Robot Bones - Help!!

[MrWyatt]

actually you don´t need bones for a robot animation. All you have to do is move the pivot point of each objectlayer into the place where it should be able to rotate and use the parts themself as bones.

[Suricate]

MVP, I don't know whether I understood your question right, but why don't you use bones with weight maps only ? That way the bone only affects the part of your robot you really want it to do.

[mechagrog]

Just to throw another solution at you since you were saying this project is just to learn from, you could explode out all the pieces and use limited range bones...But I'd say either of the previous responses solves the problem MUCH more gracefully.

--H*

[MrWyatt]

are there actually lots of people that use bones with mechanical characteranimation?

[webfox]

MrWyatt is right. You don't need bones to set up a robot. You can create IK chains with the parts of the robot. Just set the pieces to different layers and import the whole object at once and parent in place.

Be sure that you have reset the pivot points in Modeler before importing into Layout. If you find that you have to change the pivots in Modeler for some reason, you will have to close out your Layout scene and reload it or else the pivots won't update. This is only for changing pivots in layout between saves. (Found out myself the hard way.)

Good luck in your project.

[MVP]

Cheers all,

MrWyatt: I thought you might say that, I just wanted a way that I could keep my robot in Modeler in just one layer rather than splitting him into 'thumb_tip', 'thumb_base' , 'upper_arm'. etc etc.

Suricate: I was fiddling around with this option. I weightshaded all individual parts in Modeler and then linked the relevant bones to these weights and clicked the 'weight maps only' button on each but still the model was stretched and pulled all over the place when a bone was moved. Am I missing something?

Mechagrog: I have not got a clue what you mean...sorry!!!:shrug:

[mechagrog]

You're probably better off not doing it the way I described! :p

It's the old fashioned way from before we had all these newfangled weightmaps and layered objects....Basically you put the model on one layer, every piece far enough away from each other that when you put in some limited range bones, there's no cross influence. Then in Layout you put your bones in, each bone in the piece you want, and set a keyframe with everything together...then you're ready to animate!

As far as the usefulness of it....well, for something like this it wouldn't be worth it, but the idea is good for times where you have for example a guy's head in a collar and you want to avoid cross influence or using weight maps because the model might not be final, but the rig has to be. Actually did that this week, as a matter of fact, and it came in very handy.

[MVP]

You learn something new every day!:p

[MVP]

I've just had a bit of a browse and discovered that endomorphs could be the way to go. I could make one for the arm extension, one for the little finger extension etc. Saves moving each layer-part individually. Thanks for everyones input.:thumbsup:

[Tudor]

Yep!

Good for one thing: playback speed.. Hide the mesh and just animate with the joints.
And soft deformations for knees with rubber detail and such aswell.

Originally posted by MrWyatt
are there actually lots of people that use bones with mechanical characteranimation?

[Suricate]

MVP, I don't quite understand why your model gets messed up when using weight maps. :shrug:
These are the basic steps:
First, in Modeller:
1. Model your robot and add skelegons.
2. Create weightmaps for all skelegons
3. Set the weightmaps in such a way that the vertexes have a value of 100% for the bone that should influence them. All other vertexes have the value of 0% for that map.
Save the model and switch to Layout. There you load the object, convert skelegons to bones and that's it !

[MVP]

Create weight maps for the Skelegons??
I thought I created weight maps for the different parts of the model in Modeler and then matched the bones to the weight maps in Layout?? No? I am confused now!:insane:

[Suricate]

Originally posted by MVP
Create weight maps for the Skelegons??
I thought I created weight maps for the different parts of the model in Modeler and then matched the bones to the weight maps in Layout?? No? I am confused now!:insane:

It's all explained in the manual, chapter 10. If you want a sample model, just give me your private e-mail address (I think I cannot attach LWO files here).

[MVP]

Yeah...I really should read that damn manual one day!!!!!;)
Cheers, thats my night of play sorted!

[webfox]

I was fiddling around with this option. I weightshaded all individual parts in Modeler and then linked the relevant bones to these weights and clicked the 'weight maps only' button on each but still the model was stretched and pulled all over the place when a bone was moved. Am I missing something?

