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The Saucy Rig (Version 1.5)


Mechadelphia

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  • Hash Fellow

 

Your video showed what happened with your model rigged with the TSM Rig.

 

Did you guys try the Saucy Rig in the eggbot model at all? If so then what were the results with the walk cycle?

 

 

No. I made the Eggbot long ago and pulled it out because I knew it had the leg-scaling which is something I wanted to include in the exercise.

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Your video showed what happened with your model rigged with the TSM Rig.

 

Did you guys try the Saucy Rig in the eggbot model at all? If so then what were the results with the walk cycle?

 

 

No. I made the Eggbot long ago and pulled it out because I knew it had the leg-scaling which is something I wanted to include in the exercise.

 

 

Hmmm… So I am actually being asked to add a feature to my rig, that you guys have not even tried in this scenario, to address a problem that you are having in a completely different rig.

 

I see.

 

As I said before, the Squetch Rig has what you need right now for your situation (Leg Scaling and Soft IK). It’s a great rig so consider trying that out for now. You could even use the Squetchy Sam example character which is pre-rigged to complete your exercise.

 

In the meantime, I will continue to work adding leg scaling to the Saucy Rig on my end. I’ll take more time to add or tweak a few other things that I’ve been thinking about while I’m at it.

 

I’ll post here again when I have completed the update.

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  • Hash Fellow
Hmmm… So I am actually being asked to add a feature to my rig, that you guys have not even tried in this scenario, to address a problem that you are having in a completely different rig.

 

Something is not being communicated.

 

This is not a problem of the TSM2 rig. This is standard walk animation workflow. You want this leg scaling no matter what rig you are using.

 

I didn't install the Saucy rig in my old eggbot character to try leg scaling because I had already tried it with the sample Saucy characters and didn't see any way to get that result.

 

 

 

This is an example of what i got...

clip4276SaucyScaling.mp4

 

 

I'm not trying to trick you or anything. I don't know what you mean when you say it is there already.

 

 

 

 

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I never said that the Saucy Rig has the leg scaling that you need right now I said that the Squetch Rig does. (by David Simmons... AKA "itsjustme")

 

Go here:

 

Squetch Rig download files.

 

Download the file named "v13s_Squetchy_Sam_07_19_2017_with_sleeves_and_switches.zip "

 

Use Squetchy Sam for your exercise.

 

Problem solved.

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  • Hash Fellow

I see, I misread that! Sorry!

 

TSM has it too. However, Steve and Chris wanted to use the Saucy rig for their projects. They have a whole bunch of characters that are already Saucy-rigged.

If it's not something practical to add to Saucy rig or you don't have time to do it, I understand that completely, but we wanted to inquire.

 

Maybe it was going to be easy to add, we didn't know.

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No problem.

 

I have some time and I am working on it now.

 

It won't be easy to add but it should not be terribly difficult either.

 

This will have to be a new rig but I am shooting for the same kind of install automation that we are used to with with the current rig.

 

I am thinking of putting together something for you to review with your Eggbot before I go too deep into this. That way, I'll know if I am on target with what you need (I think that I am but I just need to make sure).

 

I don't have a timetable for when you could expect that yet.

 

If that is alright with you then I will PM you the file once I rig it.

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  • Hash Fellow

If there was a process by which one could manually add this to existing Saucy characters that would be a useful thing

 

What bones to add. Where to add them. What constraints to change...

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If there was a process by which one could manually add this to existing Saucy characters that would be a useful thing

 

What bones to add. Where to add them. What constraints to change...

 

Gosh Robert, that would be useful but you're asking a lot from me already.

I was trying to work with you here but I guess I'm not working fast enough for you.

Before I continue let me post this here from my website:


"I will advise you of this before you proceed (and to paraphrase Steffen Gross):


This rig was originally designed as a working relief for me and, therefore, raises no claim or guarantee that it will work well for you (or even work at all). I will not offer any support for this work beyond what I have already posted or may post in the future by my own volition. You should use this rig at your own risk. Make sure you always have backups of your important work."


So I'm tapping out now with that in mind. I'm not going to help you out with this.


One of the goals of the Saucy Rig was to make it easy for people to install and use.


Right now you're in "You should build your own rig." territory because what you are talking about isn't easy for the average person to do, it's time consuming for me, and you don't seem to appreciate that fact.


You are certainly welcome to modify the Saucy Rig to suit your needs. If you study the rig for yourself you'll be able to see that the hierarchies are modular so you can make sense of it if you are committed to learning how it was done.


Or... you can build your own rig from scratch.


So I'm done with trying to help out with your project. I have my own to work to get back to.

 

Maybe others here will be willing to help you out with this.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck.


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  • Hash Fellow

??

I'm not sure what I said that was a problem.

