1st Time Character Rigging! Aaaargh!

[pooby]

Your knee bone looks like it's IK setting is on Heading instead of pitch..
or visa versa depending on how you have set it up

[Clive-H-Jones]

yeah pooby .. kinda figuring its something simple like that, but can't figure out how/where to change it. i don't have a kneebone as such, just thigh and calf. i've tried changing their rotation pitch etc but it still keeps doing the same thing! hmmmm...

aargh! and grrrr!

CHJ

[chaostest]

I had the same problem when following that book.very good book ,but it doesnt specify which viewports to create skelegoms in so rotational axes are not exact.Try changing the axes that IK controls for thigh,or calf,under motion options/contollers and limits..for calf change haeding to pitch or vice versa

[pooby]

It would be the calf bone that needs fixing.. press M to get the motion options and the IK options for that item will be in there.

If it is a result of skelegons, I can't help much.. I never use them

[ercax]

It's annoying but if you want to use skelegons, it is important which viewport you are using while drawing your skelegons. I think having an option in numeric panel to set the alignment for current bone would be nice.


Pooby: have you ever tried skelescript? if you did , what do you think about it?

[Clive-H-Jones]

wheeee!

that was it!...the old motion options/controllers limits etc etc. i KNEW it was something obvious! duh! thanks for that people, much appreciated! now i can try to do some character animation. GULP! i'm guessing i'm in for some long hours and aching eyeballs!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

chj

[pooby]

Glad you sorted it....

Pooby: have you ever tried skelescript? if you did , what do you think about it?


I've never heard of it.. What does it do?

[ercax]

It's made by David ikeda. It is a scripting language. It sounds ridiculous at first but it's kinda cool. If you draw your bones in modeler, you can use skelescript to attach well a script to them to run later on layout. It can be used to automate some of the tedious details of rigging. You can use it also to create a rig library.
Take a look at David Ikeda's website.

[sinbad]

I went through the pain of the albee book about 2 years ago. I dont know anyone who managed to rig a character with it without something going wrong. Skelegons are unpredictable, and getting the orientation of the pitch to align correctly will seriously age you. Dragging those lollipops around never seems to work, so I would draw the bones directly in layout. To be honest I gave up trying character stuff in LW and use Maya. Thats not to say it cant be done in LW, I just ran out of patience, I use the LW now for non character stuff, or use Motionbuilder for the animation because of the control rig. Brrrrrr you bring back bad pain for me.

[murcielago]

Ive seen people mess up plenty of maya rigs so its definately not something specific to Lightwave. Not everyone gets rigging the same way in every application so find what works for you. Skelegons work fine but like anything else can mess up if not done right. I would also recommend rigging in layout simply because thats where everything is happening anyways. There are some things that I do use skelegons for. An example is create a chain of bones along a spline (for springs). :)

[chaostest]

I am still learning from the timothy albee books,

[T4D]

I agree with sinbad, Ablee book has got alot of poeple into a mess
the weightmaps only thing I don't fully understand
I personal Think Jonny Gorden Nailed the whole rigging thing in Lightwave with his book :applause:

anyway if your having major trouble rigging
Check out my Manual for my Rigging tools Here (http://www.thomas4d.com/Thomas4D_Rigging_Tools_Manual.zip)

the last chapter is a IK leg tutorials "Without" the plugins explains the basic step to get a working rig and if you need more pull arpart the Demo Rig (http://www.thomas4d.com/html/videos___demo.html) Should get you going :thumbsup:

[uncommongrafx]

Skelegons are great. The biggest 'problem' with them is a lack of enough information to keep people sane.
Draw all skelegons in the top view, for legs and arms, and all is good. It's when you draw them in other viewports that you have the most problems. Particularly related to the legs.
Weight maps when you need them, not as a necessity.

[toonafish]

I use skelegons a lot but gave up trying to adjust them in modeler.

What I do is unparent a bone hierarchy with parent in place active, and then start adjusting the banking manualy and re-parent each bone. Sounds like a lot of work, but it takes a few minutes and works better then fiddling around with the bone tools align pitch that often doesn't reset the banking to exactly zero degreesw which adds up in a hierarchy.

[T4D]

Skelegons are great. The biggest 'problem' with them is a lack of enough information to keep people sane.
Draw all skelegons in the top view, for legs and arms, and all is good. It's when you draw them in other viewports that you have the most problems. Particularly related to the legs.
Weight maps when you need them, not as a necessity.

