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Edited 24th October 2008

This is the pdf document of this thread, with all the superfluous info removed.
Click to view attachment

The models (Before and After):
Click to view attachment

The rest of this thread is useful to see comments and movies at various stages, if you require extra information.

Please feel free to add questions etc to this thread, and if you end up with a better Gala model, I will substitute yours for the "After" .
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In this thread I am going to rig Gala with the TSM rig. (Gala is available with the v15.0 subscription in the data download) Hopefully this will encourage others to try TSM, and also encourage me to get a good working model

**Edit: I have assumed that you have basic rigging knowledge. If you don't, everything you need to know can be learned from Mechadelphia's Rigging Basics **

**Edit: Overview video of how TSM works http://www.pluginz.com/product/10614?g=3152#gallery **

I would welcome advice and crit from experts out there, as I have limited practical knowledge.

Stage 1 - Set up bones

This is the GalaDM mesh on its own.
Click to view attachment
1. Load the GalaDM model
2. In Bones Mode, right click and choose Plug-ins > Wizards > TSM Builder
3. Make your settings look like this:

Click to view attachment

4. Click OK
5. In a side view, click the bone that sticks out at the back (Body).
6. Press the N key (that's Translate) and drag the Body bone to the hip area. It is important you use the Translate (N key), and not the Standard Manipulator, as the Standard Manipulator only drags the one bone. The Translate will drag the Body bone and all bones in the hierarchy. Don't use the arrow keys to move it, either, as only the Body bone will move.
7. Press the S key (that's Scale), and scale the Body bone so that the head fits as in the picture.

Click to view attachment

8. Move and scale the top of the leg into position using the N and S keys, and the same for the shoulder bone.
9. Check top and side views. Do each finger.
10. Position each individual bone in the correct places. (There shouldn't be too many, here - mostly the fingers). We are using the Advanced fingers, so there is an extra bone in the hand. You will probably find the hand bone gets in the way, so hide it in the PWS temporarily. Remember to unhide it again.

Click to view attachment

I'm not absolutely sure about the positions of the shoulder bone.

Click to view attachment

11. And the toes - I think the toes have 2 bones, and the third base bone goes into the foot, so that the foot will be able to curl a little.
And that's the end of stage 1.
Make sure you save your project under different names at each stage, in case you want to go back.

Here's GalaDM after stage 1.
Click to view attachment
Tips
1. When doing a small area like fingers or toes, hide the mesh in modelling mode then go to bones mode to size the bones. And hide/show bones using the eye in the PWS.
2. You can hide / show a hierarchy by Shift-Clicking the eye at the top level.
3. To expand/contract a hierarchy, click on the top level. Press the * key on the num pad.
4. Remember to check all views - the first stage 1 I uploaded here, the toes were a long way under the feet.

Thanks for doing this Caroline.

Yes, thanks for doing this, Caroline.

A few notes...

-remember to place the IK foot controls under the feet and not to the side.

-I like to put the origin of the body bone and the spine bone and the leg bones at the same level so they have a common axis of rotation. Viewed from the side, at least. This is very helpful when posing.

- I'm a little doubtful of bending the two bones in the calf (or any other limb segment). It may have an adverse effect on stretching and twisting. I'd keep those two-bone groups straight.

This is where I would position these bones. You're not going to get good rotation in the shoulder and hips in the locations you have. In the hands the thumb pivot need to be further into the hand. The same for the first knuckle of the fingers. The fingers really don't have a good spline layout for the knuckles.

Thank you, you guys are great! What an honour to be pinned.

And I thought Stage 1 was going to be easy. It's fantastic to get an understanding of WHY you do things - I could have looked at a TSM model all day, and not realised WHY those leg bones were straight.

Gala's splines are probably too simple for great animation - I looked at Project Bertram's fingers, and wondered why he had so many splines. I guess we'll find out why.

That IK foot control is another reason to look at bones in multiple views

Corrected GalaDM with better rotational position, and fingers and toes better positioned:
Click to view attachment

Tips:
1. I find Deskpins invaluable. (I haven't tested it on Vista)
I can copy a picture, like Mark's dots from the internet, paste into Irfanview, and use Deskpins to keep the Irfanview window on top so that I can refer to the positions.
2. Remember to walk away from the computer often. (I'm suffering from animator's neck again )

Stage 2 - TSM Flipper

1. Right click in the bones window, and choose Plug-ins > Wizards > TSM Flipper. A mirror of the bones appears.

Just to prove that this is a live show, I find to my horror that Gala is not symmetrical. So we will have a side lesson in

Copy / Flip / Attach.

