simple skeletal structure training ?

[createo]

Hello,

I continue my exploration of AM which I find brilliant in the design.

On the other hand, the tutorials are not progressive enough. to explain the details ;-).

When you are looking for something, you very quickly come across sometimes complex tutorials ... which is great when you have already acquired the basics of use! For example, I'm looking for a tutorial that could help me build a character with a basic IK skeleton. In the exercises, I only find examples with compensation bones and other somewhat complex details that I don't want to tackle until I have fully understood the basis in an exercise that takes me when up to interesting movements.

  This would allow me to understand the limitations of a basic structure and therefore, to add other bones to the ancillary functions. Is my request well formulated ?
  The most interesting that I could find in the field is this one:

But it does not go further for a simple body. The character of Barry Zundel is very beautiful, and very complicated to implement !

Maybe I haven't looked for this exercise yet. Otherwise, when I have assimilated this base, I will create this tutorial which will allow novices to understand this procedure

For now I'm on the 2001 skeleton pose on boneless Thom. The exercise is simple but I do not understand everything in the structure of the skeleton. The pose slider is much too dense to understand it !!

See you soon

createo 

[robcat2075]

Welcome back! Just the other day I was wondering if you had disappeared!

 

Have you watched the new-user video for Rigging?

 

If your goal is to make a simple IK-only rig on a character, that tutorial leads you through all the concepts including...

• why we need rigs
• making bones
• bone hierarchy
• attaching mesh
• why/how to use CP weighting and/or fan bones
• why/how to add constraints
• why we need Inverse Kinematic (IK)
• examples of IK constraint, Orient Like constraint, Aim At constraint
• creating a basic IK Leg

The concepts explained for the IK Leg can also be used to create IK arms.

Those are the core concepts at work in every rig.

Fully-developed characters will need more bones than the simple Thom example. However, animators will want to have as few controls as possible to pose the character.

Barry Zundel's rig, the AM2001 rig, and (my preference) TSM2 all create advanced structures so that the animator only needs to use a few controls to manipulate many bones.

It's a trade-off: Simple rigs make animation complicated... Complicated rigs make animation simpler.

If you have more questions...do ask!

[createo]

Very clear answer, thank you very much.

No I will not disappear, but my work takes me a lot of time because I also explore a lot of other software.

I watch the video and come back

[createo]

Hello, Thank you very much for this video .

It is extremely well done and reviews the creation procedures in a very educational and logical way!

It is this kind of video that would help to spread AM more widely!

CP weights and fan bones seem to have pretty much the same effect in this video !? Are these two ways to achieve the same result? or one of the methods replaced the other?

The way mirror bones work is excellent, and ultimately relatively straightforward. What I did not understand at the beginning!

It makes me want to go further. I really want to incorporate AM into a character and mascot creation loop for my work!

Even if other software is terribly effective in this field, AM brings a nice "lightness" of creation which convinces me

Is this video part of a series?

The others could interest me when I will have assimilated this one well.

thanks again

Greetings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[robcat2075]

9 hours ago, createo said:

Hello, Thank you very much for this video .

It is extremely well done and reviews the creation procedures in a very educational and logical way!

It is this kind of video that would help to spread AM more widely!

I'm glad it's helpful. Other people looked at it and said, "It only show how to rig a leg!"

 

Quote

CP weights and fan bones seem to have pretty much the same effect in this video !? Are these two ways to achieve the same result? or one of the methods replaced the other?

They have similar uses but compare the shape of the knee spline ring at 14:02 and 22:20 . The first one is squishier, the second one is more rigid.

SmartSkin, which is not covered in this video, was the first solution to this problem. Fan bones came next.  CP weighting came later.

Each has a circumstance in which they are the best solution.

 

Quote

 

The way mirror bones work is excellent, and ultimately relatively straightforward. What I did not understand at the beginning!

It makes me want to go further. I really want to incorporate AM into a character and mascot creation loop for my work!

Hurray!

 

Quote

Even if other software is terribly effective in this field, AM brings a nice "lightness" of creation which convinces me

I just say the other software is terrible.

 

 

Quote

Is this video part of a series?

Yes, the splash screen that shows when you run A:M has links to others. I'm afraid they are not all done, however.

 

[createo]

Hello, In the video, you often create an action to test constraints.

Is it compulsory(?) or we can do it in choreography mode ?

I'm looking for the exact differences between action and pose.

[robcat2075]

4 hours ago, createo said:

Hello, In the video, you often create an action to test constraints.

Is it compulsory(?) or we can do it in choreography mode ?

It is not compulsory.

However, I have often found that the last constraint I made is not immediately recognized in the Actions or Chors I have the character in. Forcing a Save on the PRJ will make it work, or it is often convenient to start a new Action if i am just testing something.

I could test it in a new Chor but the Action is more convenient.

 

Quote

I'm looking for the exact differences between action and pose.

Poses, Actions and Chors all store key frames but Poses don't cause these keyframes to happen at a time. ON/OFF Poses store settings you make, to be active when the Pose is ON and not active when the Pose is OFF. (The Pose Slider gives you a variable amount of ON/OFF, from 0% to 100%.)

Also, Poses are stored with the model. Actions and Chors are not.

Many years ago it was thought that we would animate by making various walks and talks and hand gestures in separate Actions and then glue them together in the Chor to create a performance, much as 2D animators put pieces of animation on "cels" that they can cycle or re-use.

That has turned out not to be useful in CG. Almost all character animation today is done in the Chor. This is true of other animation programs that have something like our Chor.

//

Do the Barry Zundel Tuts have you make your rig constraints in an Action or a Pose?

[createo]

So, we can say that the poses are more interesting because as we activate / deactivate them at will, we can change all the parameters during animations (constraints, IK, ...). What would not be possible with actions if I understood correctly?

[robcat2075]

9 minutes ago, createo said:

So, we can say that the poses are more interesting because as we activate / deactivate them at will, we can change all the parameters during animations (constraints, IK, ...). What would not be possible with actions if I understood correctly?

The classic use for an Action was for animation that you wanted to loop, like a "walk cycle". The TAoA:M tut #5 "Take a Walk" does this. (A Pose wont' work well for that.)

However, that Action technique is rarely used today for most character animation.

It is still useful for repetitive motions that machines might make.

Actions are still useful for managing "Action Objects". Distortion boxes on models are handled as "Action Objects"

 

[createo]

ok

It is very interesting to know that the effect of stresses does not instantly apply to bones!

Indeed I believed at times that I did not adopt the good procedure just because I did not contatai the constraint !!!

;-)

[robcat2075]

On 5/15/2021 at 1:29 PM, createo said:

So, we can say that the poses are more interesting because as we activate / deactivate them at will, we can change all the parameters during animations (constraints, IK, ...). What would not be possible with actions if I understood correctly?

Possible with Actions but not very convenient.

When you drop an Action on a model in a Chor, the Red bar that appears next to it in the timeline indicates when it is active and when it is not. The length of that bar can be adjusted to alter when the active/inactive happens.