When you set a bone to "Map only", you effectively remove it from the caculations on all the other points. Therefore, each remaining bone has greater influence over those points - even the ones with weight maps defining them. If you have even one bone that is not set to "Map only", then you will have one bone with influence over all points. I suspect you'll find in your setup a bone without a "Map only" box checked.

At least that's been my experience.

I don't see how breaking your object into layers and labeling each layer and setting its pivot will be any more difficult than making a named weight map for what would be each layer, and then making bones, assigning them to each particular map and then naming the bones, rationally as well, so that you know what to grab during animation... and that's not even to mention that you can slow Layout down a bit when everything is moving based on a slew of weight maps - making the animation process painfully slow.

I recently finished a short animation with robots... well things that looked like metalic versions of those wooden artist's mannequins... and not only was I able to use all the parts in layers and rig and animate very easily, I also made super low poly standins for each part. Labeling each standin as "Standin_Forearm_L", "Standin_Thigh_R", etc... , I was able to use the spreadsheet to filter and turn items on and off, visually in the scene, and turn items on and off for rendering *VERY* quickly. Proper naming conventions make the Spreadsheet even more of a godsend than it already is. The filters are very powerful in selecting scene elements and setting their properties.

I really don't see, though, how bones will make your animation process any easier, but your workflow is certainly up to you.

Good luck in your project. :)

:beer:

[southern]

Although only a beginner myself I find setting up robotic models to be compatativly easy using pivot points set up in modeler and IK chains in Layout. Simple build all the part on seperate layers (as already mentioned) and be set up the pivot p[oint for each item. Once in Layout set the parts up into IK chains. Make sure you constrains some of the movement by knocking out bank, pitch or heading as needed.

http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/uploads/aimg53.jpg

http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/uploads/aimg54.jpg

As I say, I'm no expert but I find this a really easy way to get an IK'd robot.

Glen

[SplineGod]

One reason to use bones instead of just animating each piece is suppose you have a scene with hundreds of robots. Each robot has hundreds of parts. This can quickly become a nightmare to find parts.
If you have your robot as a single object and use bones it greatly reduces the amount of stuff to track.

[MVP]

Cheers for the feedback people, i'm gonna try both techniques plus the endomorph technique to see which one suits me best.

I will especially look into that thing where you block certain movements like pitch/bank etc..that will be helpful. Also will try the bone technique and make sure every bone is set.

Like I said, i have been a naughty boy and not read the manual..but its a biggun..who's got the time??!!

thanks again, may all your troubles be little ones.;)

[howardt]

MVP, anything to report on your experiments here?

I'm about to start my first LW project, working with my daughter. We'll be learning LW rigging and animation together. Her idea is a family of robots in a Japanese restaurant. We're about done modeling the first robot and now have to decide how to rig.

I like SplineGod's reason for using bones (reducing the number of objects), but the other options have their appeal too. I particularly wonder, though, about the speed comparison of one approach vs another. It does seem that bones with weight maps would be significantly slower than just using the parts in layers, with proper pivot points set. But both methods seem to have stand-in workarounds - are those always likely to be necessary?

[WesComan]

Instead of using maps couldn't you simply parent the parts of the mech to the bones? This way you get all the advantages of the skeleton without any of the slow down from the deformations or maps.

[Triple G]

Originally posted by SplineGod
One reason to use bones instead of just animating each piece is suppose you have a scene with hundreds of robots. Each robot has hundreds of parts. This can quickly become a nightmare to find parts.
If you have your robot as a single object and use bones it greatly reduces the amount of stuff to track.

:surprised Seems like you'd either have one object with a lot of bones, or lots of objects with no bones. Doesn't seem, to me anyway, that it would make much of a difference one way or the other....just use whichever you feel more comfortable with.

[DaveCG]

I used weightmaps and bones on a recent robot model that had both rigid parts and flexible joints. I used 100% weightmaps on the rigid parts and gradient maps on the flexible joints. I used bones for the rig. I think "human" like robots are easier to animate with bones.

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