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Angelus26
03-11-2003, 10:29 AM
I'm currently in the process of trying to rig a male human character (photoreal). I modelled him - no worries, textured him - no worries, added the bone system - no worries, drew the weight maps - no worries...

but...

I'm pulling my hair out trying to get it all to work in layout the way it should.


In order to rig my character I'm using the 'Bolo' rig from Auto-Character Setup 3. (Yes, I'm a cheap bastard, thank you, I would love to get ACS4 but am reluctant to spend the money since I'm not sure if it will fix my problem, and $90 is unfortunately a lot for me right now, then again another few days of this brain-caving frustation and I may dig real deep and buy it anyway, ((everyone seems to say it's so good)).

Anyway, the problem is, my character was built on a number of layers, one was the body, layer two was the imported 'Bolo' IK Goals, layer three was left eye, layer four the right eye, layer five the teeth, etc etc.

It looked like this:

Layer1: Body
Layer2: IK Goals
Layer3: Left Eye
Layer4: Right Eye
Layer5: Teetch


Now...

When I run the ACS3 Lscript in Lightwave the presence of these additional layers (3,4 and 5) on top of the two base layers (body mesh and IK Goals) seems to screw things up, the rig gets twisted around 180 degrees, left arm to the right, right arm left, generally speaking a bit of a mess.

I thought this strange since the first two layers were the only ones which ACS3 uses, so why should the other layers matter right?

Is that supposed to happen?

If, in layout I use ACS3 on the character file with just the body and the IK Goals layer and all the other layers removed it worked fine! Like this:

Layer1: Body
Layer2: IK Goals

So can I only have those two layers?

To test this I figured I'd comprimise and paste all my character layers into the one 'body' layer, so the body and eyes and everything were stuck together. I didn't like this since I wanted to keep the eyes seperate for ease of access, but figured if it solved the problem that's a sacrifice I'd be willing to make. Now it looked like this again:

Layer1: Body (with Layers 3,4,5 pasted in)
Layer2: IK Goals

That should have worked, but when ran the script the layers I pasted in (3,4,5) now seemed to detach from the main mesh when I moved a GOAL (such as an Arm Goal for instance), despite being on the same layer!? Why, I have no idea, I hope it's not cos all the points have to be connected.

So here I am, confused, and downright frustrated.

Anyway, so I was hoping someone who has gone through similar experiences might be able to shed some light.

In the mean time I'm going to go bang my head against a wall. I half think buying ACS4 might just be the easiest way to fix this, but I'm scared that I would and I'd have the same problem (ie, this isn't related to ASC, just my poor knowledge of Lightwave).

Any help is much appreciated!:)
vbk!!!
03-11-2003, 10:50 AM
Hi

you have to read the doc, that all :p

Don't import the skelegon and/or IK goal ( no copy /cut/ paste on these). it changes the order of bones and Lscript will not work correctly.

Copy your mesh and replace Bolo, adjust the skelegon verify the name of the weightmaps and it should be good

Only one layer for ACS3 but you can add layer you want after the setup layout by a old school way.

I hope it will help you
Angelus26
03-11-2003, 12:49 PM
Yeah I read the doc!:) Like 20 times;)

I copy and pasted the bones, but that's okay, the order got preserved and the lscript works fine, just not on multiple layered objects.

Hmmm... but from what you're saying it won't work on them anyway.

So guess I'm going to have to import all the layers in Layout afterwards right? Darn, was hoping there was an easier way, since the lscript does move the head a little bit from it's original position.

Thanks for your help!:)
Pazur
03-11-2003, 04:09 PM
More than 2 layers will screw predefined objects order so with ACS3 You have to convert rig with only two layers and add the rest afterwards.

In ACS4 - You can have as many layers as You need and it won't break the script. You can even convert a rig in a scene full of objects, clean scene isn't required (but recommended anyway) as it is in case of ACS3.
Angelus26
03-12-2003, 12:58 AM
Thanks Pazur!:)

My only other question is... If I do as you say and I import the layers into the layout after the ACS3 Lscript has run, how do you parent the eyes and teeth etc to move with the head when the Head Goal is moved? I mean I parented the eyes and teeth to the main body mesh but that doesn't seem to do the trick? The head moves but the eyes and teeth stay in place...

Sorry about the elementary questions, these little things seem to always trip me up. ACS4 sounds good, think I might have to get it, could save me a world of hurt in the future:)
Angelus26
03-12-2003, 02:33 AM
Okay, had some minor progress...

I parented the imported eyes and teeth layers to the main body mesh after the Lscript ran, and indeed if I now rotate the whole mesh then the eyes and teeth do rotate with the head correctly.

The problem seems to be, if I rotate the head bone or the head goal (not the whole mesh), then the eyes and teeth do not rotate with the rotated head or body. They stay in their place.

Are there any workaround for this problem?
Triple G
03-12-2003, 03:46 AM
You need to parent your eyes and teeth to the head bone, not to the main mesh itself. Also, if you're using weight maps, make sure in Modeler that your maps are assigned to the proper parts of the mesh and also make sure that they're assigned to the correct bones in Layout.
Angelus26
03-12-2003, 04:02 AM
Thanks Triple G, that's helped, when I parent them to the headbone it does move the eyes out of position a bit, and moving the head goal is bit a jiggy now for some reason but generally it's working which is the main thing.

Thanks a bunch!:)
Angelus26
03-12-2003, 04:08 AM
Ok, fixed by the jigging and all, now seems to work beautifully, thanks a lot for all your help guys, it's been fantastic, wow lightwave really does have a great community and some great plugin makers like Pazur!:)
Pazur
03-12-2003, 06:16 AM
:)

Angleus, if You don't want head to move after conversion simply hit Enable IK button to disable it for a while. Now do all of Your parenting and Enable IK back on. I always disable IK when I work on rig so it doesn't affect skeleton rest position.
Angelus26
03-14-2003, 12:59 AM
Thanks for the tip Pazur!:) One thing I noticed, if I move the arms down and inwards towards the body the hands seem to flip around after a certain point, like in the picture below:

http://www.k26.com/eg.jpg

Is this to do with the length of the little arm bones on the IK Goals layer? I tried increasing the length of the little hand bones like your page suggested but this doesn't seem to fix the problem.
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