Mocca for dummies

[VestanPance]

Here you will find some good links to start with:

http://129.125.101.174/dark%20project/cinemalinks.asp?ID=11

[Cyborgguineapig]

I know what you mean. Even though Mocca claims to be easy to do it sometimes just seems complicated with all these little tid bits. Sadly, I was expecting Mocca to be a program where you simply place bones in a model and expect it to do wonders but I was wrong. All this claude bonet, tip effector, constraints, rest position, the foot contraints from sinking in floor,.. just all of it is a bit overwhelming for my mind.

I too am looking for a way to somehow implement what I learned in the MIME and TAIL tutorial and say put that towards rigging a complicated and "Realistic" character. Maybe it is just some people that can't fully comprehend everything they read:shrug: I dunno.

[LucentDreams]

I"ll try to be as unoffensive as possible with this post, but reading hwat you guys are saying, have you ever rigged in any app before? doesn't sound like it to me, except perhaps MB. I mean these are common terms and rigging methods, though the SIK does change things a little since targets dont' exactly target perfectly, they follow behind, giving the soft smooth effect.

Is it ready for prime time, yes. are the majority of users ready for complex rigging, thats hard to say. I"d say dosome research on rigging, read oup on some maya tutorials, they pretty much apply to C4D. No one seems to believe me on this.

CD will be released soon, this week has been taken upunfortunately by training for my new job as an IMAX projectionist so things slowed down (need to pay rent and save for sig), but soon enough.

[Pate]

Yeah, rigging is really difficult and frustrating.

I spent a couple of months trying to bone my character (please, no dirty jokes! :) ), and then animating her with soft IK. Whatever I tried, everything failed miserably and I got really frustrated. This was my first attempt at rigging in any software (FYI, Kaiskai :) ).

Anyways, I then decided to avoid bones as much as possible (gotta hate them bones), and finally figured out that you don't actually need bones (not to mention soft IK) most of the time.

See here: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57254

That's what I came up with eventually. It uses bones only in the fingers (though I thought of a way to do them without bones as well, I had already managed to create a working hand rig so I decided to use it after all).

Not using bones might not suit your purposes, but what I actually mean to say is that there are alternatives, and even if you need to use bones, forget SIK and all those fancy techniques whenever you can, at least at first.

That's just IMHO, of course, but then, I am just a newbie hobbyist.
:p

Pate

[LucentDreams]

OYu don't need bones for SIK either, a lot of people don't know that. It usualy can make it easier though.

Myself, I'm not using SIK a lot weither, simple reason being, I want firmer rigs, I I wanted to let the computer do my overlapping actino I'll let it by using SIK, but coming form a classical background, I usually want control over how everything overlaps and folows through. I'm a pose to pose kind of guy. For me, a rig should allow me to pose the character easier, ifnot I"d stick to complete FK, since FK works, its just time consuming.

[xsculpt]

Kai,

I didn't take your post personally. I have no problem saying that I've rigged only 3 characters. All three of them were in Mirai. I've switched to cinema because the mirai documentation was non existent. I also switched because:
1. I really want to rig characters and make them fly.
2. I hoped cinema would have an ease of use
3. Cinema has a larger user community.
4. Maya is way to big/deep for what I want to do.

Looking at the link http://129.125.101.174/dark%20project/cinemalinks.asp?ID=11 I notice that others find this difficult too. And difficult in cinema. I still wonder:

what is an operative philosophy of rigging? Rather than memorize how's its done, how can one come to an operative understanding about how to make a rig work?

respectfully,
michael rees

[LucentDreams]

Non existent? Check pages 205 - 338, which is chapters 8 through chapter 11. Theres a lot in there about riggings and skinning. Mirai is of a very different practice though.

Uhm operative philosophy... I guess, learn how the body moves and bends, Keep It Simple Silly, Limit what can and needs to be controlled by the anmator, organise and colour code and iconize your rig, meaning, make it clean, use colours to represent certain modes or areas or circumstances, anduse icons for quick un informed recognition.

But for the most part its sort of a learn and adapt thing. I dod memorize how others do things, then when I"m doing it for myself, I use what I"ve learned and what I need and then adapt.

And if you think myay is complex, then your in for one, the rigs I'm building I still can build faster in maya, and I barely know maya.