You can follow along if you want, or you can fast forward and download stage1b (located after these instructions).

1. In Modelling mode, select all CPs - Ctrl A.
2. With the left arrow key, make sure the central spline is directly on the Y axis.
3. Press <Esc> to deselect.
4. Click any cp on the body.
5. Press the / key to select all connected.
6. Press H to hide the eyes and teeth.
7. Click on the central spline between two cps. (I do not click an actual cp on the spline, because sometimes it will select the horizontal spline, not the vertical one)
8. Press the , key to select the spline.
9. Turn Show Manipulator Properties On.

Click to view attachment

10. Press S for the scale tool.
11. Change the X scale to 0. Turn Show Manipulator Properties Off.
12. Select the left half of the model up to and including the central spline. I do this zoomed out roughly, selecting more than I should, then zoom in and use the Alt key to deselect cps. You will be able to tell from the outline of selected CPs when you have deselected all the ones on the wrong side, as the outline will be very close to the Y axis..

Click to view attachment

13. Press Ctrl C to copy.
14. Press Ctrl A to select all
15. Press Delete to delete all.
16. Press Ctrl V to paste.
17. With all the CPs still selected, shift click the central spline (between cps), so that a bit of the spline goes green. (This might take a few clicks in different places to get it to go green)
18. Right click on the selected area and choose Copy/Flip/Attach.

Fill any 5 pointers that haven't filled. Most of them did, to my surprise.
I also had to rejoin a couple of splines on her rear, because of an awkward 3 point patch.

Now in Bones mode, click the Body bone, and use the N key to realign all the bones in the body. Remember to mouse-drag, and don't to use the arrow keys, so that all bones are moved together. The spine should be EXACTLY on the Y axis.
Also reposition the IK Foot control, which is not in the Body hierarchy.

Tips
1. Make sure you don't have Mirror Mode on (I did and things don't work right. )
2. Filling 5 pointers - hide most of the mesh, use the lasso tool to select the 5 points, and click the 5 point patch tool. I have not had this fail, as long as you only select the 5 points, and do not catch others behind.

Click to view attachment

Corrected GalaDM:
Click to view attachment

Repeat the original step 1 - TSM Flipper, and what a relief, everything matches.

Click to view attachment

Save your project under a different name.

In a perfect world, Stage 2 would have included assigning control points, but I'm doing this warts and all, because real life happens (Wipes sweat off brow and goes to find something to restore nerves)

Click to view attachment

Stage 3 - Assign Control Points

1. Right click in Bones mode. Choose Auto Assign Bones. This will automatically assign all control points to the nearest bone.
2. Make sure that the whole head including the chin is assigned to the head bone.

Click to view attachment

3. Save your project.

Click to view attachment

You can now finish the TSM rigging:

1. Right click in Bones mode, choose Plug-ins > Wizards > TSM Rigger.
2. Wait for the bones to be "calculated"
3. Click Rig.
4. Wait for the bones to be rigged.

TSM is now installed into your model. Wasn't so hard, was it?

However, do not save this project, we have a way to go yet.

I am hoping that everything that can go wrong will go wrong, so that we can troubleshoot here.

5. Create an action using this model (remember we're not going to be saving this project)

TSM models always have to have their constraints set to on before using them - one of the more frustrating things about learning TSM is animating the bones, and wondering why the mesh is not following the bone.

6. In the Pose Sliders turn TSM Constraints ON.

Click to view attachment

That wasn't meant to happen

What this means is that the rotation of the bones was incorrect, and we have to go back to your saved stage 3 model.

All of the horizontal bones need to be rotated in the upright direction, as in this picture:

Click to view attachment

Question for the experts - is there any way of avoiding this rotation step? Did I do something wrong that all the bones came in sideways? (I realise now that I should have done this rotation before flipping.)

I will fix this tomorrow and upload a fixed model for us to continue with.

Caroline- Great work!

It is mentioned in 'The Setup Machine's documentation that this could happen, and you are forewarned to keep an eye out for mis-directed roll handles as you go...it was nothing of your doing.