 

If you don't have time, you don't have time. I completely understand that. You have no obligations in this.

 

It just seemed to me since you were going to figure out how to add it to the Saucy rig, once you knew what the new stuff is you could document that for people who wanted to add it to old characters.

If it's not possible, it's not possible.

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  • 1 year later...

Just an FYI for those who may have been looking for this rig on my site...

I took my web site offline maybe about a month or so ago to do some maintenance but I never brought it back online.

My intent was to bring it back online after only a few hours but I became a bit side tracked and didn't get back to it :facepalm:.

I'm going to bring back online in the next few days.  There won't be anything new on it when I bring it back online, just the old stuff for now.

Thanks.

Take care.

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  • 3 months later...

I am trying to install the saucy rig but have a problem /mabe missed something Iv got the point that I have the bones asighned to the points but when I try to go to mirror bones its not showing up but its in the hxt folder Im trying this in in an action window is that correct thanks for any help steve

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  • 1 year later...
  • 1 year later...
  • Hash Fellow
On 6/12/2023 at 9:14 PM, R Reynolds said:

I've made some progress with my first walk cycle using the Saucy Rig (or any other rig for that matter). Everything below the knees looks OK but both upper legs have noticeable tremors (see video). Have I messed up the rig installation or do my bones need re-positioning?

Those are often called "knee pops"

I don't know much about the Saucy Rig. Are you doing this in FK or IK?

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I believe I'm using IK by only moving the foot controls to position the calf and thigh bones. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that the motion curves of those bones are made available to me for correction. I can only modify the curves for the foot and toe.

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  • Hash Fellow
1 hour ago, R Reynolds said:

I believe I'm using IK by only moving the foot controls to position the calf and thigh bones. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that the motion curves of those bones are made available to me for correction. I can only modify the curves for the foot and toe.

Good, IK is the way to go.

The problem is the geometry of triangles. When the leg is nearly straight (as it should be at the moment of heel contact) any slight change in placement of the axis at the hip or ankle can cause a very visible motion in the knee joint in the middle.

"Knee pops" are a classic problem when animating in IK. However, you don't want to give up the advantages of IK.

A common solution is to slightly scale the length of the thigh and calf to alter the triangle so that the knee no longer pops. (It sounds wrong but big-time animators do it, none-the-less). This would be keyframed before, on and after the frame of the pop. If the Saucy rig doesn't already have a provision for this, don't try it.

Another gambit is to alter the triangle by slightly rotating the control at the heel to vary the knee position. Again, this would be keyframed before, on and after the frame of the pop. This may be trading a pop in the knee for one in the foot, but it is possible to wrangle them both so that neither pops.

Do the before and after keyframes first, then the one in the middle.

Your pops are much smaller than most first walks. They might not even be noticeable if the character is distant to the camera.

If you continue to have trouble, this would  be a cool thing to bring to Live Answer Time.

 

 

 

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My very first walk cycle used FK. It was time consuming but I had access to the motion curves of all the bones and it was easy to see where a kink in a curve needed key framing. In fact it was smoothing the motion curves that convinced me that I needed more resolution than 24 frames for the whole cycle.  I was hoping to treat this rig like a black box but before I try to smooth out the pops by trial and error I'm going to look under the hood of the rig to see if I'm allowed to see all motion curves of all bones.

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  • Hash Fellow
3 hours ago, R Reynolds said:

 I was hoping to treat this rig like a black box but before I try to smooth out the pops by trial and error I'm going to look under the hood of the rig to see if I'm allowed to see all motion curves of all bones.

You can create a curve for a bone by setting your Rotate, Translate and Key Bone filters, then selecting the bone and then holding SHIFT while you press the Force Keyframe button and choosing "In filtered channels" in the dialog that comes up.

image.png

However, keyframing those bones is incompatible with the IK process. It wil be easier to get the IK poses right.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • Hash Fellow

That is smoother.

The gliding look is from his hips not having an up and down component. If you have "The Animator's Survival Kit", he talks about this element of walks on pgs. 106-109

The up and down is present in almost all walks. I made this clip to show the hip up-and-down is present in a live walk.

 

 

If you have QuickTime you can scroll through this frame by frame. The key point most people get wrong is that the lowest point is not at the moment of heel contact and the highest point is not half-way between the heel contacts.

 

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Thanks for the video, Robert. It confirms what had made sense to me from a kinematic links standpoint. The highest points of the pelvis are when the legs are vertical beneath it. Building a walk cycle became more straight forward once I worked out the motions of the pelvis.

walk_cycle_pelvis_motion.jpg

I chose pelvis motion limits that were on the low side since I was going for a more subtle stroll as opposed to your "walking with purpose" video. I assume that once I work out all the cycle details, I can always scale the motions up.

 

 

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