[fxgogo]

When I first bought Animation Master to do character animation, I was overwelmed by all the stuff I had to learn in the world of character animation. But over time I came to understand the concepts, and I must say I have loads more to learn. I would not stress if everything is not making sense now, it will over time. I can suggest a resource that will help you with rigging concepts.

http://www.hash.com/sherwood/index.asp

This is a great site for the Animation Master community, but will aid you in C4D none the less. AM is a great character animation package and is advanced in its concepts of charater animation. Look on the left and there will be a categories list. Look under constraints. The articles by Raf Anzovin are particularly good and talk about the basic concepts.

Hope that helps.

[xsculpt]

you're right about the mirai documentation. I guess, i meant that it was difficult for me to adapt to my purposes and seemed way too complex.

Are you a mirai user? Love that program!!

Thanks for your posts.

michael rees

[PJC]

Originally posted by Kaiskai
I"ll try to be as unoffensive as possible with this post, but reading hwat you guys are saying, have you ever rigged in any app before? doesn't sound like it to me, except perhaps MB. I mean these are common terms and rigging methods, though the SIK does change things a little since targets dont' exactly target perfectly, they follow behind, giving the soft smooth effect.


As an experienced rigger in multiple programs (LW, AM, Maya, Max and C4D), I feel Mocca is a good step in the right direction, but isnt' quite there yet.

Forget Maya, SI, LW...try to emulate Hash's Animation:Master for your character tools. They are the best, bar none. Combine that with the power and stability (something AM is getting better at) of C4D and the best raytracer I've found out of the box and you'd have something!

- pjc

[flingster]

this thread is really useful and has links and discussion about rigging in general.
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60325

[cafe]

Yes what is SIK? Also can anyone explain or direct me to learn what and how to use Claude Bonet.I did the mime still dont know.I can believe that a program like C4D doesnt support training materials that are to the point.What a shame.

I too am obssessed with rigging.have had the program for almost a year still havent figured it out.Doesnt anyone want to make some money.id pay as much as a hundred bucs to have a good tutorial on cd explaining the rigging processs and making the C4D model walk.Guess nobody cares.And whats with the books / Only one stupid boon for cinema 4d 8.

[jabbermacy]

Godalmighty. Is this thread timely :)

How the h-e-double-toothpicks can you make painting CB maps easier? It takes FOREVER on a complex model and is darned innacurate!! I spent a lot of time and got really crappy results. What's the secret????

From what I WAS able to do, I had a lot of the mesh 'breaking' at the end of the CB map. Should I just 'paint more mesh'?

FWIW, I'm considering MotionBuilder, but if you can't get a good, working rig in C4D, it's useless.

I'd give easily a hundred bucks for a good, complete, easy to adjust to fit DIFFERENT bipeds in a heartbeat....

CA is real beaotch to learn - here I thought I was a '3D dude' and I figure out I'm just a 'poser' ;)

[Siddhy]

oh yes my favorite. i have books, a dvd, manuals and stuff. none of them cares to describe the process of painting weights thoroughly. i was thinking, ok siddhy is stupid, painting is easy. live with it. maybe its just my weird head that refuses to get the idea of the right weightmaps or i don't know.
my problems are not the technique, although cb could be more precise, but the overall idea.

- When I paint 70% on bone1 and the same part of the mesh with 30% on bone2, is this particular part influenced 70% by bone1 and 30% by bone2? if so what happens to the bone2 map if i use the cb with 30% in Add-Mode on Bone1? is it affected in some way to keep the 100% max?

- Or what happens if both bones are set to 100% weight in the same place?

- When do i paint more then one bone and when only the actual bone?

- Why does an unpainted bone influence random parts of the mesh? I would understand if he would influence all not weighted parts.

//siddhy

[jabbermacy]

Jeez, I feel like I'm in AA. "Hi, my name's Jeff and I have a problem painting weights' (audience) HI, JEFF! WELCOME!!

Seriously, if I'm not the only one going nuts here, could somebody please enlighten me per me last post on this thread.

I'd give my left you-know-what for a (good) TUT on good ole Claude.... it ain't just 'click 'n' paint' so don't go there.

[cafe]

Thats the problem Maxon doesnt care about its buyers.They have outdated tuts on the site and really nothing important as far as rigging. And i take exemption with KAISKAI please forgive me , but no some of us have not rigged in another app.or any app for that matter. thats why we bought the package so we could learn because we love 3d. however it should be a matter of pure conscience KAISKAI to edify those who come to a community like this to learn. Why else would we be here? I sent out for the damned maxon DVD character 01 and they tell me its discontinued. Its like screw us. For some reason if its not draining people for every drop in the bucket training material that costs hundredes then its no training at all. I would emphasize and email German maxon(forget about U.S. only out for money), and tell them that there is a need.I have scanned the web. only place might find a good tut is at the French Cinema 4d site.Do a google search.In french im in the process of deciphering what the tut says. Cant anyone write a tut including the concepts of "rigging"(vertex,claude bonet,etc.). Doesnt have to be elaborate. Could be a simple figure for sakes.

