Now that The Setup Machine 2 no longer supports animation master and will not work in v15, so it simply cannot be purchased as such, is there any other auto rigger for animation master v15?

I have objects I wish to rig and no idea how to do so. An auto rigger, like TSM2, would have been most helpful.

Thanks in advance for any answers.

Mike

TSM2 will still work in V15, according to people who have tried it.

According to Anzovin's website you can still buy TSM2 in a bundle with other A:M items. For less than TSM2 used to cost alone.

(Remember that whatever rigger you use, you still need to do the CP assigning and weighting yourself.)

Okay, then I will buy TSM2. However, how do I find out how to assign CP's and weighting? Is it difficult? Are there any video tutorials on how to do this? Could you possibly define CP's and Weighting.

Thanks for your help.

Mike

Note that Weightmover does not work with v15 model files (well I can't get it to work) but TSM2 does appear to work just fine. Anzovin has a bundle of DVD's and so does Hash.

Cheers

Thanks for that info. And where are the Hash bundles? I looked all over hash.com's shopping cart and cannot find bundles or TSM2?

Thanks again for any help.

Mike

If you want TSM2 go to the Anzovin link i gave you. Y0u might email them first to make sure they still have some bundles.


CP assigning... that is attaching your CPs to the bones you want them to move with. TAOA:M touches on that.

CP weighting... sometimes you want a CP to compromise between two or more bones. Much trial and error is involved. Novices will find it difficult at first. There may be a great tut on that out there but I'm not sure.


Stefan Gross has made a plugin that duplicates the functionality of Weightmover for newer versions of A:M, however he refers you to the documentation for Anzovin's Weightmover to figure out how to use it. someone else will have to find the link for that.

Just an observation, not anything constructive, I'm afraid.

I am struggling with rigging at the moment too. While I can easily install the TSM rig, I have realised that there is a lot more work involved in the weighting of CPs and fan bones and smartskin, if I want the model to move smoothly.

There are Tech Talks which explains weighting and smartskin, but I can't find them to link to (I have them downloaded) - any one know where the Tech Talks went?


I think you are quite right - I am regarding this as a long project of trial and error. I can understand the reason behind doing it, but can't visualise how to do it quickly. Especially as this is closely allied with being able to model the CPs in the correct place for weighting in the first place.

I believe that different areas require different techniques too - I am currently using fan bones in the knees, and working on weighting at the rump, and smartskin on the tail.

The Hash Siggraph CDs/DVDs cover the CP weght stuff not the Anzovin Rig stuff. For CP weights I know the 2004 discs have rigging with CP weights tutorials.

Here's a quick tutorial I threw together in Comic Life that explains the basics of how to weight your Control Points...



Hope this helps.

EDIT-->Left out the muscle mode part, use the 1st image. (It won't let me delete the old one...)

Click to view attachment

Largento,

Thank you very much for this. I love your comic book approach. Really nice. I believe I saw other tutorials by you in this same format.

Thank you again.

Also, I emailed Anzovin to find out if they have any more tsm2 bundles. If they do, I will buy them and then ask a million questions.

Mike

This is weird. There must be something basic that I'm missing.

I bought TSM2 awhile ago and never used it. I just took it out and I can't get it to work in ver 15 (or 13s, 14c) - Are people saying you have to rig in an older version and that the model can then be used in ver15?

If so, what version of A:M do I have to use?

eg in ver 15 (or 13s, 14c)

1) if I start with a clean model and try to do the TSM builder - nothing happens. No skeleton gets created. Just sits there. Huh??
2) If I just drag the pre rigged skeleton from the tsm guy onto my new character (scale it) and auto assign bones - that works (would work with any skeleton - has nothing to do with tsm)
3) If I then try to run the rigger - I get an error message Error: No Systems found

Does someone know what I might be doing wrong? Any insight is gratetfully appreciated.

Mike ...
Before buying the TSM2, I suggest you to try the amazing SQUETCH rig

Hi Nancy. I was suprised when people said TSM works in v 15. I found that models rigged in an earlier version will work(I am sure that the string expressions dont get loaded, but mostly they do work.), but I fail to get TSM 1 or 2 working in v 15.

All versions of 12. 11 etc will work, and the earliest v 13, so if you build and construct in 12, then rig, then import the model in 15, it works.

Course your better off with squetchy rigs

Ahhh...Thanks Chris - Sad to hear, but glad to hear I'm not as dense as I thought.

I don't have V15, but in this post

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=260541

Frosteternal says TSM still works in V15. He seems to be saying that actual rigging works in V15 not just bringing in models rigged in V12 or earlier.

Frosteternal, which did you mean?

TSM2 works in A:M 14. That is TSM Builder, Flipper and Rigger all work just as they did in earlier versions of A:M as far as I can tell. I use it every time I rig a character and the only problems that I have found are of my own doing, (ie. moving bones around after rigging is not a good idea unless you know the rig well. There are lots of little hidden bones that must stay in the positions that TSM Rigger puts them or the rig will not work as expected).

