joint mirroring with COMPLETE setup

[b.Schulz]

I'm pretty sure you can't mirror all the SDK stuff you did. Maybe your weights from skinning....but all the influence objects and SDK stuff I don't think you can transfer over? You could just duplicate all the influence shapes you need and copy them over, and re-SDK everything. I dunno though....

You could mirror the skeleton part though (don't think your ik will mirror over though...might have to re-set that up too.) hopefully it wasn't too hard. :shrug:

[NeonGuy]

hi Schulz.

you know there's a DJ with this name (Dan Von Schulz) :).
anyway thanks for your reply.


i know i can mirror the joints and the weight map. but i have to recreate all other things??? it's a really big waste of time. for example i want to mirror the hand and it's fk driven keys. i have a lot of work and time in it!! :(

an other idea:
what if i create a wrap from the original low poly object, and i cut it into pieces and then connect to the original mesh. this way i can duplicate a lot of things. or i can't??? :shrug:

[MasonDoran]

this what i want to know more about: with wrap deformers i noticed the wraps were multiple poly objects....like one for each hand...and feet...one for the head....and one for each half of the torso....how does one set up the deformers so they all work together without tearing things up from double transformations or whatever?

[b.Schulz]

"an other idea:
what if i create a wrap from the original low poly object, and i cut it into pieces and then connect to the original mesh. this way i can duplicate a lot of things. or i can't???"

I have no idea on this one...I'm not that familiar with polys. I'm still learning them. (try it out?)

In regards to redoing all the SDK stuff....I'm affraid you do. I've never found a way around only having to do it twice. It's kinda a pain in the butt but it's part of setup I guess. Reason being is because when you have drivers driving and driven joints...the drivers drive certain joint names and certain attributes (it' keys them and remembers their names)....so....since you can't have the same name for all your joints (or even 2 joints can't have the same name (this is why it doesn't get confused when SDK'n things). Well....anyways....I don't want to bore you, Bottom line (I'm babbling and not sure I'm even making sense so I'll stop with my incomplete analysis).....you have to redo all your SDK stuff. Sorry about that man. :shrug: :hmm:

P.S. That's funny about the DJ. :D

Good Luck...show me the character when your done. :D

[NeonGuy]

hi b.Schulz, 2byts

b.Schulz: i spent a lot of time today doing this mirroring stuff, and i did it!!!!!!!! finally!!!

BUT!

it's hard to figure out how things work in the mirrored part! all things f**ked up! :insane:
i tryed grouping, negative scaling a locator and an ik, and it fortunately worked. and then i realized, that i can make these things all over from the start in this probe, mirroring, etc. time.

SO THE MIRRORING DOESN'T SPEEDS UP building a skeleton. unless somebody understand it. i guess a few people only. :(

this is the true reality! i have to do the other side too.

i just miss one thing in the end. i have to do the set driven key controls on the other hand too. but i can't do it exactly same as the original side :( one of my friends told me, that i don't even have to do it like that. it's enough if it's similar. in an animation people can't sense the difference. hm. i guess he is right :bowdown:

anyway Schulz, thanks for the help if you have another suggestion in this teme, share with me :)


2byts: don't know sure what you mean. do you want to know that how can you bind more than one objects (in this case wraps) to the skeleton? if this is the question: select the skeleton, or the joints and than as many objects (or wraps) as you like, and than smooth bind them. after you binded them to the skeleton, you can paint the weights on each wraps in the same time. just make sure you use a hard edged brush!!!!!!!!!!!!! this way the wraps will behave like one single object.


cheers guys!!

[NeonGuy]

OOOH!

i forgot the pic!!! attached!
i textured the char but i don't wanna show the textures :) :) :) the textures are sucks :(

P.S.: an interview with DJ Schulz:
http://www.netweb.hu/flash/music/house/interview/schulz/schulz.html

[b.Schulz]

So huh? Mirroring took longer than rebuilding the skeleton? You could just mirror all the joints and rename them(there are easy methods of doing this is you named them correctly beforehand), but then you'd still have to resetup the ik/fk stuff if it's that complicated...but if you did it once...the other side should go faster right? Problem is that proly you setup the ik/fk arm first then decided to try and flip it right? Proly you want to just build your skeletons first...then mirror, then setup your ik/fk and setdrivens (SDK's last)
You could make the set driven keys really close to the other side. I don't know how complicated you got but just do the same for the other side. The values on the joints don't have to be exactly the same but it's better if it is...but not essential (this is the tedious part of SDK). As long as the action of the SDK looks pretty dam close to the other side, (ie...if it's a finger roll...then you want the other sides finger roll to basically "look" (keyword) the same otherwise if it's all funky it's gonna be messy when animating. Any of this makes sense. Let me know if you have any more questions errr.whatever? LAter~! :insane:

PS...what language is this DJ Schulz thing in?

[NeonGuy]

hi Schulz.

the mirroring WITH all these ik grouping negativescaling, probing undoing grouping, locator grouping .. don't work, undo ........ stuff took longer than do the other side again.

off course it's fast to mirroring the joints. so i will make the other side from the start.

Schulz interview is in hungarian.

[b.Schulz]

yep...you can't mirror ik stuff...you need to re-setup all that ik stuff as well as SDK. So mirror your joints as you set it up...then put in your ik stuff, then do you SDK and blendshapes last.

[NeonGuy]

yeah, i guess ... this is the only way.

hey you guys at A|W ... who reading this!!!! implement a mirror ik, set driven key action in the next version in Maya!! :) :)

i heard that XSI can do this all mirroring stuff just by turning on the symmetry function. everything works in this way. or not? maybe the guy had wrong who told this :shrug:

ah yeah b.Schulz one other thing ... there's a rigging/skinning technique what you are using a lot? i mean some special that i can't find in the help docs!!!! i just checked and probed Stahlberg's skinning tutorial. it's very good and useful. easy to set up good deformations with it. do you know techniques like that??? :drool:

[sedric]

you may have seen this thread, but it goes through this problem. i have successfully mirrored many limbs in maya with little trouble. this thread may prove usefull

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31417&highlight=mirror+joint

hope this helps,

sedric

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