CGTalk - Rig setup preference (How do YOU prefer to work?)

DesignDawg

09-13-2002, 08:07 PM

Well, sure....of course you key individual bones and even channels. We all do that. But if you use character setup, you can always delete static channels and simplify curves to get rid of extranneous keys.
BTW, I already added a character set to my copy of IK Joe. I also pared all the extra crap out of it. So I have a nice, sleek, light character ready to practice with whenever I please. THANKS for making him available. I don't think I thanked you in the other thread. It's a great rig.

BTW, not to insult you AT ALL: But if you haven't given character sets a good shot, I'd suggest giving them another go. I think they're great for a first pass of motion.

Ricky

jschleifer

09-13-2002, 10:54 PM

Hey all!

I agree.. character sets are a fantastic way of halding your data.. what maya really needs, however, is a much faster way of dealing with charcter sets (i.e. setting, selecting, etc).

hmm.. Maybe I'll write something in my spare time today. :)

Along with the idea of managing curves, maya needs a better method of providing information for the animators.. A|W, if you're listening:

1) We need to have an overlay plane in the dopesheet, graph editor, and timeline to make notes which will move along with the editors. And by make notes, I mean the ability to draw like a grease pencil.

2) We should be able to colourize keys in the timeline/graph editor to easily tell the difference between different types of keys.

3) Need the ability to have "template" keys in the timeline so we can see keys for another object.. that way it's easier to animate overlaping action if you take an upper arm and set the key display to template (shows tickmarks in a special "template" section..) then select the lower arm and see it's animation keys..

lots more.. :)

-jason

bigfatMELon

09-14-2002, 08:41 AM

I thought char sets where cool when I first encountered them but now I just hate, hate, hate them. Especially when stuff needs to be rerigged/layered/blended in the middle of production. They really just get in the way.

And then there's the "capture the script editor and make a button" method of selecting controls. I think this a step in the right direction but still very clumsey.

Those who have looked at UltraPose might have noticed that it has a really nice underlying technology called a Skeletal Map. What's cool about a skeletal map is that it provides all the same functionality of a character node without the damned character node and (!)... it's not hardcoded to work with explicit object names like a character node or a captured script. This applies to UltraPose such that two chars who's controls are topologically similar yet lexically dissimilar can share the same pose library.

Looks like I'm rambling but the reason I mention this is because the next version of ultraPose will include some selection/key controls to make it easier to key your rig and possibly predefined rig regions without necessarily having to select anything at all.

-jl

jschleifer

09-14-2002, 10:22 PM

What specifically is it about the character nodes that you don't like?

I've done a number of rigs where I didn't have character nodes because they didn't work well with auto-key (and some of the animators were using it. ech)

So I created a gui which would allow the animators to select specific parts of the character by clicking a button.. would let them control various things.. blah blah blha.. but in the end, even when I was animating it, I found it annoying having another window up on the screen for dealing with this stuff.

Now, I use character sets.. and i have 4 scripts on my shelf which either select the character sets I have selected in my outliner, make no character sets active, show me which character sets are in use, and create new character sets.

And I layer them.. so I've got left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg, etc etc etc.. and the on TOP of that I've got upper body, lower body, then full body.. then separate are fingers and toes.

This way I can quickly block out the motion for the entire character.. and then work down to sub-levels..

then when I'm just working on individual bits, I turn off all character sets and work on the objects.

clean and easy!

-jason

bigfatMELon

09-14-2002, 10:57 PM

I got going on my "hate, hate, hate them" kick while on a large MoCap project (SWAT:UJ) at Sierra On-Line. We were doing a lot of motion blending in Maya (our own stuff in lieu of Trax/Filmbox) and the rig was constantly being updated. It was important to be able to rely on finding control objects by keyword and to be able to count on them both having the their keys and not also having inputs from other objects (such as character nodes). While I could have written our stuff to manage the character node connections and such, in the end it proved to be not worth the hassle.

That got me started on alternatives which ultimately lead to the development of the Skeletal Map system that is used by UltraPose. I've been using a quick n' dirty selector/keyer, similar to what you describe, that is also using Skeletal Maps. Many other things grew from that as well, like an auto-control rigging pose librarian for hands and a mild fungus on my chair.

BTW, we've maybe/sorta worked with some of the same people, you and I. SWAT:UJ was captured at Giant Studio's Santa Monica location. Them Giant folks are very sharp. Much more so than their ant logo suggests. :) Did you get to work with them at all?

