ATTENTION! You now have new options in completing Exercise 13.

The Squetch Rig is now being used in Hash Inc movie projects (Tin Woodman of Oz, Scarecrow of Oz) and as many are sure to use it in their own models it can be used with this exercise.

Information can be found on a variety of rigs here in the A:M Forum. There are several forums designed to help you through the installation process:

2001 Rig (The rig you'll find used in the manual)
The 'Squetch' Rig
Rigging and Relationships Forum

Links to Rig Installation (PDF file), the final Squetch rig and sample models will be posted here in the forum as they are made available.
If you discover something new, different or useful to you please share it!


For those that wish to complete the exercise as shown in TAoA:M please read on.


The Art of Animation Master Part II: Modeling


MODELING TAKES TALENT
8 - Customized Car
9 - Flower Power
10 - FW-190 Fighter
11 - Giraffe (No available video tutorial)
12 - Lip Poses
13 - Show Some Backbone (Adding a Skeleton)


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Exercise 13: "Show Some Backbone"
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View video online:
Web (21MB)

or download:
Zip(20MB)


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Additional Resources:
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There is an entire A:M Forum area devoted to rigging and constraints.

Rigging and Relationships Forum - Don't Miss it!

Important information for Exercise 13

Why your skeleton does not look like the book

Thanks George!

I'll definitely add those elements into the Exercise 13 area.

Done.

Name:  Den Dotson

Exercises Completed:  Thirteen
Date Completed:  Tuesday April 5, 2005

Instructor:  Rodney (make no bones about it) and that guy on the web tutorials

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: Only a half dozen to go it seems like I just got started.

Here is a link to the 13th completed exercise with Thom taking his new skeleton out for a stroll:

http://homepage.mac.com/animateden/hash/ThomHasBackBone.mov

Thanks Rodney,
-Den

...and strolling with style I might add!

Good job Den!

Name: Tom Jansen
Exercise: #13 Show Some Backbone
Date: April 29, 2005
Comments: I couldn't help but think how much Thom here looks like that little AOL dude! That explains this scene ;-)

This was a lot of fun for me! I ended up going back into the models of many of the props I used to change surface properties or add new bones (like for the cord on that lamp sitting on his desk).

This was also my first time using light lists to add light only to a specific model (like on the computer screen).

Granted, there are a few things I should go back and fix like adding some smart skin around Thom's shoulders and hips, or turning off the ambiance on the computer screen (I did that for the screen shot below). And I would like to dress the set a little more, but there wasn't anything else included on the CD or website that would work for this scene. So eventually I'll want to create some models of everyday things (like pencils or little potted plants) to fill out the environment properly.

Well, here's my clip:

http://cybersummit.org/AM/Ex13_Thom.mov

-Tom

Nice job Tom you did a good job on this.

Mike

Outstanding!

You did such a great job putting that who scene together I had to look at the topic title again just to remember what subject this exercise was about.

Too many 'bravos' heading your way Tom.
This is exactly the point of good rigging and animating... they hard work underneath should be transparent to the viewer so they can concentrate on the story.

Well done!

Name: Tenez Waggoner
Excercise Completed: 13 Show Some Backbone
Date Completed: May 25, 2005
Remarks/Suggestions: I got nothin

That's awesome Tenez... serious action shot.

You are completing these exercises like you've got a serious deadline looming ahead. Keep it up!

Hey everybody!

I'm doing the tutorials as we speak and came across a problem on Exercise 13 after I assigned all the points properly to the bones. My right side of Thom is black and I tried fiddling around with various options (show ALL bones then render, selecting the control points and assigning them different options, ect.) but no to avail. I was hoping someone, anyone had a helpful answer or suggestion to my weird problem.

BTW Rodney, I'll show you the website I created for the 'Art of Animation Tutorials' once I'm finished (This one here, Door's Stuck, and Giraffe left to go!)

Link to my problem image:
Image Problem

Nevermind! Turns out my normals were turned inward instead of outward. In case anyone else has this problem, keep this in mind.

Name: Paula Waslen

Exercise Completed: #13 Show Some Backbone

Date Completed: Jun 18, 2005

I had done this before, so it wasn't too difficult.

Name: Leo Mitchell

Excerise Completed: # 13 Show some Backbone

Date Completed: 25 June 2005

Instructor: Web Tuts and Manual

Remarks: I did this one a while ago, but things have been crazy and I haven't been able to touch Master for a while, but now I am back on track and looking to finish up and move onto better things.


[attachmentid=14594]

Name : Erik Kirschberg

Exercise : #13 show some Backbone

Date Completed 9/16/05

Instructor : Web Tutorial and Manual

For anyone that wants to animate their character Exercise 13: Show some backbone is a must-complete exercise and what I consider a prerequisite to building your own character rigs (should you want to of course).

