detbear Posted April 16, 2015 Share Posted April 16, 2015 Hey everyone, I have a rigging question.....for ideas. I have a few of my own concerning this, but I wanted to get some feedback. I have a mesh/ human character. There are currently no bones or rig. However, All the joint motions are already on sliders. For example, there is a slider that bends the legs. There's a slider that bends the bicep, etc. In other words, the joint motions of the character are all on individual sliders. These move the mesh as though bones were already present. I want to place a rig on this character that utilizes these sliders. Obviously, the skinning, weighting is in the slider motions already. I thought of some kind of MultiD setup. One where a rig bone rotates and moves the appropriate slider percentage, but I haven't experimented with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itsjustme Posted April 16, 2015 Share Posted April 16, 2015 Smartskins should do the job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detbear Posted April 16, 2015 Author Share Posted April 16, 2015 David, If there is a key on every percentage of the pose(1-100%), how can I copy or transfer those keys over into a smartskin? It would be cool if there was a function for a pose called "Convert to smartskin".... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itsjustme Posted April 16, 2015 Share Posted April 16, 2015 Make a new Smartskin, rotate the bone, then move the Pose slider. Then, when you move that bone, the slider should move as well. Hope that helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detbear Posted April 16, 2015 Author Share Posted April 16, 2015 Cool. Thanks David. I hadn't considered using the slider within the smartskin. That sounds very promising indeed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detbear Posted April 16, 2015 Author Share Posted April 16, 2015 David. Turns out that the different poses compete with each other. For instance, if you rotate the thigh forward and then rotate the lower leg also, the lower leg shrinks as it moves it's pose. I suspect this has to do with the cps being involved in both poses. Not sure if that can be fixed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*A:M User* Shelton Posted April 17, 2015 *A:M User* Share Posted April 17, 2015 This works real well as David described. I too had poses created and with Davids help i was able to tie it all together Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itsjustme Posted April 17, 2015 Share Posted April 17, 2015 David. Turns out that the different poses compete with each other. For instance, if you rotate the thigh forward and then rotate the lower leg also, the lower leg shrinks as it moves it's pose. I suspect this has to do with the cps being involved in both poses. Not sure if that can be fixed. I haven't seen the Poses, but remember that you will have to move the CP's in an arc with in-between frames to maintain volume. Muscle movement will move things in a straight line otherwise (including when combining muscle Poses). One reason to use bones is that they naturally provide arcs when rotating. Hope that helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detbear Posted April 17, 2015 Author Share Posted April 17, 2015 The trouble is, that there are keys on every cp on each key 1-100. So the inbetweens are already there. But the upper leg pose moves everything from the thigh down to the foot. the second pose moves the lower leg only. with keys on all cps..1-100. When these poses are done together the lower leg shrinks when its pose is moved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zandoriastudios Posted April 17, 2015 Share Posted April 17, 2015 Could you use negative values on pose slider to compensate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detbear Posted April 18, 2015 Author Share Posted April 18, 2015 Hey Will. That doesn't seem to work. More than likely, certain cps will need to be painfully "unkeyed" so that they won't have duel involvement in two or more poses/ smartskins. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detbear Posted April 21, 2015 Author Share Posted April 21, 2015 Still not sure how to counter the process. Especially in all the sweeps and archs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bigboote Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 In my limited knowledge of SmartSkin and what you are trying to do... sounds like you need to use lots of separate SS's... and for bones that roll in multiple axis, a SS for each axis. Do not try to 'double-up' smartskins- that's where they fail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detbear Posted April 22, 2015 Author Share Posted April 22, 2015 No. The problem is that each of the poses has a key on every cp of the leg from the hip to toes. So if you turn up the pose for the thigh to move forward, it is actually moving all cps in the entire leg. HOWEVER.....the lower leg pose moves the same cps also. So when these two poses are used together, the lower leg shrinks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detbear Posted April 22, 2015 Author Share Posted April 22, 2015 So attached is a video....terribly done...sorry. I haven't gotten the screen recording down very well But it shows the two competing poses. Each having keys on every cp of the leg. Wyboo_2015_leg.mov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detbear Posted April 23, 2015 Author Share Posted April 23, 2015 i wonder if there's a way to counter the effects of a pose on cps of lower leg to adjust this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detbear Posted April 23, 2015 Author Share Posted April 23, 2015 Yeah. This doesn't work at all. Very disappointing. I may have to look elsewhere. I'm traveling down a dead end road here. Signing OUT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3DArtZ Posted April 26, 2015 Share Posted April 26, 2015 a couple things.... while the model is shaped nicely, it pretty much is the opposite of what A:M is all about. there is zero reason to have so many control points in this model. You could achieve the same shape with proably 1/8 the number of control points. Me, I would never take on animation in A:M with a model built in this fashion. its just too much unnecessary detail in the mesh. the other thing... its been a while since I've used a:m on the reg... but the poses are additive. the values add up ontop of eachother, if I remember correctly. so you'll have to force feed zero into the control points that you don't want shrinking. Not sure what else to add as Im clueless as to the results one would be looking for in this method. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detbear Posted April 27, 2015 Author Share Posted April 27, 2015 Like I said.... Signing OUT. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zandoriastudios Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 Here is an idea--though you have given up: Since you HAVE got the morph shapes to transfer into A:M as poses, use those CP positions as just data to copy from when doing smartskins on normal joints. Make a skeleton as normal and attach the model to it. Then bend the leg in an action, make a new smartskin, and copy/paste the CP positions from the keyframes stored in your imported morphs. Do this in isolation for the different joint rotations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.