I don't have A:M 15 so I can't guarantee that TSM2 works with it but I don't see why it shouldn't.

TSM2 works and if Anzovin are still selling it I recommend that everyone gets it or gets into the Squetch rig. The 2001 rig has always had problems as far as I remember.

Hmmm... I can't even get the builder to work - it just sits there - and I have tried in 14c - are you PC? or mac ?

PC.

Make sure that all of the TSM2 files are in your hxt folder. (That is tsm2A.hxt, tsm2B.hxt, tsm2C.hxt and the TSM2 folder that holds all the other TSM2 files.) If they are missing just copy them across to your hxt folders for each version. Another important thing to check is that A:M is pointing to the the correct hxt folder. There was an issue some time ago where TSM2 wouldn't work for me but after numerous emails between Raf, Steve and Cristin I finally found that I had somehow crossed the paths between different versions of A:M that I had installed. Just dragging the files into the hxt folder and ensuring that A:M was pointing to the correct hxt folder cleared the problem as far as I recall. I haven't had a real problem since, except for fingers bending sideways when using the roll handle to bend them. I have learned to live with that as once I have set the hand poses I just use the pose slider and tweak on top and there are no real problems.

Thanks Paul ! - I got the builder to work - I believe that was the problem - even tho I had added the path to the tsm files that were external to the hash 15 directory in the folders - it appears they actually have to be in the hash 15 hxt directory - can't have an additional, external path to them.

Yayyyyy!!! - now on to try the other options

And yes I will still be using squetch - Just wanted to try this out - like I said - I got it a long time ago and never used it.

Thanks for that Paul.

Glad to see TSM2 back in action for people. I would be lost without it.

3DArtz used to sell a tut on setting up a character. It was based on the AM2001 rig but the important strategy he revealed was about good splinage for rigging, which applies to any rig.


I'd make smartskin a last resort.


BTW, bone "falloffs" are something I don't see metioned too much. With careful adjustment they might get useable results, but the careful adjustment might be as time consuming as other techniques.

I mean that I can rig my characters within v15, exactly as the plugin is meant to do. I just tried it again last week to be sure. The Rig Builder, the flipper, the Rigger, they all work. Do make sure you have the whole TSM folder copied into the plugin folder, however, the plugins use these files to create their magic.

EDiT: I just noticed the problem has been solved alnong those lines. As you were

Here's a tut on control point weighting (includes bone falloff)
http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29734

Here's a basic tut on smartskin.
http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29742

this topic got me interested in reexamining TSM2, which I own. But I can't get it to finish rigging in either v14 or v15. Builder and Flipper work great, and Rigger seems okay but finds missing strings, and just as it finishes it crashes A:M with exception 001. I tried it with a totally default TSM skeleton, just in case it was my fan bones, but no soap- same problems. Anyone got thoughts?

Did you drag the the TSM2 files into your hxt folder, overwriting the old ones?

LARGENTO_ I just saw your 'weighting' tutorial...very nice! I like the comicbook style for tutes you have.

BTW- ANOTHER super point about TSM2 to remember is that it is so GOSH DARN animatable!

I copied the TSM2 files into the hxt directory for v15, and again for v14. There were no TSM files in there so there was nothing to overwrite, unless I misunderstand.

Maybe a clean re-install?

I've never dragged hxt files in - I just do the install into the correct version directory. Have you tried reinstalling TSM?

The only reason I suggested dragging the files over is that at one point there was a glitch with the installer, or something, which resulted in the files being placed in the hxt folder of the wrong version of A:M. At the time there were weekly updates to both A:M and TSM2 and something got crossed in the installation. Dragging the files in made certain that I knew where they had gone and also made certain that the files were not corrupted by an A:M update. That's all.

I'm not sure what could be causing the problem, Ben. Did you copy the TSM2 folder into the hxt folder too?
The tsm2A.hxt, tsm2B.hxt, tsm2C.hxt and the TSM2 folder all should be in the hxt folder.

I had that issue with the TSM2 stop working while rigging as well, and i got it solved by getting the latest version of TSM2. It was still bitchin around because of some missing strings, but it did its work, finished it and i had a working charakter.
I dont know if the new squetch rigg is better than the TSM2 rigg, but wortking with TSM2 is more easy for sure.
Regards
Heiner

Thanks, Heiner, that did the trick.

Scroll down to the Support section of the forums, and you'll find an option called "Tutorials". The Tech Talk series is pinned to the top of this section.

Gerard

I'm not sure 'better' is the word to compare the two. The squetch rig is far more sophisticated and gives all the tools at the fingertips of animators . TSM2 is a minimalist approach and allows the animator to customize the tools as s/he sees fit. They will both do the job, but right now TSM is the easier to install.