-jl

jschleifer

09-14-2002, 11:09 PM

I didn't work with them personally, but the mocap guys did.. but I'm aware of their work. definitly a bunch of smarties. :)

that's one thing that maya doesn't handle at all. motion capture.

we REALLY need some good tools for editing curves.. oh my LORD!! :)

bigfatMELon

09-14-2002, 11:53 PM

Yes! This is what I spent a good 6 months working on at Sierra, mocap blending editing tools. In the end I got a pretty nice thing working that I call UltraBlendy. It can blend N number of MoCap source skeletons with a single keyframed source and it understands skeletal split points so that various parts of the body can be blended at different times. It did this by building a ginormous matrix of blendWeighted nodes based on a skeletal map (there's that pesky map thing again).

Sounds kinda of messy and the code really is, but the end result was better than filmbox in many respects (not to mention Trax) and certainly easier to learn. New hires could learn it in an hour. Just the fact that we kept everything inside Maya made for a huge improvement in what could have been a very nasty pipe.

I need to write a version of that for public consumption.

-jl

goosh

09-15-2002, 04:25 AM

Ok.. you guys got me thinking about the character sets now.. I'll have to take a good look at them.

As far as selections go though, I have built a nice shelf (with little icons, etc) to select pretty much each individual bone... (it's a little bit smart.. just a little) so when I'm in IK mode, it selects the IK and when I'm in FK the same button (let's say hand) selects the FK hand.

This way I can very quickly select bones and key stuff.

But regardless.. I'll take a look at the character sets thanks

Goosh

Jozvex

09-15-2002, 09:22 AM

:(

I'd give anything (nearly) to be able to sit and watch you guys animate for a while.

I currently don't use Character Sets and still mainly animate straight ahead (only due to lack of experience).

I've tried animating in a more pose-to-pose kinda way but I really just don't get it. I suppose I have only been animating in Maya for 7 months.

That's it, you'll just have to video camera yourselves and send it to me in Australia! It's the only way!

Oh by the way Goosh, I love the animations you have on your site! Though I was wondering what the snake says in your effects reel?

Something like "Theories and queries?" hehe, I doubt it.

And with your IK-Joe setup (which is very nice), I've noticed that you've set it up so that it's got foot roll in one direction (ie if you move the foot backwards the toes stay flat after the heel is lifted) but what about lifting the heel when you move the feet forwards?

Isn't animating a walk hard if you can't tilt the foot back?

Is this rig at all similar to your 'vampire guy's' rig?

And you mention in your 'Package Man' pdf file, that with him you can animate the 'stickiness' of the hands and feet, is that hard to setup because it would be very useful.

Oh dear, I'm reminding myself of that boy Tim on Jurrasic Park who keeps asking Dr Grant all those annoying questions.

I'll be quiet now, thanks.

P.S. You guys are the greatest.

jschleifer

09-15-2002, 10:24 AM

You don't REALLY wanna sit here and watch.. not when we've been sitting in the same spot for 13 hours straight going "aghh.. okay.. a little up here.. a little there.. okay.. blast.. ok.. AGH!! okay, push that over here.. andnn... pleaseworkpleaseworkpleasework.. AGAHHHG!!!"

heh:)

actually.. we've got it pretty easy. One of my friends here, stephen buckley, is a stop-motion animator.. and the stories he tells about dailies.. oh man, the stress!

For those of you who don't know, dailes are where you show the work you did the day before to everyone for feedback and comments. It happens usually every morning.. sometimes twice a day.. sometimes once every 2 days.. but it's the time when you're "on display" for everyone to see what you're doing.

For CG, it's not so bad if there's a pop.. you go back ,fix it, and you're done..

but stop motion.. if you screw up a 10 day shoot.. Stephen would tell us these stories where they'd be showing his shot that he's been painstakingly working on for days and days and days straight.. and the director would just turn and look at him and go "yeah. yeah, well, that's a re-shoot."

:)

Wigaru Wiyamoto

09-15-2002, 07:02 PM

Try doing some 2D animation and pose-to-pose will make sense pretty quick. :)

goosh

09-15-2002, 08:44 PM

:)

I'm with Jason on this one.. I don't really think you want to know how I animate... there is a lot of swearing, frustration and praying..

Ok.. I've also only been animating for a little while, and I can really see how much I need to learn, but I know this and it's a slow process.. I'm working with some very talented guys at the moment and looking at what they are doing helps a lot. Now I'm watching the clasics (Toy Story, etc) and studying how they act, how the characters move their hands, they eyes, etc... concentrating on different limbs..