I like the way we draw skelegons in LW :beer:
Leave your mesh in layer 1 move to layer 2
start in a Left or right side view draw the Left leg & foot and then the hips,Spline, neck and head
Switch to front view move the Left leg into position
Switch to top view draw the Left arm and fingers
Switch back to the front view
rename everything
then mirror the left Arm and left leg over to the right and rename
Copy layer 2 ( skelegons ) to the mesh layer and your done :thumbsup:

[spec24]

Newtek definetely needs to improve the way their skeletons are handled. There's got to be a better way to adjust the HBP on a bone if you happened to screw it up while making your skelegons. This is my one complaint. Other than that I find character rigging to be pretty straight forward if you know what you're doing.

[ericsmith]

I've never struggled with skelegons. The Rotate Skelegons tool is really great for fixing alignment. I typically just draw the skelegons in whatever viewport is convenient, and then go through and fix them afterwords.

I also use Record Pivot Rotation in layout. It makes the bone alignment much more straighforward, and my rigs are really stable because of it.

Eric

[sinbad]

Ive seen people mess up plenty of maya rigs so its definately not something specific to Lightwave. Yes of course, but wouldnt it be nice to be able to draw a couple of bones out in whatever viewport, and assign rock solid Ik by two clicks, which includes a pole vector so the knee/elbow can be pointed. Maya also has orientation issues, but this is easy to adjust and is predictable.
To me, skelegons should be nuked and banished to the past. We need to have something like maya and XSI, where we create rigs in layout. Creating nulls and going in and fiddling around with parent in place etc (why cant we just have snapping tools?) and ik switches is long winded. LW 's biggest limitation for me is not being able to bind/ unbind from a mesh. In Maya if you arnt happy with a model, you just unbind, and bang! the skeleton/ mesh are seperate again. Hit the r key in LW and thats it, no turning back.

The bottom line is that LW isnt used for serious character work because it isnt regarded as being up to the job. On a positive note, I'm sure this is all set to change in the future.

[esoteric1]

Rigging in LW is doggy for sure... One could write VOLUMES of information on different techniques, etc. within the LW environment... As far as elbow and knee pointing goes...

I always like to parent my bones or limbs together with nulls at EVERY rotation point..

instead of

Bicep--->Forearm it would be Bicep--->elbowNULL--->Forearm...

This allows one to parent a GOAL creatively to the rig so when it moves the goal moves... Move these goals to point the knee and/or elbow...
It seems LW's IK-solver workes ALOT better with these rotational nulls within the heiarchie(s) of your rig(s)...

I think ANYTHING can be done RIGGING wise inside of LW with enough creativity... Just build it like a virtual machine in the real world... Just think about how you'd get something to move specifically within these constraints...

[toonafish]

To me, skelegons should be nuked and banished to the past. We need to have something like maya and XSI, where we create rigs in layout.

You can do that already if you prefer to. There's no need to use skelegons if you don't like them. Personaly I like the way you can treat them as regular geomety in modeler. It's much easyer to tweak them then in Layout or in Maya.

Creating nulls and going in and fiddling around with parent in place etc (why cant we just have snapping tools?) and ik switches is long winded.

That would be nice.

LW 's biggest limitation for me is not being able to bind/ unbind from a mesh. In Maya if you arnt happy with a model, you just unbind, and bang! the skeleton/ mesh are seperate again. Hit the r key in LW and thats it, no turning back.

Hmm, resting bones is no no way a road of no return. It's very easy to change a bones rotation or postion and rest it again or just delete or add bones. Though there's lots of room for improvement, most of the time I prefer the way Lightwave works regarding weightmaps and bones, it's much more flexible in some ways then Maya or even XSI. If you're talking about advanced and complete control over weightmaps, bone movements and complex hierarchies I agree Maya and XSI are the better tools. But for simple rigs you're better off with Lighwave I think.

The bottom line is that LW isnt used for serious character work because it isnt regarded as being up to the job.

That depends on the job, I would never try to do stuff like KingKong in LW. But for a one man show with tight deadlines and low budgets it's not so bad.