I think when the squetch rig installation process is simplified it will be the rig of choice.

Thanks, Gerard - it wasn't working the other day, but is now.

Bone envelopes (falloffs) might be tricky to work with, but typing in weights directly isn't. You can select a group of control points and use the "edit cp weights" option to directly type in the weights for individual bones. This is too tedious to use for every control point, but it's a great way fix those niggling problem points.

The advantage of envelopes might be that if you have a swarm of CPs that need to be each be uniquely apportioned between two or more bones (common situation when rigging a face), setting the falloff envelopes of the bones might be easier than typing in weight values for each CP. If you do your setting and then decide you want bone1 to have a little more influence and bone2 to have a little less influence over all of the CPs, a few bone falloffs are easier to tweak than revisiting all the CPs to make a small change.

That said, I haven't done much with falloffs, and have mostly done the brute force method of explictly defining the CP weights. The simple geometry of envelope falloffs probably doesn't lend itself to face rigging anyway.

I never could get the hang of the falloff and in the beginning, it seemed to be the only thing I could find about CP weighting and I was baffled by it. I was on the verge of throwing in the towel when I watched one of David's video tutorials and saw him manually editing the CP weights. Suddenly I got a handle on it.

Speaking of rigging, I need to get back to doing that... I don't know why it's like pulling teeth for me...

A even cooler thing would be a weight-map-paint-feature. But I dont think there is one till now.
Such a feature could paint like a 3d-paint-programm on models and assign CPs to bones. The longer you hold your mouse-button down, the more influence will be added to the CPs you are refering to.
Another possibility would be to smooth things out with this paint-feature It would soften the influences at transitions. That means that you get a tool that is more or less like the softe-feature in photoshop but it will influence the weighting.

Maybe Filip can add one to 3dpainter v5 or so .
Would be great.

*Fuchur*

Thats a cool idea!

Yep me too. Now I love it. I have always taken the aproach- at least in AM- that if I can't do something, I should throw myself at it until I can. I used to be rubbish at modeling, then faces, then lighting....now I'm rigging on the SO project. Mind there's always something I'm rubbish at. I should get back to animating maybe.

Chris

I tried unsuccessfully to watch the installation videos, just following along and not actually trying to rig a model. It takes a lot of time, work, patience and brainpower to do properly.

that´s what i thought first, but it isn´t really that hard... my first attempt was with the videos too, and i couldn´t get it working...
then i did the "rig along with me" -project thread by thread using the poseable squetchrig, and it was astonishing easy...
hope i could encourage you a bit...

The original installation method that is in the video tutorials was before the Posable method...which is a lot easier. I'll be putting together an updated tutorial when time permits (I'll try to be less obsessive this time around as well, it should make it a lot shorter). We're still getting some things put together for the Quad Rig and some other add-ons, so it will be a few weeks probably. The "Rig Along With Me" thread is the most recent installation tutorial, there have been a couple of small changes and additions since then, but it's not so different that the rest can't be figured out.

Boy, it's just very disappointing that no one wants to try and learn rigging, they want it all done magicly with plug-ins.

One of the problems may be because there is no 'you beaut' tutorial for rigging. And probably can't be, because of all the different ways to do it.

I am currently learning how to rig, and it's by trial and error.

I know the basics, like hierarchy, assigning cps, how to put in a weighting, putting in fan bones, I've watched every tutorial, read all I can, but I still have not rigged a whole model on my own, which I am trying to do now. It is a long and daunting task, though, and I regularly start web surfing instead of knuckling down to it. Because it's not creative, I guess (shhh-boring?).

I guess it's like learning a new programming language - you can be presented with the syntax, but not be able to put together a program, until you concentrate hard enough.

Until I bought TSM2, I hand-rigged all my characters, and yes, it was fun, but more often than not, unneccessarily time-consuming/frustrating. While it would be nice to have the time to hand-rig, that often is not an available luxury.
Computers are, after all, supposed to make the job somewhat easier.

That being said, there are certain types of people who really enjoy tinkering with constraints and compensates etc.
Studios have whole departments of these types of technical artists. I'm kinda on the fence. I like rigging faces, (variety keeps me interested) but bodies are way too boring. (That's my ADHD at work.) TSM2 takes care of the body stuff for me, and frees up time for animating/specialty rigging.
(The squetch rig, while a powerful rig, currently demands way too much install time which is almost the only reason I haven't really used it in production.)

I think it is important to have an idea of "how it works" under the hood, but not neccessarily to be forced to re-invent the wheel every time.

Well, there you go, use TSM2. It does everything for you, or does it?

I'll second the boring part. The math part, all the angles, and positions etc, typing in property values...ugh.
I have an analytic side to me, but it doesn't like all the drudgery and mouse-work in between.

Caroline, I think we fall into the category of "Target Market" for auto-rigging plugins.