Originally posted by Jozvex
:(
Oh by the way Goosh, I love the animations you have on your site! Though I was wondering what the snake says in your effects reel?

Something like "Theories and queries?" hehe, I doubt it.

:blush: well...er.. actually.. it says "Do you want women?" :D
It's for a Mexican ad... don't ask... :D

Originally posted by Jozvex

And with your IK-Joe setup (which is very nice), I've noticed that you've set it up so that it's got foot roll in one direction (ie if you move the foot backwards the toes stay flat after the heel is lifted) but what about lifting the heel when you move the feet forwards?

Isn't animating a walk hard if you can't tilt the foot back?

Well.. there are two ways really... you can have the pivot point of the foot on the heel, or in the ball.. for more realistic animations, the pivot point is actually in the ball of the foot, while for more cartoonie animations it's on the heel.. I've originally had it in the hell, but I was working on an animation where I required the pivot point to be in the ball of the foot, so I've changed it... It's pretty easy to change, so if you'd rather have it at the heel, you can change it without a problem.

I was looking into writing something to be able to change the pivot point from ball to heel, but I never got that far... I think I got distracted with other stuff.

Originally posted by Jozvex

Is this rig at all similar to your 'vampire guy's' rig?

Not really.. there are a few differences... Dracula is a little bit more simple.. He doesn't have the complicated spine set up and he doesn't have the IK/FK switching for the hands... which it would have come really in hand in the animation "Wake Up Call" since he interacts with his coffin.. but having said that.. it still worked out just fine.

There are always work arounds for everything you do.

And as far as Draculas rig. well.. If you see "Wake Up Call" you can see that he can be animated just fine. I've learnt a lot since then, so I would probably animate him a little bit different, but the rig would still hold without a problem.

It's 10 times better than what I'm using at the moment at work... but I'm working on a game right now, and we have a lot of restrictions :(

Originally posted by Jozvex

And you mention in your 'Package Man' pdf file, that with him you can animate the 'stickiness' of the hands and feet, is that hard to setup because it would be very useful.

Hmmm... nope.. not really... the feet are created with a classic, reverse foot lock, which you can find examples of it in a lot of places in the web.

The hands are a kind of modified, fancy reverse foot lock. That took me a while to figure out, but since then, I found out a different way to do it, and much less complicated one..

Have fun

Send me a mail if you would like me to go over any part of the rig, I would be glad to explain it.

Goosh

Jozvex

09-16-2002, 03:03 AM

Thanks guys,

I've been avoiding learning how to rig well, because I'd rather concentrate on animating (of course), but I think it would really help to learn how to rig my own characters, and rig them well.

goosh

09-16-2002, 04:14 AM

It is nice to rig your own characters.. specially since you put in all the things that you like and you know you'll need... and you understand what it's in them and why.

At home I get the pleasure to work with my own rigs and can polish them as much as I want.

Then there is the other side. At work you don't always have that luxury. Sometimes you just get something and that could be far far from anything remotelly animatable and you have to make it act.

So even though it's nice to have your own rigs and animate with them. It's also good and important to be able to animate anything regardless of what the rig is like.

If you see what the rigs I'm animating with at the moment at work are like, you'll never want to animate in your life again.. very very scary, and pretty frustating.. but it's good to be flexible.

Goosh

jschleifer

09-16-2002, 04:23 AM

Yep.. I've been pretty lucky so far.. I'm animating rigs I created at work AND at home. :) However, I have been presented with rigs I didn't set up.. and when this happens, I usually end up re-rigging really quickly. If you can't do that, though.. then at least having a good understanding of what's going on in the rig can definitly help you overcome some of the limitations that will be presented..

-jason

Stahlberg

09-16-2002, 05:51 AM

Hey, Jason and Bigfatmelon and Goosh, maybe you could take a look at this link
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20637
where I asked a question about arm rigging. Would you have any comments, any tips?

jschleifer

09-16-2002, 05:57 AM

Heya stephen!

are you okay with using a separate skeleton for skinning than you are for animating? are you using rigid or soft binding? any kind of muscle-type deformation, or pure maya based stuff?

-jason

goosh

09-16-2002, 06:19 AM

Hi Stephen

Well.. like Jason mentioned.. If you want to have a nice IK system on a set up where you have mid bones, I would create a separate skeleton for the skinning.

