Bones for beginers

[Linds]

Here's the file (I hope)
Linds

[Linds]

Heres a JPEG of my rig so far

Linds

[fxgogo]

Just from looking at your picture, I would first look at your mesh. Make sure the mesh has even placement of faces. Often when making text (this is not tested in C4d, but Max. I gather it might work the same) the faces are not evenly distributed. So when you animate it in any way it won't deform the way you want it to. You might have to a bit of modeling to get it the way you want it. Post a wireframe picture of the mesh so that we can see the faces, and it help me to see if that is the problem.

[Linds]

OK, Here is the Hypernurbs mesh of the charecter...

[Linds]

And here is the cage the sub-division surface is derived from.

I added some extra polygons where the bones are jointed, having read somwhere that this is the right thing to do. (Which does seem to contradict what you said about having evenly distributed polys in the mesh? I'm not doubting you for a moment, this could be where I'm going wrong)

Linds

[LucentDreams]

I got the file and will look at it tonigh to see what I can do this seems like a good mini tutorial to do. first of all because I haven't looked at the file yet, don't have time right now, did you scale the bone? do you have a restriction tag on every bone? Those are the first two questions you should always ask when rigging and when a rig doesn't work especially with this kind of stretching and such. when I get back, I'll also post smelinks to NAAM and Wes' sample rigs as they are two of the best I know of for learning ow to use XL for rigging, and they come with basic scripts that although most of us wouldn't know how to type, we can change a little easily and apply it to our own scenes.

[Linds]

Hey thanks Kai,

It's great the you are prepared to take the time to help me out. I suspect I could go on tweaking and changing things at random ffor weeks before I accidentaly stumbled onto the right combination of tags and expressions.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers

Linds

:thumbsup:

[LucentDreams]

hey pretty decent rig I must say, the first issue I noticed as I mentioned, you must have a restriction on every single bone, even if the restriction restricts it to nothing, I made anotehr vertex map (not really necessary but what the heck) which I restricted the four bones not restricted (the tops of the heirarchies) to. This should prevent a lot of distortion Your goin to run into troubles with your current targeting setup, mainly because of the lack of an upvector constraint, I don't have the link on me and am sorta pressed for time right nowe, but look for a plugin called multi target, this can do basic upvectors that should suit you for now, though an expression would be more ideal. Just curious as to how you scaled tyour bones, I didn't notice any problems, but didn't test thoroughly, just makeing sure which tool you used to scale, object tool or model tool?

Anyways the new file should be a little better, there are still issues, an just so as you know, your vector maps are a little carried away in some areas, each point need only have one map at 100% on it, all other maps can be 10 or 50 or whatever, but your larger maps that have the entire one side yellow, this is pointless as the next two maps will control thos 100% anyways, not that it will hurt but it will affect how it works a little, and is overkill.

HTH


Here is the file: (http://www.cgi.third-era.com/~kaiskai/Caslon_A.zip)

[Linds]

Kai, thaks for the help with my file. I hadn't realised that it was important to have a restriction tag on every bone. Most of the way I built the rig was lifted from Adam Watkins C4D Handbook, which has got me so far, but i'm now


frustrated by not being able to get it "just right".

I do have a couple more questions if you're prepared to indulge me just a little more...


!. What the Dickens is an upvector constraint and why do I need one / what does it do / where doeas it go?

2. The bumps and wrinkles I am still getting on the model when the bones deform it - are they a function of the bones themselves, problems with the vertex maps, or something wrong with the way the model is built. (To many polygons, not enough?) Is just that I am expecting too much? Is it just not possible to get a smooth bend on a model with angular sides and hard edges?

Right. I'm off to Plugin Cafe to track down MuliTarget. Thanks again for the help.

Linds:hmm:

[l_farley13_l]

1. it keeps the bones from rotating and jumping basically - Ik has a tendency to solve strickly mathmatically, somtimes resulting in a bone spinning in order to obey it's rules as exactly as it can - the up vector will make it more stable. So it's another null, placed above the bone, with the Y vector aligned (using multitarget)

2. The model is not organic, so deformation will be harder to "hide" using bones - bend/bulg/twist etc. deformers is probably a better bet - they can take restiction tags and v maps, but several well placed will probably take you about halfway.

A FFD box is also an option for smooth deformations.

Farley13

[fxgogo]

Hey Linds, sorry for helping out, got off track, but it looks like you got sorted out, well done.

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