[sanciok]

Well... i am NOT a professional animator...and probably i'll never will... but i love Rigging... and... belive me rigging in C4D IS possible.

I agree with Kai... the SoftIK is a very powerful tool and even if i prefer (in some case) the old Hard IK, i use it very often.

Actually i have rigged in Maya... i was able to do almost everithing i did in Maya, in C4D.
Actually now i know better how to rig in C4D.
C4D users miss some tools but i don't think we can't live without.
Actually my advice is to download the MOCCA rig from Maxon's Site and study it.
That is a good rig!

Rigging IS something "Difficult"... This is why CAT, MB, Character Studio and similar tools exist. Everything is "redy to use". Of course All those pachages give you a lot of fantastic features, but in most of the cases a good old rig, with a good use of expression... and a bit of time will work as well.

Cheers

Sanciok

[cafe]

Would you have a link.i cant find that rig at maxon? peace.

[sanciok]

http://www.plugincafe.com/cafedownloads/MoccaRig.zip

Here it is!!

Cheers,

Sanciok

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

Originally posted by sanciok
Rigging IS something "Difficult"... This is why CAT, MB, Character Studio and similar tools exist. Everything is "redy to use". Of course All those pachages give you a lot of fantastic features, but in most of the cases a good old rig, with a good use of expression... and a bit of time will work as well.

I agree. Most of the "ready to use" tools of other packages can be recreated with expressions in C4D, although, it's not an easy task that one could figure out in a couple of minutes. But, with a lot of patience and experimentation, good working rigs can be created in C4D (with or without Mocca).

Adios,
Cactus Dan

[srt]

i found this helpful...

http://www.jam-digital.com/cow_challenges/challenge_1/rigging_the_mime.htm

there are many many resources out there. i am in the exteme early stages of learning myself. it is often frustrating but i keep at it and figure out more and more each time i play with the tools. i find i learn just as much when things dont work as when they do. it's the sort of thing you have to learn by doing.

steve

[glorydays]

that rig from maxon is pretty nice.

Kaiskai- Do you think you could give some more specifics about your cd. What does it cover? how much is it gonna cost? i'm really intrested

thanks;)

[cafe]

Hey kaiskai spill it out.When is your Cd available. I got my wallet open and card ready.But i hope its explanatory, and includes the subjct herein mentioned. I just spent near a thousand dollars only to get a refund.bought messiah , but it was nowhere as stabele as C4D.kept crashing and generally drove me nuts. Then I ordred the Cosman cds still have to listen, but i wont have the program , but thats ok. The Cosman cds are just some video on a cd , but very well done. The man takes his time and doesnt screw the student.Doesnt try to be mystical.To the point with no assumption.And a nice voice to boot.But it seems program specific. So kaiskai tell me about this cd.Ive invested many hours in this program , and gotten nowhere.

[cafe]

If you can manage to translate these pdf files into english(on it), then they appear to be very informative and non illusive/deceptive. And in pdf with color. "Vive La France"!



http://frenchcinema4d.com/index.php?p=tutorial&d=

[LucentDreams]

whoa, guys, This thread is super ancient, My posts were made like 9 months ago. That CD has been totaly put on hold till R9, I had Taled to Klaus about integrating Bonderland into the video since I started using it, but well thats an awkward situation at the moment. Sketch and tooon CD took total priority and we'll see that very soon including a free video or two popping up on a few sites in the next few week like renderfix.com and such.

[glorydays]

hehehhe Just kidding!!! wow i feel stupid but hey i look forward to a rigging cd with v9 then heheheh :D

[cafe]

Hey I have version 8. What can i get or do? And I dont intend to get any upgrades.I wish to work with what i have.At some point the wallet must close.

[cafe]

Kaiskai- Do you think you could give some more specifics about your cd. What does it cover? how much is it gonna cost? i'm really intrested

[cafe]

Ok ! No answer-forget rigging.Can someone explain how to use the claude bonet tool? What is constraint and falloff/ What and how might this tool be used?Surely this can be answered since rigging( what C4d is supposed to do), seems to be so difficult to get a tutorial.