Don't do that!

they are supposed to be pointing backwards






TSM builder originates the bones correctly rotated.

My first suspicion is that this has something to do with the two-bone groups that make an "upper arm" or "lower arm" not being really straight.

I have a second suspicion but that's my first.

It's seem to be the forearms that are twisted cause the bicep to be out of whack. Make sur the roll handles of the forearms are pointing straight back. I'll download the zip and see what's up.

Ok, looked at the model and the "1 right upperarm1" bone's roll handle is pointing forward, it should be pointing to the back.

Thank you for catching that - I've not found the manual very useful up to now, but I am now studying it VERY carefully.

In summary for the roll handles (so that's what they are called)

Arms back
Fingers up
Thumbs go away from the direction of the curl
Legs in the same direction as the foot
Body bone down

After auto-assigning bones, make sure:

Chin is fully assigned to head
Body bone has nothing assigned to it (they go to the spine)
IK Foot Controls have nothing assigned (they go to foot and toe controls)
Finger control points are assigned to fingers, not hands.

However, don't be too fussy, we will probably change assignments as we go through weighting each joint.
Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Technical Terms

A Rig - the entire bone structure, by which you control moving the model.

Geometry bones - bones that are directly assigned to control points

Constraints - limitations to bone movement, set up in Poses, usually either on or off - eg. Orient Like, Aim At

Fan Bones - small bones that are assigned control points, but are also assigned constraints. For example, a fan bone assigned to the elbow ring spline would be oriented 50% like the forearm, and 50% like the biceps. This prevents the elbow spline from moving too much either way when the arm is bent.

CP Weights - a CP can be given a weight. So a CP on the elbow spline can be weighted 50% to the forearm, 50% to the biceps. The CP will never be pulled too far in one direction.

SmartSkin - created in a special action window, and defines what happens when a bone is moved in a particular way. Can eliminates creasing and stretching.

Null (or Target) - something for a bone to point at. For example, you could create a null for the eye bones to follow. The null is much easier to move than the eye bones would be. A null can also be created in an action or a choreography. For nulls on steroids, if you have a rainy weekend, look at this mushroom cloud tutorial.

I'll add to these as I think of them.

Stage 4 - Intro to Fan Bones

There are several types of joints in the human body:

Hinge joints - elbow, fingers, knees
Pivot joints - head, ankles, wrists
Ball & Socket - hips, shoulders.

We will first look at hinge joints, being the easiest of the joints, as they only move in one direction.

You can see here that our elbow movement is very unpleasant.
Click to view attachment

Create a small bone at right angles to the upper and lower arms at the elbow.
Click to view attachment

Call this bone "Right Elbow Fan", and make sure it is under "1 right upperarm2" in the bone hierarchy. Assign the elbow spline to this bone, as in the picture.

Right click in Bones mode, and choose New > Pose > On/Off
A special Action window for "Relationships" (poses) will open.

In top view, right click on the elbow fan bone. Choose New > Constraint > Orient Like. With the eyedropper, choose the lower arm. A new constraint appears in the PWS. Repeat creating the constraint, and choose the upper arm.

In the PWS, change each of these new constraints to have an enforcement of 50%.
Click to view attachment

Close the action relationship window.

Create a new action to try out our pose. In the pose sliders, turn Pose1 ON.

Using the R (rotate) key, rotate the lower arm. The movement is much better. (Not perfect, but better.) You can see that the elbow spline, that is assigned to the fan bone, is aligned 50% between the upper and lower arms.
Click to view attachment

Caroline, this is pure Gold. Concise & Precise. Thank You

Orient the elbow fan to the same orientation as the lower arm 1 (or what ever it is) in the modeling window bones mode or you'll need to compensate it. Since it is a child of the upper arm 2, you don't need the second constraint. You just need the orient like constraint to the lower arm 1 with a 50% enforcement.

Cool! - I had to do that one to believe it - I thought for certain I knew how to do fan bones

In explanation - 'Compensates' are used when you create a constraint to offset the constrained bone from the other bone. (Just to add to the confusion, it works differently from about 14.b (?) onwards.) For example if you were to create a Translate To constraint, in v13, the constrained bone will immediately do a Translate To and leap to the other bone. After 14.b (?), the constrained bone will stay in its position, but do a Translate To relative to its current position - If the other bone moves the constrained bone will also move, but at the distance defined by the 'compensate'.

