3dsmax muscular character rig test / problems

[Dark Soldier]

wow, thats really good dude, can't help you with your problem but i'm pretty sure that Paul himself will see this thread as he regularly posts on this site and always gives amazing advice. EEK and Harvey are also rigging experts, so i pretty sure your'll have a solution soon.

can't wait to see end result and some animation

[S-S]

Dark Soldier:

- Thanks darksoldier! - i think i will take small break from this setup, have to rest for some time i think i used 30+ h in two days figuring out problems - but i will continue this setup / probably will do some animation tests :)

[eek]

I'll kick this off, Paul and Harvey will probably pop in too. (btw thx dark soldier). So what problems are you having?


Did you solve the skinng issues?, I do have a script that autorigs legs, right from hip to the toe(you need a toe tip bone) which i can send/post. You select each bone, then give it a name and it will rig it for you, with reverse foot.

Anyway, its looking really nice.

eek

[S-S]

eek:

- Thanks! - Like i said in my post, "Seems like 3dsmax doesn't like mirroring of bones with constraints - I also noticed that mirrored bones didn't work with skin weight mirroring"
- I have tested Herman Saksono's mirror bone tool, and bonepanel mirror tool, but they are both just for mirroring bones - i would also like to "mirror" constrainted bones WITH their constraint controllers
- It feels bit stupid to see how it doesn't work, as the regular mirror can mirror all objects, including targets and constrained objects, but i doesn't do any flipping of control axes in controllers like look at and orient which would be required for "mirroring" for example leftside "twist bones" to rightside... (that's what i had to do with rightside bones - manually)
- Maybe 3dmax coders just left the mirror function 50% done as many people wouldn't use it in this manner :(

- It wouldn't be a problem, if there was just one constraint on each side, but i have like 6-8 (for twisting and so on) - This limits a bit testing with "full" mesh as the mirroring of one arm takes hour or two :)

- BTW, like i said i managed to solve the skin modifier problem - bone axes just had to be aligned properly!

[eek]

Flipping bones, with constraints. Even through a copy process is pretty complex to do. When a bone is copied a retaining set of contstraints it wont remeber how those constraints where applied and its target will be blank. This is because the new bone is either looking at the original bones target or not. It wont know that the new points created along with the bone are the constraints target as the original constraint was not look at a copy of its target, but the original target itself.

A bone once copied wont know thats its constrained target is a copy of the original target.

In a way what you really want its to store a rig from one leg, mirror the bones and paste the same type of rig onto the new setup. Or merge in a copy of the leg, but then you have skinning issues.

eek

[S-S]

eek:

"bone is either looking at the original bones target or not"

- I think it is looking at new copied target, like "Point01" instead of original "Point", same goes for the constrained bones, but anyway max doesn't do it properly -> contraints are copied but starting "positions" for rotations are kinda offset... with my skills, only option is to remove constraints and add them again in mirrored side :)

"In a way what you really want its to store a rig from one leg"

- Now that you mentioned the leg - i don't have any constraints in foot, (only knee target) - Mirroring might be a problem there too, but then again - legs are vertical, and might not cause any problems... and i think i won't need many constraints in legs anyway

"and paste the same type of rig onto the new setup"

- Yep - too bad there seems to be no such script :(

[PEN]

Using the regular mirror tool will cause a negative scale on the object and will not update constraints with the new constraint objects. So I would advise not using it.

If you use the mirror bones mirror tool in the bone tools dialog in Max 7 you will not get a negative value on scale and there will not be an issue with constraints. The reason that the constraints don't have a problem using this method is it builds a whole new bones chain and gets all the controllers to the default:S This means you have to rig the mirrored side again.

As for Skin not mirroring correectly well this just shouldn't be. If you have worked at 000 world space while building your character and the pivot of the mesh that is being skinned it at 0 as well then Skin will not have any troubles as long as it is set up correctly. There are several options in the mirror tools for weights that will make sure that it does what you expect. Threshold is one of the main ones that people don't use correctly. You should have that value set as low as you can. if it is to high it will start to interpolate the values from one side to the other and create mush. if it is to low it will not mirror the weights. You can see what verts have found a mirror partner by Blue and Green, anything red doesn't have a mirror.

Also make sure that the mirror gizmo is in the center of your character. If it isn't by default then your mesh's pivot isn't in the center either. This should be corrected first and you should not have to change the mirror plane. If every thing isn't falling into place then you are not working clean.

For more information about skinning you might want to have a look at my third DVD as it is all about skinning a character just like yours.

Great job by the way, I can't wait to see more.

[S-S]

PEN:

Thanks for info!

"This means you have to rig the mirrored side again."

- well, i guess i already knew this - too bad there seems to be no work-around, except manual work or scripting - sigh :(

"As for Skin not mirroring correectly well this just shouldn't be."

- Yep. not sure if can duplicate the "bug" i had :)
-But i really think i know how threshold, mirror plane offset, and reset xform's work;
- i tested this many times. threshold was 0.25 - i use system unit inches, metric display units and character is 1.85meters tall - mirroring weights didn't work
- I built the right arm in exactly same place then added right arm bones again into skin, changed nothing else and the same threshold value was enough.... with old arm i had to change the threshold value into 1.5 or so to make skin it notice left-right symmetry
- Obviously something was wrong - New arms bones are exactly in the same place, only maybe 0.001m difference in bone joint placement - but anyway, maybe it was just pilot error :)

"you might want to have a look at my third DVD"

- Thanks, i might :))

[cecofuli]

Wow, very beautifull rig,
Can you post some screenshot of your rig sistem?

Thanks

[coolwizj]

Wow! That's awesome! I'm working on a film. And it has the "Hulk" in it. But I'm terrible at modeling and rigging. but I'm good at animating. Can you help me?

- Ian

[cschandramouli]

Hi guys!

I've been asking for this for long to many guys but don't get a proper answer... My expertise in rigging is only using the bone systems and ik system in 3dsm. I want to move a step ahead and want to do these muscular systems stuff. I'm not interested in the readymade softwares like CAT, though they are amazing (i heard). I want to learn to do my own stuff. Where do I start? How do I start??? Anyone please direct me there...

Mouli

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