[srt]

Originally posted by srt
i found this helpful...

http://www.jam-digital.com/cow_challenges/challenge_1/rigging_the_mime.htm


cafe, did you look at this??

steve

[cafe]

Thanks SRT for the link i think that will help.

[cafe]

hey man im reading the section in the manual: 'Restricting bones using polygon selections or vertex maps".

And on page 330 they claim that the raddii overlap on the two legs so they go for polygon selection only then they say keep the raddi.I dont get ti at all.Feel free to ignore this post.

""This means that we still need to use limited raddii(see above) to further restrict each boe...". pg 330


First they say the raddi are overlapping then they say keep the raddi????????

[srt]

Originally posted by cafe
hey man im reading the section in the manual: 'Restricting bones using polygon selections or vertex maps".

And on page 330 they claim that the raddii overlap on the two legs so they go for polygon selection only then they say keep the raddi.I dont get ti at all.Feel free to ignore this post.

""This means that we still need to use limited raddii(see above) to further restrict each boe...". pg 330


First they say the raddi are overlapping then they say keep the raddi????????

sorry, i am not going to be any help on this. i have been using claude bonet exclusively on all my experimentation so far. i have not tried any vertex maps at all. i would have to re-read that section of the manual again to see if i understand what they mean. i am sure someone else can be more help here.

i have yet to fully rig a model :shrug:

steve

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by cafe
Ok ! No answer-forget rigging.Can someone explain how to use the claude bonet tool? What is constraint and falloff/ What and how might this tool be used?Surely this can be answered since rigging( what C4d is supposed to do), seems to be so difficult to get a tutorial.

Okay seriously reading this makes me wonder if you done any research at all regarding rigging in general let alone with cinema, and how much you have gone through the manuals


Page 25 in the mocca manual, and pages 330, 442 of the R8 manual should help.

And for those with 8.5 and mocca, take note of pages 16 and 61 of the 8.5 addendum

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by cafe
hey man im reading the section in the manual: 'Restricting bones using polygon selections or vertex maps".

And on page 330 they claim that the raddii overlap on the two legs so they go for polygon selection only then they say keep the raddi.I dont get ti at all.Feel free to ignore this post.

""This means that we still need to use limited raddii(see above) to further restrict each boe...". pg 330


First they say the raddi are overlapping then they say keep the raddi????????


Ignore that crud anyways, don't bother with the limit radius, don't use those they'll cause more confusion then they will help IMO

Use the pages I recommended dealig with vertex maps and claudebonet.

[cafe]

Well thanks.I appreciate your help.

[cafe]

Wo! kaiskai thanks a million. i duno , but It works now.i painted the influence on the bones and they seem to work right.man i can hardly believe it. i guess what im suppose to get from this is that the claude bonet paint brush is just so bone are restricted to deform that part of the mesh one wants deformed.Is that its limits.or are there any other uses.Well thanks again great help.I had read that part before , but it had not worked.i guess one has to reread stuff before it comes together.

Thanks. i still want a geat comprehensive rigging tut.

[cafe]

Now that i understand claude bonet a bit. What if one want to restrict say a hand bone so that it only rotates and bends a certain number of degrees?

[LucentDreams]

your talking about two types of restrictions. One (CB) is restricting mesh to the bone, the other, is rotational limits, you need to use epxressions to do this, either with xpresso or using the various tags available.

[Siddhy]

its not that painting cb-maps isn't covered. its a big difference between just painting cb on a mesh and doing it right. take a shoulder. how is it possible to do this right without having the ability to get the amount of weighting from a specific point? studying other rigs is just not possible concerning those rather random color fallofs.

[LucentDreams]

hmm I have no troble, be careful in how you paint and you shouldn't have all sorts of random colour falloffs.

One note, using absolute vertex maps in 8.5 will make painting CB maps a lot easier too.

[InTheCity]

Get my problem.

The solution is sat in front of me. The Character DVD, especially for Cinema 4D. Except it's for PAL and not NTSC... AHHHHHH!

I know if I sit through that I'd be up and rigging in no time at all.

Intersting thread btw.

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by InTheCity
Get my problem.

The solution is sat in front of me. The Character DVD, especially for Cinema 4D. Except it's for PAL and not NTSC... AHHHHHH!

I know if I sit through that I'd be up and rigging in no time at all.

Intersting thread btw.

if you havea DVD rom it should play fine on your PC.