Updated Fan Bone Creation:

(At the end of all this, if we are all still here, I will do a pdf of the correct parts, and put it into the first post. For the moment, I think it is good to leave all my mistakes there, as I can't be the only one making them. Can I?!!?)

1. Click on the bone "1 right upperarm2". This selection will ensure that the new bone will have this bone as its parent.

2. Create a small bone with the same orientation as "1 right lowerarm1", and call this bone "Right Elbow Fan".

3. Assign the central Elbow spline to "Right Elbow Fan"

Click to view attachment

4. Right click in Bones mode, and choose New > Pose > On/Off. A special Action window for "Relationships" (poses) will open.

5. In top view, right click on the elbow fan bone. Choose New > Constraint > Orient Like. With the eyedropper, choose the lower arm. A new constraint appears in the PWS.

6. In the PWS, change the constraint to have an enforcement of 50%. Ensure the Rotate Offsets are all 0° - these are the compensates.

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Talking of compensates, coincidentally, v15.0d is now out, and you can choose whether to have the compensates offsets on or off.

Hold the shift key down while you are selecting New Constraint etc, and the bone will not have compensates. This is equivalent to clicking the icon at the top that looks like a microphone, to the left of the magnet.

Stage 4 (continued) - Intro to CP Weights

Save that Fan Bone project under a new name, and revert back to the RigStage003a model (before the fan bone).

This is the same action using CP Weights instead of Fan bones.

1. In Bones mode, click the "1 right lowerarm1" bone.

2. Open its properties and click Has FallOff ON. You can see the bone's sphere of influence in this picture. (We will look at how to change this sphere of influence later on)

Click to view attachment

3. Do the same to the "1 right upperarm2" bone.

4. Right click away from the body and choose Compute All CP Weights.

Clicking one of those two bones, and notice that the elbow spline CPs have circles around them, showing the other bone's colour. This indicates that the CPs are weighted.

Click to view attachment

Now go into an action and test the rotation of the "1 right lowerarm1" bone.

Click to view attachment

Question for the experts - for simple hinge joints like this one, I prefer the CP weighting method. Smartskinning appears easier. Is there any reason why I should use a fan bone here?

Fan bones won't distort the geometry. If you look at the clip, you will see the spline ring for the elbow shrinks. Sometimes this will do, but not all the time. So, if you use a fan bone and add a little weight to the upper and lower arm bones, you can get it looking pretty good without smartskin.

I'm not sure that you would need Deskpins when using Irfanview?
Irfanview has an item in the Options menu named "Always on Top". If you choose that, the Ifranview window will stay on top of all other open windows. I use that one a lot. (I'm using version 3.00)

Learn something everyday, Holmes - or it seems that I am learning 10 new things before breakfast these days


Argh - you're so right, Mark. So would I add fan bones even in the fingers?

Rigging Gala - Stage 4c - Fan Bones and CP Weighting in Hinge Joints.

1. Revert to your Fan Bone model from stage 4 - Updated Fan Bone Creation.
Or load this model - Click to view attachment - this has a group to hide all but the elbow, and all bones except the ones involved are hidden.

2. Select the fan bone, and assign a couple of cps to splines A & B in the picture.

Click to view attachment

(You will see the reason for this in a moment)

3. Create a new action for the model. CP Weighting can be done in modelling mode, but if you do it in an action, the result will be the same, and you won't accidentally move the model's cps or bones.

4. In Muscle Mode (F7), highlight spline A.

Click to view attachment

Right click it and choose Edit CP Weights.

Click to view attachment

5. Click each bone in section A, and change the weight in circled section B.

6. Change "1 right lowerarm1" to 80% and "Right Elbow Fan" to 20%. Click Done. The reason for assigning a couple of CPs in step 2, was so that the bone would show up automatically in the list, and you would not have to search for it in the Bone dropdown.

7. Repeat for Spline B, and change "1 right upperarm2" to 80% and "Right Elbow Fan" to 20%. Click Done.

8. I moved the elbow joint towards the back of the arm, because that is where the natural rotation of the elbow is, and it looks better In the animation. (It may stuff up my mirrored bones though).

