Hi again! :-)

I will be starting on weighting the arms later this afternoon -- have to brave the 105 degree temperature outside for a haircut and other errands first.

However I noticed this strange thing and know its a problem I will have to deal with. I know of no reason why, before cp weighting and smartskin, that bending the lower arm at the elbow would morph or change the upper arm in any way. Assigning the CPs in the arm is fairly straight forward, don't think I have that too much wrong. Can someone tell me what I'm seeing here:

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

The upper arm gets skinny and this morph seems to move upward.

Thanks,
Rusty

I noticed that on Squetchy Sam as well. I seems to be just the upper arms though. I would be interested in whats going on behind the scenes.
Chris

This is part of the rig design, it's a squash and stretch setup that is suppose to simulate muscle flexing.

There is a percentage pose in the rig components>arm constriants folder to adjust the amount of bicep flexing.

I recommend setting this at the model level, not in an action.

Also, I'm starting to think we need a "Help Rusty" sub forum to put all these threads in.

This is how I learn in leaps and bounds; watch other people - Rusty - forge ahead, bump their toes, and then I take all the credit at the end. Just kidding.

Thanks, Rusty, for asking all these questions about the rig, cause that's how we all learn - 'cept for the Bradbury's and Yves, they had a copy of AM and Quantum Physics theory placed in their crib at birth .

Again, all your posts having to do with the rig are tremendously helpful and will be invaluable to me when I rig my first character.

Now, what horrible creation will I come up with...hmmm, Halloween....hhmmm...

Perhaps I'm getting lazy LOL. Is there documentation somewhere that would tell me all of these things? I watched all the videos. I think I read all the threads (I could be wrong on this one). I went through the Wiki site and again I could have missed large sections.

David suggested all my pestering could be used as the basis as a FAQ.

Cheers,
Rusty

Right after I hit the road running chores it dawned on me what it had to be and that's really pretty cool unless your character is wearing something with sleeves that isn't skin tight... or is thick. Some of the TWO characters, maybe most, have shirts with sleves... now how is that handled? A few things come to mind and I can probably find something to look at.

Cheers,
Rusty

Well thanks for thanking me! Now, what horrible questions can I come up with next... oh yeah, coat and shirt sleeves don't have muscles...

r

Hey Chris,

How are things in South Wales? How's the new Dell doing?



Too much is going on behind the scenes! I do not really want to know the gory details that dwell between the geometry bones and all the control bones the poses. I envision a tangled mess of pulleys, gears, strings, mirrors, band-aids and bubble gum! Do you have any idea how many bones are in this rig? No? Well that's because no one does and no one has time to count them and... even if they tried to, a new version would come out before they finished!

Still the minute I found out that it had at least two different control systems for every limb... I fell in love.

BTW, I still have that awesome space ship you built for me... I think I may need to wait a year or so for the 132 bit 7.2 GHz quad processor/quad core 8Gig RAM PCs to have the power to use both the ship and the cockpit in same project file but I love it and as soon as I get these damn outfits rigged the show will begin. Oh, I'm modeling the "Black Ship" as a background project and I'm about to tackle the tentacles (or arms). I thought you had started on these but I never got anything. You have anything? Hey, I miss working with you dude!

Cheers,
Rusty

Set the bicep flexing to 0%, since you probably don't see the muscles anyway because of the sleeves.

I'm afraid I need both. The arm muscles were always going to flex and move. And, the shirt sleeves of, the heavily starched, 'sharp-creased', 'naval-type' Khaki uniform... <breath> will just... 'hang out'... somewhere outside the arm mesh... in heavily starched looking ways. I wasn't even expecting any kind of built-in system. Can it assist? Undecided... probably just 'turn off' the rig's influence and do it as planned... i.e. by hand... unless something else presents itself.

r

You can try assigning the whole sleeve to the "right/left_bicep_bow_0_geom". That should minimize the flexing, this would also help in the twisting that the bicep does when rotated on the Z axis. The only thing that would probably get screwed up by doing this is the limb bowing and maybe the squetch capabilities, the sleeve wouldn't bow the same as the bicep, may cause penetration of the mesh. But with this type of character, you probably wouldn't use the limb bowing or the squetch to their extremes, if at all.

The way the flexing is being done, Chris? I'll give you a quick rundown.

The biceps are divided into four (four bones), each bone "translates to" and "aims at" nulls (with "scale-to-reach" on and an Expression on them to preserve volume, "X=1/Sqr(..|Z)" and "Y=1/Sqr(..|Z)" ) along the length of the bicep. Those nulls are children of separate bones that "orient like" the bicep at different percentages when using the limb bowing (which moves the nulls at different percentages of the rotation of the bicep) creating the bowing.

There are some bicep "muscle" bones that scale according to how much the arm is bent (using the "bicep_flexor" bones), which have nulls as children that the "scaler" bones "scale-to-reach". Then, the parent bones of the squetch nulls "scale like" the "scaler" bones...which moves the squetch nulls, flexing the biceps.

I have attached a couple of quick clips to illustrate. I hope that is helpful.




The last time I counted it was around 800 bones...I think it's higher than that now though (and I'm pretty sure there are going to be more added). There's quite a bit going on in there.



I think Mark's suggestion is the way to go at the moment, Rusty. I do have to improve that though...I've been meaning to improve the bicep flexing as well. I'll see if I can tackle both of them in the next couple of days.

The questions are good ones, Rusty. Asking questions, especially good ones, is a good thing.


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EDIT
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When I initially posted this, I had an error in the Expression...you would think I would get it right after the number of times I've used it. I corrected it...so, there shouldn't be any mistakes in there now. Hopefully, I didn't mess anyone up.

What does this pertain to? The arm flexing? What expression? Where did you correct it? I don't want to reinstall the rig on this model again: can you post the fix (what changes, where) so I can modify the rig I have installed?

Thanks,
Rusty

Sounds good! Thanks!

Rusty

I would also add weighting to the first spline ring from the elbow joint to the elbow fan bone, with a higher percentage to the back side of the arm. This will minimize the squeezed look it's getting now.

Absolutely! Thanks!

In this part of my post:



I was referring to that explanation...the Expressions in the rig haven't been changed. I had left out part of it when I initially posted it.

Don't scare me like that! ;-)

r