This way you can have a nice smooth IK system driven by a nice complicated skeleton underneath.

Now.. as far as the skinning part in the wrist specially... yeah.. that's a bummer... I'm still to find a solution where I'm totally happy... so far it's not great.

You could do a shot by shot approach where you have a few dummy blendshapes with nothing on them and when you twist your wrists too much, you go to the blank blendshape and tweak the vertices around to get a nice smooth deformation... Hmm I'm not sure if I'm explaining it correctly.. if you don't get it, let me know and I try to explain it a little bit more clearly.
You could use this technique for any other part of the body too...

It's sometimes nice to have a few dummy blendshapes for this occation....

Goosh

Stahlberg

09-16-2002, 06:31 AM

Hi Jason, yes I'd be ok with a second skeleton, it's only that so far my limited trials of that haven't worked too great. Maybe it's because I forgot the orient constraint I noticed some other guys mentioned, I just did point constraint. (I use smooth binding on a lowres body, then that becomes a wrap deformer to the highres body.)
Goosh, thanks. Just so happens this is exactly the method I'm using to tweak deformations. I have around 25 Blendshapes on the body, including one for 'fatter/skinnier', and one for simply tweaking the neutral shape. For some joint movements I have several Blendshapes. Since they're only deforming the low-res cage it's all very light.

jschleifer

09-16-2002, 06:54 AM

Heya Stephen,

it's all about making sure you have the right rotation orders in order to get it to work. Imagine you have an ik skeleton with:

up_arm-->elbow-->wrist

and your bind skeleton is:
bind_up_arm-->bind_mid_up_arm-->bind_elbow-->bind_forearm-->bind_wrist

if you take whatever rotation it is which is twisting the up_arm and make that the first thing to evaluate in rotation order (i.e. if y is twisting the bone, make your rotation order yxz for up_arm and for bind_up_arm), then connect your rotations like this:

connectAttr up_arm.rx bind_up_arm.rx;
connectAttr up_arm.rz bind_up_arm.rz;
connectAttr up_arm.ry bind_mid_up_arm.ry;

see? because the rotation of the ry is independent of the other rotations (i.e. it's the first one solved), then you can take that rotation and spread it along the joint. If you want to get really fancy, you can make a ton of joints in the middle of the bone and spread them evenly all the way down.

hope that helps!
-jason

I've got an example file if you want.. just email me & I'll send it to ya.

ambient-whisper

09-16-2002, 12:27 PM

ok. so little question.

you say that you have the skinning rig. and the IK rig.
the IK rig is the simple one. and the skinning is more complex for smoother bending for areas like elbows...more control for forearm..etc.

but after having had a look at the IKJoe scene, it uses one IK setup...and one FK setup for arms.

the weird thing here is that the IK rig is the complex one ( more than 3 bones for arm ). and the FK rig is the simpler one ( upper arm->lower arm->hand.

where would you put the skinning setup while having both an IK and an FK skeletal setup. would you make a separate skeleton for that? or would you use the IK skeleton?

goosh

09-16-2002, 02:06 PM

Hey

Well.. no.. not really... IK-Joe has a 3 skeleton set up.
It's built like this:

FK Skeleton:
Clavicle -> Shoulder -> Elbow -> Wrist

IK Skeleton:
Clavicle -> Shoulder -> Elbow -> Wrist -> Palm
(The Palm Bone is used for the 'reverse hand lock' which is a similar set up to the reverse foot lock..)

Skinning Skeleton:
Clavicle -> Shoulder -> Mid Upper Arm -> Elbow -> Forearm -> Wrist

The skinning skeleton is constrained to both the fk and the ik skeletons... and I've got a controler to switch from one to the other.

I hope that helps

Goosh

Stahlberg

09-16-2002, 03:07 PM

Great info being collected here. I'll check out IK-Joe tomorrow. Jason, thanks a million, I'll be in touch. Must sleep now.

kfc

09-17-2002, 06:28 AM

connectAttr up_arm.rx bind_up_arm.rx;
connectAttr up_arm.rz bind_up_arm.rz;
connectAttr up_arm.ry bind_mid_up_arm.ry;

Jason,
I like ur solution on Stephen's rigg. I've learn something new today from u guys. :)

jschleifer

09-17-2002, 07:01 AM

kfc:

This isn't anything new.. I learned it from someone who learned it from someone who probably learned it from someone else.. kind of like most solutions in CG. :)

Note.. this works really well for the upper thigh, as well! shaweet!