Click to view attachment

Tip:
For a great video showing CP weighting (and other bone stuff):
David Simmons - Rigging a Face

Experts - are we at elbow perfection yet ?

for convenience, my alternate scripts for advfingers and advthumbs automatically build and constrain three fanbones at every finger joint.

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=273221

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=274090

these rig a 3-bone control , rather than TSM2's regular 2-bone control, however.

Thank you, Robert - I went for a while - so I will bear your hacks in mind, but I think I will investigate them after we have discovered what TSM brings to us without any hacking. I am sure that these will make it all faster in the end.

What you have is fine, Caroline. If you wanted to turn it up a notch, you could put some bicep flex in there to pull the inside of the elbow toward the upper arm as it bends. Since it's Gala, I wouldn't use the bicep flex to necessarily "make a muscle", just to get the bend a little nicer...it's not necessary though.

I've seen a lot of people use fan bones for fingers, so it's not unusual. I haven't had to use them there yet, but, if it helps, use them. If the model has a low spline count in the fingers, you might need to use Smartskin (or increase the splineage).

Nice thread! I'm curious to see what your finished product will look like.

I think you could play with the weighting a bit more. I would lower the elbow fan weight to the cps on the back of the upper arm to 10% on spline B. I would also add around 5% weight to the upper arm 2 and lower arm 1 to the elbow spline for each bone. And adjust the weight to 90% and 10% on spline A.

It's getting there, Caroline.

You could add fan bones to the fingers, but it's not necessary.

D'oh! I should have looked at the model instead of just the video (I didn't see it)...Mark is probably right. Next time, I'll try to pay more attention.

Thanks for looking out, guys - yes, that weighting does look better. Although I'm not certain about the weighting the elbow spline - when I overlaid in Photoshop, it makes the elbow ring contract (albeit with 5% each way, not very much) - is that a good thing?
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Using the same principles, we can now rig the right knee, and the end two joints of the fingers.

For the fingers:
This movie is weighting the central splines 50% between the two bones (bad)
Click to view attachment
This movie is fan bone only (bad)
Click to view attachment
Sadly, this is the only one I could live with, which has the extra splines stitched in - you were right about that, too, Mark.
This movie is fan bones and weighting those A/B splines (90/10), almost like the elbow - I looked at less weighting in the top of the finger, like the elbow, but in this case I could not see any difference.
Click to view attachment

Remember to create the constraints for the finger fan bones - right click your previous Relationship (I called mine Setup), choose Edit Relationship.

Short hiatus while I stitch splines into all those fingers - I noticed a comment in another thread about rigging before texturing. I guess this is why.

The slight contraction helps the elbow from getting too pointy in extreme rotation.

Finger fans and no extra splines is not too bad. This could probably be fixed using smartskin and adjusting the bias handles.

finger fans and weighting with extra splines, you could add a little more weighting to the underside of the finger on the A and B spline.

And yes, this is exactly why rigging should be done before texturing.

Aha. This gets interesting.

I added splines each side of the joint. I thought they should be fairly close, but the joint got squished.
Click to view attachment
So I moved the splines away from the joint, weighted splines A & B 90/10 main/fan - looked fine.
Click to view attachment
Then read your post, and moved splines back in, and weighted the bottom cp of Splines A and B either side of each joint 50/50 main bone/fan bone - because of the contraction of splines A & B, the joint does not get squished.
Click to view attachment
A multitude of possibilities, depending on how you want your fingers to be modelled. (Gala has extra long unreal fingers.)


Tips on adding splines:
Add the splines in, create an action for the movement you want - here's the action I used:
Click to view attachment
Move the splines in modelling mode. Check the spline movement in the action in modelling mode (so the bones don't hide your view). Check it in front view, and hide the fingers as you complete them.

Something it took me a long time to find - It is much easier to switch windows using the Workbook mode. View Menu > Tick Workbook. You now have tabs at the bottom of the screen to change windows. Also, Window Menu > Tile Vertically allows you to have two windows next to each other.

Movie "B" (last one) looks the best to me, but that doesn't look like the 50/50 weighting you you say it is. Movie "A" (middle one) looks like the 50/50 and movie "C" (first one) looks like no weighting. Did you put them in the right order? Movie "B" looks like the 90/10.

[Smacks self on back of head] - you are right, Mark - the movie B is the one with the splines further apart.