For those that have completed Exercise 13, I'm sure those looking in would love to hear what you thought about it. Leo, Erik? Anyone else?

I liked this exercise. Its very easy to get a basic skeleton put into a character when you have something like the 2001 skeletal rig. I did this exercise about a year and a half ago when i went through TAoA:M the first time, if I remeber right i struggled a bit, but following along with the web tutorial really helped alot. This time was a lot faster for me but i think its because i'm more familiar with the program than the first time .

Erik,
You raise a good point in your last response.
People learn differently. Some aspects of 3D modeling and animation come to people easily while others just never seem to sink in.

I've got a few of those areas myself and I'm hoping that the next time I dig into them I'll understand better.

Any guesses as to which areas?

Answer: Rigging, Expressions and Materials

Rigging I'm afraid of...
Expressions I can't wrap my pea brain around...
...and Materials I've been too lazy to experiment with and have just been using the work of others.



Rodney

Name: Chris Wheeler

Excerise Completed: # 13 Show some Backbone

Date Completed: 03 October 2005

Instructor: Web Tuts

Name: Melissa "Elissa" Heldenbergh

Exercises Completed: 13

Date Completed: Oct 14th, 2005

Instructor: A few years of A:M use, the book, and web tutorials, plus also doing the mentor program with Paul Daley. David Rogers book... Jeff Lew's DVD.

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:
Straight forward and fun, but a TSM gal.

Name: Dhar Jabouri

Exercises Completed: 13

Date Completed: Oct 30th, 2005

Instructor: Online Tutorial
Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: That was fun!

Names: James A. Owens
Exercises Completed: 1-10, 12-19
Date Completed: 22 October 2005

[attachmentid=10735][attachmentid=10734]

Name: John Kuepper

Exercise Completed: #13

Date Completed: nov 9, 2005

Name:Marc Vancouillie
Exercise completed #13 show some backbone
Date completed 11/29/05



Instructor:t.a.o.AM book and reading
in this topic what people have done before me.[attachmentid=11800]

ATTENTION!

You now have a new option in completing Exercise 13.
As you may have seen, Hash Inc is moving to a new 'official' rig for 2006 and beyond.
This rig will be featured in 'Tin Woodsman of Oz' and will ultimately enhance your character animation in amazing ways.

Getting familar with the Squetch Rig early will increase your animation skill and introduce you to control elements before the rest of the community gets involved. Eventually The Art of Animation:Master will be updated to reflect the change but you'll already be ahead of the game.

For those interested here are some valuable links to look into should you choose this option instead of installing the 2001 Rig:

Rigging and Relationships Forum
The 'Squetch' Rig

Links to Rig installation information (PDF file), the final Squetch rig and Sample models will eventually be posted here.

So now if you rig a character with either the 2001 or Squetch Rig you can get credit for completing Exercise 13.
Just post your results here.

oh... and have fun!
Rodney

Name: Splinesmith(Kurt Lange)

Exercises Completed:13
Instructor:the manual.

Remarks/Suggestions for improvement:

Name: Douglas Karpp
Exercise: Exercise 13: Show Some Backbone
Date Completed: December 23, 2005

A ballroom scene.

[attachmentid=12566]

Hello everybody.
I`m new with A.M. and I need help with exercise #13.
I use the ResoluteWalk action, but during the animation, every 3 or 4 frame the arm does flipflop, does 1/2 turn ( the thumb turns around downwards and returns ) and the shoulder is become deformed, I have repeated the exercise several times but always it is the same.

Thanks for your help

What character are you using? Last I remember, Thom has no thumb (even though he's all thumbs).

Hi Dhar,
you are right, but I made some modifications to Thom, just to practice, now Thom has complete hands

Name: Jody Krivohlavek

Exercise Completed: Exercise 13

Date Completed: January 2, 2006

Instructor: AM Handbook, Video Tutorial and everyone that's ever posted to these forums.
(Been around since the Playmation days )

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement:
No smart skinning so the extreme bends break his joints some.

This was completed with the 2001 rig. Now I should play with the 2006 rig some...

Name: Ross Klettke
Exer completed: #13
Date completed: 1-22-06

remarks: I had some trouble with the bicep roll flipping on me on both sides... so it was rather hard to pose. Further, the smartskin feature, which I've never had a problem with before (though not used all that extensively, so its definately possible I forgot something) wasn't working. Other than that, the basic rig setup went rather smoothly I think.

Name: Micah Jank

Exercise completed: #13 SHow Some Backbone

Date Completed: January 24, 2006

remarks: I dont got any the bones seem to work fine...

Mike Dalton
Exercises Completed: 13
Date Completed: March 7th 2006

Notes: Tom didn't turn out right the first time. Decided to watch the video tutorial & try again. Second time went better. Didn't enjoy doing this one, but it was worthwhile, if for no other reason that it was a good smartskin refresher. I believe smartskin to be one of the most under-rated gems of AM.