-jason

jschleifer

09-17-2002, 07:49 AM

D'oh!

this message is for jason (not me.. the one who emailed me). I tried to send ya the rig, but got the mail returned.. and I've already deleted your address. :) can you re-send please?

cheerios!
-jason

M-J

09-18-2002, 05:54 PM

hi everyone,

i just stumbled across this thread and i was wondering: could anyone please tell me what a "reverse foot/hand lock"-whatever is? i've been searching the web for hours but all i found was something like "this rig uses a reverse foot setup...", but no one really explained it...so i thought you guys should know :-)

btw, i' currently trying to get into character rigging and i understand that you work alot with set driven keys, right? is there a way in maya to see (e.g. in an editor) which attributes in the scene(character) are drivers and which one driven? i mean so far i've been picking every joint to find out if some of it's attributes are drivers/driven. this is pretty complicated, isn't it? is there a better way?

oh and goosh: thanx for making IKJoe available. i think he's a great example to learn rigging, though it's pretty hard stuff... oh and one more thing: how did you learn all those things about rigging? i mean are there any .pdfs/.docs about "how to rig a character" or "things you have to keep in mind for rigging (e.g anatomy..)?

oh, well that's enough for now :-)

thank you guys

MJ

goosh

09-18-2002, 07:33 PM

Hi MJ

Well..let's see..

A reverse foot lock is a separete set of bones that control the foot.
If you want, I can send you a file with just that set up for you to see how it works.

As far as set driven keys.. yeah I used them a fair bit..
Though I should use more the connector editor I think..

I also end up using some expressions which can come in handy sometimes.

There is a way to find out what has set driven key.. (I think I wrote a mel script for that... and I could have put it up on highend3d.... or is there already one written? I can't remember)

As far as learning how to rig... Hhmm.. I don't know.. I just gathered things from here and there.. no specific place... And things that kind of made sense to me... Though there is a new book now out (Inspired 3D Character Set-Up) that is supposed to be pretty nice...

Goosh

Ibanezhead

09-18-2002, 08:00 PM

http://store.aliaswavefront.com/dr/v2/ec_MAIN.Entry10?V1=385088&PN=1&SP=10023&xid=41107&DSP=&CUR=840&PGRP=0&CACHE_ID=0

This is a great book for learning how to rig...

Vic

ReD_MeRkIn

09-19-2002, 01:26 PM

what kind of deformers are you guys using? I've been using smooth skin, and lots of influence objects for dificult motions like raisisng the arms above the head, the calves, and bicpes

what's the prefered method for dealing with dificult areas of the human anatomy?

HADES

09-19-2002, 03:07 PM

l got a question for ya GOOSH l saw your ik/fk arms and want to know the trick when he is bind when l animate the ik and l want to switch to fk how the binding react because l saw the fk rest in bind pose and when you switch the arm ik to fk he go snap on the one you switch on how the bind could swith on ik and fk after
sorry for my english

goosh

09-19-2002, 04:45 PM

Hi Hades

I'm not sure I understand your question

The way the IK/FK system works is that you have 3 skeletons

1 for the binind
1 for IK
1 for FK

Then the binding skeleton is constrained to the IK and also to the FK

the way you switch from one to the other is that you set the IK contrain to 100% (1) and then you have full IK control, if you want FK control, then you switch the contrain to FK (100%)

Because you can only go up to 100%, if you have IK in 100, then it means that FK is 0 and the other way around.

Hhmmnn.. I hope that makes sense

Goosh

goosh

09-19-2002, 04:46 PM

Red

I use smooth skin and a lot of influense objects..

It's nice, it works, but still, I wish there was a better way of doing things..

Like maybe be able to blendshape the influense objects.. that would be sweet.

Goosh

HADES

09-19-2002, 05:30 PM

thx GOOSh thats answer my question ...............

seasterling

09-20-2002, 04:21 AM

Hey goosh, unless I'm misunderstanding what you want to do, you can blendshape influence objects. Turn on use components in the skin cluster. You can also get some ability to layer deformations by using blendshapes with the influence, it's base and the mesh you are deforming as well. I've tried this approach but have found it to be unusably slow. I tried to start a thread regarding this kind of stuff in the rigging forum called Maya layered deformation. I never can seem to get anybody to bite on a discussion of this stuff.

goosh

09-20-2002, 05:36 AM

Mmnn.. Interesting.. I'll have to give it a shot

I would just like to be able to set up two different blendshapes and then use those as my targets for my set driven keys..