I'll edit that post to put them right. And my saved models are all up the creek too. My next post will be, as you suggested, to put it back to no splines, and just fan with smartskin, because that may be the way to go on this one. I'll have a look, and post the result, then choose between that and B.

[Thinks...I wonder how much processing overhead each one has.]

Nope, smartskin needed more splines to make the squash right. The middle section needed one spline to go with the end joint, and a second to go with the middle joint, and it only has one to do service for both. So I'll save the smartskin tute for a bit later.

Going with B.

This is for those who eyes have not yet glazed over - fixed some splineage issues in the right hand, and completed fan/constraints/weighting in right fingers and thumb..
Click to view attachment
Still to be done here - knee and centre of hand / base of fingers.

Moving on to Pivot joints - wrist, ankles, thumb base and maybe head rotation.

I would straighten the arm bones out in the front view, may cause problems after running the rigger. I would also add another spline ring in the forearm, TSM rig is setup for twisting.

Fixed for next section.

Thank you, Mark (and David and Robert) - I (and hopefully those who come hereafter) much appreciate it. It is fascinating to get an insight into a real rigger's mind. It's a totally different art form than modelling & texturing & lighting.

Stage 5 - Pivot Joints

Pivot Joints are wrist, ankle and head.

Even though I want to keep Gala as low spline as I can, I feel that the 3 spline action with fan bone is the most elegant, so I have added an extra spline for her wrist.

Tip - Brilliant Shortcut Key. I thought that the wrist was a bit elongated, so wanted to bring in the hand closer to the arm. This involves moving both cps and bones. In Bones mode, click on the Hand bone. Press the "N" key (Translate). Hold the Ctrl key down, and move the hand bone. This will move the hand bone, all bones under the hand bone, AND the CPs.

1. Click "1 right lowerarm2" and add a fan bone pointing towards the hand, and call it Right Wrist Fan.
Click to view attachment

2. Enter the values exactly as the bone on top of the fan bone, ie in this case the wrist fan bone's Start values and Rotate values will be the same as the hand bone.
Click to view attachment

3. Weight:
Spline A - 75% hand, 25% fan.
Spline B - 50% fan, 25% hand, 25% forearm
Spline C - 75% forearm, 25%fan.

Remember that if you assign one of the points in bones mode to each bone, the bones will appear in the list when you edit the CP weights in modelling mode. If you do not assign the bone to a cp point, you have to hunt it down in the drop down list.

4. Edit your Setup Relationship (right click it and Edit), and create an Orient Like Constraint, orienting the Right Wrist Fan 50% to the Right Hand.

5. Check the wrist movement in an action, remembering to turn the Setup Pose on

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

Looks like you're getting the hang of this Caroline.

Wait till you see the mess I'm making of the shoulder

That's going to take a couple of days.....

I'd like to make sure I'm on the right track before I document.

I'd like a nice simple shoulder, and I've been analysing heaps of shoulder rigs. This is what I have come up with for the fan bones (4 of them):
Front:
Click to view attachment
Top:
Click to view attachment

And I don't know if you can tell from these front on movies - the rotation is circular - this is after weighting:

Arm Rotation without shoulder:
Click to view attachment

Shoulder Rotation without arm:
Click to view attachment

It looks OK to me - but have I got the fans in completely the wrong place?

It looks pretty good, but I never found the need to use shoulder fans, especially 4 of them.

Aargh. I read too much stuff. Everybody else uses a gazillion fans. I've got it down to one - it does not hold the mesh out quite as well as four, but this is supposed to be an uncomplicated model. No fans made the shoulder sink in too far.

So, Mark, is it your work process to put the usual bones in, then weight, review, weight, review, weight, review? I have been doing each CP individually around the shoulder - is that what you would do? (I find it quite restful and satisfying, actually.) Or do you just ---know---?

3


First I want to say your work here is great, I have been fallowing along side you and I feel that TSM2 and your notes are the best way for people who have trouble rigging to get a decent rig into their model and start animating. I have a question about the 4 fans in the shoulder. It appears to be flawless in the animation, so is there any problem with this method? what are the downsides to 4 fans in the shoulder? aside from extra time rigging?

thanks again Caroline please keep up the great work!

So happy you are there, Jason - it's a long haul .