I like to compare LW to an old rusty bicycle sometimes ( yep, I'm dutch ), while Maya or XSI are more like expensive sports cars. If you need to get around fast in a crowded city, you might be better off on a bike. Even though you have to work yourself into a sweat. But for the looong trip on the highway I'd pick the fancy sportscar any time :-)

On a positive note, I'm sure this is all set to change in the future.

sure, the future is a long time ;-)

[pelos]

skelegons works ok, the problem is that you need to know from wich viewport work, and tweek the angle, is horrible,
some one wrote a plugin that you can leave all riged inside modeler and in lay out just press a "rig" button and thats it, i think was auto character 4,
we have so many rigs tools from other people and newtek need to realize that the rigs and the animation tools are not so great,
after you rig and animate on messiah studio, can go back to light wave, the most courios things is other programs all ready count with incredibles tools that lw dosnt have, (like dope sheet) or change a view port to scene manager, i hate to have a flying window around and move it all the time.

blender= fluids and very good UV mapping
Carrara= very fast render with oclusion and radiosity, (also benefit from hiper threding procesors) easy effects, like fire, rain, etc...
True Space = you have to see the dynamics demo they have
Messiah studio, = real time motion dynamics

[mocaw]

I know I'm not helping by posting this, but to say that rigging and animating in LW is fine for a one man show isn't really true. Rendering and modeling maybe, but CA? If your doing freelance work and your specialtiy isn't rigging, then this point is sooo moot. I've now used two other packages that are less in cost than LW and can say that they make rigging and animating very easy for the one man show- or the one with 300 workers. LW9 is supposed to have a new quantarian (sp?) system and rigging tools (no not like that IKboost stuff) that go a long way towards helping the issue- that and the fact that you can do modeler like operations on a rig now.

Still it remains to be seen if LW will even catch-up in 9. I know from someone close the first beta cycle, who is known as a LW guru throughout the community, that says it's all MUCH better. This person also adds though that there is a long way to go- and that so far 9 feels more like a solid foundation on which 10 will really, finally be the LW we need. How many times we've heard that though? I trust this person...but I've already moved on a bit and only have one toe in the LW pond...

On the up side it looks like LW9 will not the joke that NewTek played on us with the 7-8 cycle, which many of us didn't find funny!

[sinbad]

Hmm, resting bones is no no way a road of no return. It's very easy to change a bones rotation or postion and rest it again or just delete or add bones.



Im no an expert, and I may be wrong about this with the new tools available, but in the past when I have "activated" the bones, and then thought ..oops need to do some more work on the model or whatever, any attempt at deactivating the bones has resulted in a crumpled mess instead of a clean seperation. Maybe it was just me:shrug:

Anyway that was a while ago and my memory is starting to fade. I want to use the software that they are using on KingKong, not accept second best or a rusty bicycle. The prblem is... I actually like Lightwave, thats why I visit the forums, and I use it for occasional freelance work because I cant a afford a commercial copy of Maya... as long as I dont get asked to do professional character animation such as pixar quality. There is plenty of hack mediocre work out there, but thats not for me. I couldnt imagine doing animationmentor with Lightwave, seriously.

[toonafish]

I know I'm not helping by posting this, but to say that rigging and animating in LW is fine for a one man show isn't really true. Rendering and modeling maybe, but CA? If your doing freelance work and your specialtiy isn't rigging, then this point is sooo moot.

Maybe you're right and it's just fine for my personal one man show, or I'm just an old dog that is trying to hang on to old habbits.
I sure am not the most experienced animator around. But from my limited experience, it takes people much more time rigging a simple cartoon character in Maya or XSI then I can with ACS4 and lightwave. Especialy if you want to recycle the rig for different characters. And it's mostly simple toony characters I deal with.

I find myself defending Lightwave here which is not a position I'm really used to. I'm mostly just complaining about the bugs and limitations. But as soon as I try other packages it's stuff like this that keeps driving me back to my old rusty bike.

which reminds....me I have to hop on my bike to a party :-)

[mocaw]

Maybe you're right and it's just fine for my personal one man show, or I'm just an old dog that is trying to hang on to old habbits.
I sure am not the most experienced animator around. But from my limited experience, it takes people much more time rigging a simple cartoon character in Maya or XSI then I can with ACS4 and lightwave. Especialy if you want to recycle the rig for different characters. And it's mostly simple toony characters I deal with.

I find myself defending Lightwave here which is not a position I'm really used to. I'm mostly just complaining about the bugs and limitations. But as soon as I try other packages it's stuff like this that keeps driving me back to my old rusty bike.

which reminds....me I have to hop on my bike to a party :-)

Well, I know you're good at what you do toonafish, but have you checked out v.5 of XSI? I really can't see what you're talking about when it comes to sharing rigs, porting them, and making them being HARDER in XSI than LW. Have you used the Biped guide tools in XSI? You have to be kidding! Oh well to each their own...

[MellowFellon]

Hi

Can someone supply the process of character rigging? Eg moddeling, bones, maps, endomorphs and then layout? Is the process so strick or can one go back and forth between moddeler and layout?

Also 1st time riggin noob

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