Anyway, I'll try it and see what I can get out of them. Thanks

Goosh

goosh

09-21-2002, 06:57 AM

For all those that asked me, I posted a very quick and simple Reverse Foot Lock tutorial up on my site.

This is what I consider the most classic reverse foot lock, and I actually use a modified version of it. I'll write a tutorial about it some time soon, in the mean time, you have this one to play with

http://www.digital-dreams.net/tutorials.htm

Enjoy

Goosh

seasterling

09-21-2002, 08:01 PM

I do something similiar with my feet, except instead of using the reverse foot joints I create null groups out of the ik handles and repostion their pivot points where needed. This way I can add a pivot anywhere I want and also gain the ability to wiggle the toes without affecting the leg, which makes adding toe flop or bending the toes the opposite direction easy.

I've been trying to come up with a good solution to roll the foot side to side though. I'm working with some big feet that have 3 toes with 3 joints. My best effort so far works back to the ball of the foot, which is fine if the characters foot is rolled up on his toes while walking (which solves my main problem). It doesn't work with the foot flat on the floor though. In this situation the pivot would actually be changing as the foot rolls side to side. Hope this makes sense. Anyone got a solution? Jason, you still here?

ambient-whisper

09-21-2002, 09:04 PM

goosh..or anyone for this matter : got a link to some info on how to incorporate spline IK into a rig effectively?

so i can setup the rotation to happen through the spine. while following the curve...if the shoulders rotate...and blend that rotation through to the waist.?

goosh made that setup for his IKjoe. but im wondering what exactly is linked to what and if theres any particular expressions setup?...and how did you attach the spline to the skele and still make it work. ( since spinalbones follow the splinecurve,,....when the shoulders rotate or i transform the waist. how would the curve follow ?

i guess my theory on the subject is kind of lacking. never really had to use spline IK before.

( btw. im asking this cuz im trying this out in houdini. but the houdini docs only tell you how to create a spline IK. and getting info on houdini isnt easy to come by. . so im just asking for theory of how goosh got his twist into the IK since im sure it must be similar to how max/maya/xsi and houdini do it.

jschleifer

09-22-2002, 01:52 AM

seasterling:
I've encorporated roll before by actually breaking apart the control structure for the foot and the geometry.. so that there are actually little bones inside the foot which are adjustable based on the ground, and are driven by a standard joint structure.

Basically, you have the standard leg: hip-->knee-->ankle-->ball-->toe

Then, underneath the ankle control, you build a series of joints which kind of go upper foot, toe, lower toe, etc.. for each of the toes. Then, you measure the rotation that you're doing for the ball of the foot side to side, and make setDrivenKeys or expressions to adjust the upper bones as necessary. It's really nice to get a foot "lean" in this way..

However, if the foot needs to rock back and forth, the easiest thing would be to create a side-to-side hierarchy which is incorporated into your regular foot hierarchy, and just animate those up and down. Don't try and animate the pivot. .that's just too messy. :)

seasterling

09-22-2002, 04:54 AM

jason:
So are you changing the length of the upper foot bones to absorb the side to side rotation of the ball?

Assuming I'm understanding you, would there still be a problem when you lift the heel and the foot rolls up on the toes, since the pivot is still perpendicular to the center toe. At this point the pivot should actually be more in line with the direction of the knee, and this relationship is going to change depending on where the foot is pointing. Maybe it fakes it well enough and I just need to see it work, or maybe my tiny little aching brain is not understanding.

Also not sure what you mean that the toes are adjustable based on the ground. You wouldn't happen to have a leg rigged this way that I could take a look at by any chance would you?

ambient-whisper:
Check out Jason's dvd, you may be interested in the back rig. The rest of the stuff on it is excellent as well. The joint orient script itself is worth the price of admission. Thanks to Jason for sharing his knowledge with us, I'm looking forward to the next one.