For me there are no downsides, except time and ease of picking the right fan at the right time, but I did get a pretty good version with one fan, which is more efficient. I'll be posting that in a few hours when I've documented. it.

Stage 6 - Shoulder Joint

This is the hardest joint so far. I have created a special model of just the shoulder area. I have autoassigned bones, and done a full TSM rig without any fan bones or weighting.
Click to view attachment
I would not suggest this 'in the real world', but I have not done a full shoulder before, and I wanted to make sure that the full TSM movements correspond the way I think they do.

You can see that as soon as we turn the constraints on (remember that TSM constraints have to be turned ON in the Pose window), the chest become deformed.
Click to view attachment
This will take some working out
Click to view attachment

One of the complications of the shoulder is that it has movement around, plus the arm rotation.

First movie of arm rotation with no fans and no cp weights
Click to view attachment

Click on one of the shoulder's cps. Even though the model has been fully rigged with the TSM rigger, and new control bones created, the geometry cps that we assigned earlier stay as they were. Clicking on one of the cps selects that geometry bone. Click on the eye in the PWS to show the geometry bone.

Click to view attachment

Add a fan bone and call it "Right Shoulder Fan"

Click to view attachment

Edit the Setup relationship, and create a constraint for the fan bone - make the fan bones children of "1right arm", and orient like the "right upper arm1" 50%

These are the actions I used for weighting:
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

Using the shoulder rotation action, weight the CPs. This is how I weighted the front (actually I may have fine-tuned a little bit more after this picture - even a 2% weighting can have some effect on skin that looks too static during the movement):
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Then run the shoulder movement action, and correct the CP weighting.

To do my weighting, I moved the timeline slider to a time where the CP looked in a bad position. I corrected it in the action, clicking Apply until I could see the CP in the right place, then OK, and I could immediately see the results by dragging the timeline slider.

Every so often, you will get a duplicate weight with a 0%. Delete this weight when you see it, or A:M will 'repair' it for you. Always click Apply before clicking OK, because occasionally A:M will override what you have done, and you may get weighting you don't expect.

More on the theory of weighting. In this picture I am fine-tuning the weighting in the action window.
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You can see the selected CP is out of centre, because the action has pulled it and the CP on the right towards the right. Two choices here. I can weight the CP on the left of it slightly, so that it is pulled too, or I can weight the selected CP more to the left.
I am going for the last one, and adding more to the spine (on the left) percentage, which means that the centre CP will not move so far to the right.

Remember that when you decal the surface, where the patches are stretched, the decal will also be stretched.

Just to illustrate this point:
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You can see that the stretching on the back is OK, but on the top of the shoulder, the CPs do not move towards the arm enough, and the decal is very stretched.

'Finished' shoulder (I don't believe weighting is ever 'finished' - when coming to animate the whole body, some refinements will probably be needed).
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Resulting movies - they don't differ too much from my previous four fan weighting. Maybe a little less subtle movement.
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I will now transfer these weights to my main GalaDM model - anybody know a quick way of doing that?

Hi Caroline


So let me get this straight you have achieved the same quality of movement as with the 4 fans but in less time because you used 1 fan bone in conjunction with cp weights?

That's right - Mark says that he doesn't use shoulder fans at all, but I could not get the weighting right without it.

Each CP when it is weighted will follow the bone that much percentage. So if it is not weighted at all, then the CP will follow the bone assigned to it 100%. On a shoulder, you want it 50% with the arm, 50% with the shoulder. But when the CPs are weighted like that, then they will at certain rotations sink too far into the mesh. Weighting them to a fan bone that does not sink as far, keeps the CPs from sinking.

At least that's the way I'm understanding it

I use a bicep fan, which is basicly what you are using. I place it at the same location and orientation as the bicep, but I don't use any fans in the locations that you are using.

Would that be better? Is there anything wrong with where I have put mine?

I found that if I moved the fan closer to the biceps, the rotation of the arm at the shoulder looked wrong.

Perhaps it's this mesh.

No, there's nothing wrong with the placement you used. My placement leans towards the shoulder/bicep joint (like the elbow), where yours incorporates the shoulder area as well (automating some of the shoulder movement when rotating the bicep). My placement relies on manual shoulder bone rotation (arm bone in TSM). It all depends on what you want the fan bone to do.

Caroline

After you completely rig the model are you going to go over smart skinning?