Translate the white shoulder install bones on the Y and X axis. (front view)

Z translation not needed.

Hide white shoulder install bones.

Translate green arm install bones in the Y and X axis, shoulder joint. (front view)

Translate green arm install bones in the Z axis, center of shoulder joint. (top view)

Rotate green arm install bones in the Y axis, aim at center of wrists. (front view)

X and Z rotation not needed.

Scale green arm install bone to the wrist. (front, top view)

Hide green arm install bones.

Translate the black forearm install bones in the X and Z axis. (top view)

Hide black install bones.

Save project.

ONTO STEP 4

The right(left)_elbow_pointer_install is not centered on the elbow joint. Is this normal?

Yes, it's just meant to make it easier to see the roll angle of the arm...it scales with the entire arm, so it won't necessarily stay at the point of the elbow.

The elbow pointer has nothing to do with the rig itself (it's an install bone that will be deleted after running the install plug-in. I added it to the posable rig as visual aid to aim the elbow bend of the arm. As David said, to make it easier to see the roll angle of the arm, since you can't see the roll handle when using the sliders when rotating on the Z axis. I also did this for the thumbs in step 4.

OK. Thanks.

Hi Mark and also David (or anyone who can answer this!),

The goal, I assume, is for all of us, is to learn how to rig our models -- this is, models other then JD. In the first sub-step (message) in step 3 the X and Y positions at which you place the 'shoulder joint' are pretty arbitrary. That is, we can see what you're doing with JD but, as I'm doing another model along with JD, I can see that it will be difficult to tell where these should be placed on another model. For the Y axis, the joints are not horizontally lined up with anything I can see (anything that would be transferable to another model). The X axis seems the same.

Are there any guidelines that you can give for this placement? How did you decide where they should be placed in the JD model?

Any help you guys (or anyone) can give me would be greatly appricated.

Thanks,
Rusty

PS: This is more for others who will hopfully be helping me rig the wardrobe models but, it is also very much for myself. I can image where the upper arm joint will go and then imagine the arc this joint will make when the shoulder is raised or lowered and then, I can estimate a center point that will produce such an arc and arrive at the position. But my own method of estimating the point (assuming this method is correct to begin with) could certainly use a sanity check but, more importantly, trying to explain my method to someone else would be very difficult at best.

The origin of the shoulder bone is at about where the collarbone starts toward the center of the body, but in the center of the torso. The end of the shoulder bone goes at approximately the center of the bicep at the point where you think it should bend. Of course, these are just my preferences...you might find something that works better for you.

Hope that helps, Rusty.


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EDIT
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I show the method I use to determine these locations in the original installation tutorials, they may be helpful for that even though there are a lot of things that have been updated since then.

Thanks David!

I finally got time to do this ,could someone please remind me how to hide bones in the action,its getting confusing now

There's on/off poses that hide or unhide bones (hides them when done positioning). If you hide any bones manually, you will have to unhide them manually when you need them. That also may break the poses to hide/unhide them.

What is so confusing?

Mark I think I get it but heres a screen cap just to be sure ,I work on the bones in the action bones window and use the pose slider window to hide them ? as in the screen cap yes

Is this the new update I posted yesterday?

Check STEP 7 and make sure all the hide poses are turned ON.

Ah I see ,Im using zip 3 and should be on zip 4 ,I will dl it and start agian Mark thank's for letting me know
I will be back

Hi Mark ... Im rigging the biker now ....
Im finishing step 3 and i noticed the 'hide_green_arm_install_bones' isnt hiding 'right_bicep_flexor' .....

Which version, four finger? I'll take a look.

Sorry I didn't get back to You Marco. I just posted the fix for this HERE.