halifax

09-22-2002, 02:04 PM

Maybe one of you pro's can help me out with this. . .
OK... I'm having real trouble with this for some reason. What I am trying to do is create soft body influence objects attached with springs to simulate muscle and jiggle. I realize there is a maya Jiggle Tool, but this does not give me the affect that I want. My problem, as seen in the frames below, is that my influence object does not end up controling the geometry. Really quick, I'll go through my process to create these influences, and maybe someone can pick up on where I'm going wrong... Here goes....
1. Select Geometry and object I want to influence..ADD influence
2. Select new influence object, and convert to softbody (make original soft)
3. Use this new soft body, and convert to spring (wireframe)Name this Spring_Influence
4. Select particle points and then select verts I want spring to connect to, then select Spring_Influence... Create spring(min/max) and ADD to existing spring
5. Adjust parameters so the influence moves convincingly
6. Select main geometry being influenced, and paint weights accordingly for new influence
7. Playblast.
This is where everything goes to hell... The problem I'm getting is that the points I've painted to be influenced by the object end up not moving at all and I don't know why. What am I doing wrong??? Please help, because I've spent way too much time on this already.. Thanks in advance.

http://creativity.bgsu.edu/courses/artc331/F01/students/portfolios/halifax/influence.jpg

jschleifer

09-22-2002, 08:48 PM

seasterling: unfortunately, the only rig I've got right now which works like this is one for work.. and I can't quite show that one to anybody.. heh :)

But yes, I am changing the length of the joints to absorb the rotation of the foot.. suprisingly, by changing hte length and rotating the joints a bit, it actually looks quite realistic.. you don't really have to change the length much, just enough to keep the foot above the ground and sort of in the same place.

halifax:

try turning on the useComponents attribute on the skinCluster.. see if that helps

good luck! :)
-jason

halifax

09-22-2002, 10:16 PM

For some reason, I could not get that to work. That one simple button totally fixed all that. Thank you so much. Now to the animating. Cheers:beer:

seasterling

09-23-2002, 04:29 AM

Hey Jason,
That works great when the foot is flat on the ground, but doesn't really solve the main problem, which comes when the foot is not facing straight ahead and is rolling up on the toes. Although leaning the foot helps, the inner and outer toes are still not reacting correctly with the change in position of the ankle and the ground.

Are you doing something with your control rig, or are you tweaking the controls on the toes individually to provide the correction? Right now I'm grouping IK handles from the ball to the toe joint, and from the toe joint to the end of the toe on the inner and outer toes. The middle toe is actually driving the IK like in a standard foot.

Thanks for the help.

-sam

jschleifer

09-23-2002, 04:41 AM

Heya!

if you do your lean from the ball of the foot as opposed to at the tip of the toe, you can then have the toes themselves adjust to keep the foot "appearing" flat.. then have other controls on top of that for the animator to go crazy with.

does that make sense?

when I have time I'll see if I can rig up an example to send..
-jason

seasterling

09-23-2002, 05:02 AM

I think my rig is very similiar to yours except I just parented all the toes' balls to the ankle, so I don't have the ability to adjust the "foot bone" for the inner and outer toes. My rig works except for when the foot is flat on the ground. I am leaning from the ball as well. I then have attributes for "wiggling the toes" so I can correct their position relative to the ground, or for the ability to curl the toes or provide some toe flop.

Would you be interested in taking a quick look at my rig? I'd love to see an example if you get the chance.

Thanks again.

-sam

M-J

09-23-2002, 11:14 AM

seasterling:
which dvd are you talking about? where can i get it?

mj

ambient-whisper

09-23-2002, 11:24 AM

Originally posted by M-J
seasterling:
which dvd are you talking about? where can i get it?

mj
this one.

a bit costly for a dvd me thinks.

http://store.aliaswavefront.com/dr/v2/ec_MAIN.Entry10?V1=385100&PN=1&SP=10023&xid=41107&DSP=&CUR=840&PGRP=0&CACHE_ID=0

jschleifer

09-23-2002, 12:07 PM

a bit costly for a dvd me thinks.

yah, could be.. but then you consider the fact that there's about 6 years of maya knowledge and experience which lead to the 80 pages of notes/scripts/files on the dvd.. and the fact that people paid the same price to see the lecture.. and you do get quite a bit out of it, I think.. (of course, I did it, so I would think that! haha :)

But in the end, it's up to you, really.. if you want to spend the money, that's great! if not.. then don't.. personally, I think that the best way to learn is from watching others who are already doing what you do talk about how they do it, provide scripts, examples, methods, etc. That kinda stuff is invaluable, I think! :)

-jason

jason-slab

09-23-2002, 12:25 PM

me thinks(not often) video/dvd tuts are really worth the $$, i can't really take classes (generally working, working, working), so with vid i get good visual ref of whats going on.

and just hangin around on cgtalk has taught me soooo much

|jason

olivier georges

09-23-2002, 06:28 PM

hi,
i saw the jason`s DVD few months ago, and i can say that i learn in 2 hours what it`d take me years to learn by myself... jason is a fantastic character rigger, as well as a very good teacher... and i think the DVD really worth the $$ , or euros, since i`m from France :D . i`d like to go to the siggraph 2002 to see the course on char rigging and muscle system only to see jason in action ;) hope we will find this course on the siggraph site soon...

