with the manipulator. This will move the cps with the bone. Repeat for the legs using the thigh bone. You can't move cps and have the bone move with it.

[Rob_T]

Ok I misunderstood. I thought Holmes was suggesting that I could only move one bone with its associated CP's at a time and that I should get used to moving bones cause it's easy.

 

The key for me was you saying thigh or bicep as these are obvious high level bones with lots of others beneath them in the heirarchy. This meant to me that you were saying that as l had the ctrl key pressed all the bones under the one I selected in the heirarch and all of thier associated CP's would move with them.

 

So I tried it. It works great. Thanks to both you guys, you just saved me a ton of time.

 

Now I just need some eyes.

[itsjustme]

Here is an eye tutorial, if you need one.