Compleated execise 13

Name: Bob Koonce

Exercise Completed: Show Some Backbone
in the video tutorial it was said that the skin at the joints would clean up using smart skin and it would be introduced later on, so I am thinking the problem with my exercise is that I need to apply some smart skin.

Date Completed: 3-20-06

Instructor: Individuals on forum, TAoA:M, Video tutorials, and other material.

Remarks/Suggestions for improvement: None at this time

Any comments or constructive criticism will be appreciated.

Thankx,
Bob Koonce

Bob,

It seems like that some of your control points are loosing the influence of the bones they are assigned to as the character walks. Maybe you should check to make sure that you didnt accidently animate some the bones. If you did then when the character is walking and the bones are moving the control points could be moving outside of the range of ifluence. That could be a factor as to why this is happening.

Hope that helps

Leo

Just wanted to make some comments about what I noticed about the 2001 skeleton rig that I was going to use in Exercise 13

1 - when you turn on the the bones it looks just like the example that Rodney refers to earlier in one of the first few post in this section , so I tried Rodeney's solution and turned on all of the bones.... well I see new bones, but the ones you use in the exercise are not right... I'll explain... when you view the skeleton in the front view several bone are already oriented in the wrong direction (in other words if you go to the top view you can see them) see below....
So I thought I would try an experiment...
I pulled out my laptop and loaded the software and tried it on there and guess what the skeleton looked great like it was supposed to....
So I went back to my desktop and uninstalled the software and re-loaded it thinking that might take care of it.....
but no luck still is the same....
So now I'm of to try the new rig on this exercise... to be continued..... [attachmentid=15641][attachmentid=15642]

After playing around with everything I could think of, I started turning off and on some of the bones and was able to get it setup as the example in the exercise. I did follow Rodey's earlier post and turned on all the bones , but I could not see the one I needed for the exercise. I feel dumb now.....
Anyway here is a photo of the bones that need to be turned on and off...
If you then save your skeleton by right clicking on the label in the Project Workspace Window it will then be set-up this way for future lessons.
[attachmentid=15677]

Name: John Booker

Exercise completed: #13 Show Some Backbone

Date Completed: April 02, 2006

remarks: Except getting the bones positioned at the start everything else went smoothly....[attachmentid=15690]

Heres a redo of this exercise I did.

Show some Backbone

Had to reposition some of the bones in the joint areas, they were off center for some reason, my guess is that wen I placed the bones in the character I should have looked at the different angles one more time to see that the all lined up.

Bob Koonce

John and Bob,

John,

good job on the exercise. I agree with Bob on you should show a different camera angle as it does look like the legs pass through one another.

Bob,

Great redo on this exercise. I am glad that you were able to work out what was wrong.

Name: Stephen Molloy

Exercise: 13 Show Some Backbone

Date: April 27 2006

Instructor: V12 doc on rig (Squetch_Rig_01_21_2006_installation_documentation)

Remarks: i used the wizard plug to install the rig then auto assign control ....then messed around with the control points ( i hope that was right lol )








just one more to go then i'm done

sm

More than alright. Although we are hoping you get everything you can out of the exercise.
We'd love to have your input on how the Squetch rig is working... ease of installation... performance... any information you can provide will be helpful.

This applies to anyone using the Squetch Rig. We want to hear from you!

Good job everyone! I may not comment all the time but I am watching and enjoying your posts.
I hope to get everyone's Gallery pages (and certificates!) up and out soon.

Thanks Leo and everyone for all the great assistance. Truly appreciated.
I couldn't do this without you.

Name: sam wiley

Completed: number 13


Comments/suggestions: mine came out pretty well when i put the modal into the corography i the only modes i could select were bone mode and mussel mode and idea what was going on?


[attachmentid=16365]

So I'm working with the squetchy rig, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do to satisfy the exercise, since Squetchy Thom seems to come fully rigged. This might be me being a newbie again, but I didn't see just a base squetchy skeleton to be rigged on its own.

There are just installation skeletons in addition to the included Squetchy Thom...but, you're right, I should include a non-rigged Squetchy Thom or some other model. The community was wrestling with what model to use as the standard first time rigging model, but I don't think that has been determined yet. If I include a non-rigged Squetchy Thom, the problem will come up that he doesn't have a face, so all of the FACE and face rigging stuff would just be extra...we'll get something in there. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll see what I can do.

Thanks for responding. I really like the rig, and enjoy working with it. I'm looking forward to seeing more models rigged with this skeleton.

I thought I had downloaded all three of the zip files and expanded the models. The one just seemed to be a control panel, so I wasn't sure what to do with it.