Olivier.

seasterling

09-23-2002, 09:18 PM

$129 is a steal for what is on this dvd, unless you already know this stuff :) It is all method and problem solving and not just a regurgitation of the manuals. That is what I thought was cool. Can't wait til the next one.

Jason, care to give us a teaser on the next one.

jschleifer

09-23-2002, 10:10 PM

Thanks guys! Glad that the dvd's been helpful for people.. I tried to cram as much into it as possible w/out going TOO crazy.. :)

The next one will be the same as what I delivered in my masterclass presentation of 2002.. somewhat of a continuation, but quite a bit different as well.. it covers:

1) Fast Animation Rigs
a - global concepts
b - Fast Leg Control
c - Isolation of Motion
d - Fk/Ik Arms (this is a new technique.. I wrote a wrapper around Maya's new single arm fk/ik action to make it actually work.. :) )
e - Various speed techniques and solutions to making your rigs as fast as possible

2) Pipeline Methodology
a - multi-resolution puppet system (wrote a pipeline for dealing with multi-resolution puppets.. easily switching between them & copying animation back forth. You can use any number of resolutions.. each resolution of rig is referenced into the scene only when the animator is using that particular resolution & the whole thing comes with an interface for dealing with the references in an intelligent way.)

3) Fast Animation Techniques
a - covers the various stages of animation & helps define a workflow for animating as fast as possible.

that's basically what it covers.. again, around 80 pages of notes.. scripts.. scene files.. this one actually will come with a complete rig which is very fast to animate. Doesn't have full facial animation, but has got everything else in it. :)

I'll send out a message to cgtalk when it's all ready..

cheers!
-jason

seasterling

09-24-2002, 02:56 AM

Jason:
Thanks again for working with me on the foot thing! While you are spending a little time here with us I've got another quick one for ya if you don't mind. I've been trying to use curves added as influence wires to a smooth bind with use components on. Problem is the entire length of the curve is affected when you move a cv. Anyway to keep that from happening that you know of?

-sam

jschleifer

09-24-2002, 03:12 AM

Heya!

good thing I've got lots of playblasts going.. gives me time to answer q's! :)

kind of an interesting effect, eh? looks like the skin is attaching itself to the parameterization of the curve somehow instead of to the cvs.. very strange.

Maybe instead of using a curve, you use the curve to drive a nurbs surface or poly surface which you then use as an influence object? would that work?

-jason

seasterling

09-24-2002, 04:00 AM

I'm trying to find a way to layer deformations. Say you have an extreme blendshape on an object (my character can open his mouth almost the entire length of his body). If you tie that blendshape node to a blendshape on the wire and its base, you can deform your wire so that it maintains its relative positioning with the mesh, without affecting the mesh. Then by translating cvs on the wire you have a very intuitive control that follows the blendshape of your object, giving you the ability to layer your deformations. Am I making sense? This would give you so much control without having to resort to a bunch of blendshapes. It all goes down the toilet though due to the problem I mentioned before. The wire tool doesn't behave this way, so I was thinking this was happening in the smooth bind somewhere and could be fixed with Mel. Man I gotta learn Mel.

-sam

seasterling

11-27-2002, 05:15 AM

jason:
I made an interesing discovery pertaining to the foot setup we discussed that would allow you to rock the foot that you may be interested in. It is based on the fact that whenever you group an ik handle, not only can you no longer adjust the rotation channels of the joints in the ik chain, but a child joint no longer inherits its parents rotation either when the parent joint is being rotated by the ik handle in this group.

So instead of adjusting the length of the foot bones, simply parent the first joint in the outer toes to the middle ball joint. I am assuming your foot is rigged by grouping the ik handles at the ankle and ball joints. Group this group again and place the pivot at the next joint in the middle toe. Use this group to rock the foot. When the foot is flat on the ground, the outer toes will be unaffected, at least until you move the ankle far enough to affect them. When the foot is in a rolled position however, and you rotate from this group (in gimbal mode) you will get the compression in the joints which are off the ground like you would expect. :buttrock:

-sam