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Reestablishing foot targets


Pitcher

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One problem I have had more than once is that foot targets become disconnected. I move them and nothing on the model moves. I seem to remember that one time I fixed the problem by opening the basic skeleton model and dragging the foot targets from the skeleton model to the model with the foot target problem. That was couple of years ago, and I have forgotten what I did exactly. I am not able to do a repeat performance. Does anyone know a slick and easy way to reestablish foot targets?

 

Foot targets, by the way, seem to be the most vulnerable part of the skeleton. If something goes wrong with the skeleton in my brief experience, it is usually that the foot targets cease to work. I don't know enough to understand why this happens. What is there about foot targets that makes them more delicate?

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Thanks for the suggestion. I've looked in the properties for the foot target, and I have compared them to the properties for the hips which do work, and I don't see any difference. Where is a good place to look for a constraint being turned off?

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That told me a lot. I wonder if last time I fixed this a couple of years ago I copied the relationships from one model to another rather than trying to copy bones one to the other.

 

In answer to your question of where this came from, here is what happened. Sometimes I design some little piece while I am working on a model, and then I decide to use it on other models. Maybe it's a hairpin or something like that. Sometimes, I remove the character who is wearing the hairpin in the modeling mode and forget to remove the character's skeleton in the skeletal mode. Then I put the hairpin on another character and voila! I have a character with two skeletons. There is Root 1 and Root 2. Then I remove Root 2 and all its underlings thinking I'm getting back to Root 1 before the mistake. BUT... no such luck!! The relations have changed in the first model to relate to the bones in the Root 2 strand. Is there a way to copy the relations from one character to another?

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  • Hash Fellow

I don't know enough about that rig to know what can done by just an arbitrary copy. My best advice is if you want to use that rig on a character... rig it according to the instructions, don't try to shortcut it.

 

Side note: Set "Balance Rigid" and "Balance" to 0% before you do any animating. Those features have no useful purpose and only make animation harder. Turn them OFF! Don't ever let them be ON.

 

 

 

Sometimes I design some little piece while I am working on a model, and then I decide to use it on other models. Maybe it's a hairpin or something like that. Sometimes, I remove the character who is wearing the hairpin in the modeling mode and forget to remove the character's skeleton in the skeletal mode.

This much i don't understand at all... why not just copy the hairpin to the other character?

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The rig I use is the one that came with Version 15. It is called "2001 Skeleton." I will fix the settings as you suggest.

 

I installed the rig per the instructions on the model that worked. The second model is just a file copy of the first, except that I imported a model of an object that happened to have an extra skeleton with it. I removed the second skeleton, but it had already corrupted the relationships. Now, I am just trying to find an easy way to restore the relationships.

 

You are right about just copying the "hairpin." I should have done that. I used to do that, but then I also had problems resulting from copying a piece from one file to the other. Some of the items are much more complex than others and don't copy well. This one is so simple that I should have copied.

 

Thanks, robcat 2075 for your help. I now understand a lot more about how the foot targets work and where the controls are for them.

 

Above, I mentioned that both versions of the character worked in Version 15 of the program. I am not sure what I was looking at, but I don't find what I thought I saw before. It seems a few hours later that both versions of the program are working the same.

 

I want to mention one other thing. The character I sent who is fine in one instance and has a problem with his foot target in the other is part of a larger piece I am working on. He is copyrighted. I appreciate your help, robcat2075 in helping me make him work better. If anyone is watching this, please do not use the character. Thanks.

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  • 4 years later...

It has happened again. The foot targets have become unattached. Forget about double skeletons or anything like that. This was just a case of my preparing a character, and I got him all done and ready to use. Then, I noticed that his foot targets won't work. Is there any way to reconnect the foot targets? I am using the 2001 skeleton that the book I received with the program advised me to use. The foot targets on this skeleton seem to be the weak point, because this same difficulty has happened to me about three or four times. It seems that I should not have to throw away the old skeleton and put another one in its place. Surely, there is a way to reconnect the foot targets. I have compared all settings with other models where foot targets work, and I have not found any differences. I have tried before to copy foot targets from a working model to a damaged model and got it to work again. I also tried that today, and found that apparently the new foot targets somehow target something themselves, and this time they picked the wrong target. (There was something in the help that appeared on the right part of the screen on this when I did it that I did not understand at all. There were rules about Euler or something that sounded like computer engineers would know, and I just erased it, because it was too threatening.) Does anyone know how to reconnect foot targets on the 2001 skeleton by first opening this, then clicking on that, then pressing the "on" button, or something like that?

 

 

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  • Hash Fellow

Foot targets are usually made to work by a Pose (containing constraints) that needs to be on. If it is not on in the model it needs to be turned on everytime you use the model in an action or chor.

Some very old models have an action that needs to be dropped on a character to make constraints work.

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Thanks. I have quite a few characters in the scene, and all of them work except this one. Actually, to let you in on the true horror of the situation, I was making a tribe of Native Americans who all looked like Caddos. The females were variations on one template female, and all of them work fine. Unbeknownst to me something was wrong with my first Caddo male, and the rest all had the same malady. That malady is that the foot targets don't work. Even though they are all male Caddos, they have different necklaces, bracelets, vests, leggings, face paint, etc. It is a giant pain to go back and recode their various body parts, coverings, and doodads to different skeletons. That's why I'm so intent on finding some way to reconnect foot targets. I'm not completely crazy about foot targets. Maybe, I could make the things work if I just have the bones where I can see them. Maybe, that would be a reasonable Plan B if reconnecting the foot targets is deemed impossible.

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It turns out that Plan B is probably going to work OK. I just used the leg bones to get the character to walk. Thanks for taking a look at this. I meant to come this last Saturday, but something came up. I may still be there this coming Saturday.

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  • 3 months later...

I had also this problem with foot targets after adding a model to skeleton2001.

Robotcat explained that it is easy to rebound them again. It needs to uncover the hidden hinge bone of one of the legs. Then it needs some  addictions.

First use the calf bone as a IK-handler to the foot target. Then use the footbone orient like the foot target. Finally you need to use the hinge bone as a point to foot target.

If all went well the foot target responds to the whole leg.

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