[cafe]

look i want that DVD.I ordered it from some twit site and they call me tellin me its discontinued.That sucs.One damned DVD for C4D is that all? Rhetoric question.And the Book Cinema 4d r8 handbokk has ver bad reviews.I just dont get it.There are some great books specifically on rigging, but of course.Their in german by Chris Debski, and Sven hauth.

[LucentDreams]

so buy the fast rigging for maya DVD, thats where I learned a lot and I recommend it to anyone.

Your problem is the short sightedness of only wanting a C4D specific DVD. While I agree it'd be nice to have, unless someone can pay my living expenses so I don't have to work while I make CD's and DVD's I"d be glad to do it myself. they are a fair bit of work especially if you want to make good quality ones, most the ones I've seen are horribly done, bad audio harsh video compression making things blurry hard to read or see. And a book weel a books even harder to make imo.

as for that rigging CD have you talked to maxon about buying it, I know they were selling it as well.

Until I get a decent business loan or grant, I'm stuck producing at the slow rate i am because I'm barely making it as it is.

But its a fine thing to sit here and complain about the fact that others aren't sharing their knowledge, even for a commercial profit.

[cafe]

Uh! Well I did get some rigging cds from Joe Cosman.And yes i am complainingIim not complaining of anyone here this is a great site and i appreciate everyone, but im complaining about the lack of training materials related to Maxon.just voicing an opinion.no one is obliged to agree. im indirectly asking for help thats all.its a community and i like sharing my thought with others. you have to understand that when you say shortsitedness your refferring to people with a limited experience in 3D thus of course we may have shortsightedness.thats why we look to others for illucidation.Please bear with a noob.its not easy being a noob.my intentions are good.Please dont hild that against me ok.By the way thanks to you Kaiskai i was able to make some progress with Claude bonet. Sometimes what may seem obvious to one is a total mystery to another.

[nhytro]

You dont have to apologize for being a noob or asking questions Cafe. In fact, the only dumb question asked is the one that was not asked.

I understand yopur point of view to an extent, and if you are talking about the first char animation DVD from maxon, I would say you are lucky that its not being sold anymore. It was a waste, IMHO, of money. You would not learn anything much or advanced from it. I would suggest that u should get a book like George Maestris Book-George Maestr (http://www.fetchbook.info/search_George_Maestri/searchBy_Author.html) It is non software specific. . You could also try the net, but it is hard to find tutorials that are non software specific



Originally posted by cafe
Uh! Well I did get some rigging cds from Joe Cosman.And yes i am complainingIim not complaining of anyone here this is a great site and i appreciate everyone, but im complaining about the lack of training materials related to Maxon.just voicing an opinion.no one is obliged to agree. im indirectly asking for help thats all.its a community and i like sharing my thought with others. you have to understand that when you say shortsitedness your refferring to people with a limited experience in 3D thus of course we may have shortsightedness.thats why we look to others for illucidation.Please bear with a noob.its not easy being a noob.my intentions are good.Please dont hild that against me ok.By the way thanks to you Kaiskai i was able to make some progress with Claude bonet. Sometimes what may seem obvious to one is a total mystery to another.

[RorrKonn]

I don't have MOCCO,But if the directions for MOCCO our anything like the Directions for C4D Bones.
Ya need a how to book,Translator ,teacher and a few prayers to the 3D Gods wouldn't hurt either.
Man I am so tired of manuals that some third party that's never 3Ded Wrote.There a waist of paper.

RorrKonn
http://www.Atomic-3D.com

[cafe]

Agreed.Fortunately thing are coming together.Theres a nice leg rig tut in this thread.

[jabbermacy]

ts not that painting cb-maps isn't covered. its a big difference between just painting cb on a mesh and doing it right. take a shoulder. how is it possible to do this right without having the ability to get the amount of weighting from a specific point? studying other rigs is just not possible concerning those rather random color fallofs.

THIS IS WHAT I'M TRYING TO CONVEY.

There is NO good, complete tutorials on CB maps! And I'm not talking about a 50 poly mime leg ;) They are nowhere NEAR as 'easy' as it seems. The painting tool is woefully inadequate, IMHO. Is there a way to restrict the area that CAN be painted somehow?? (probably not). 9/10 times you try to paint and end up getting just a little on some other part of the mesh making thinks go wacky. I have a 'T' stance character and can't get the G.D. leg maps correct because 1) zoomed out to the point where you can paint quicky easily results in painting undesired parts of the mesh or 2) takes bloody ages to paint the whole leg zoomed to the point where you're SURE you aren't splotching paint elsewhere on the model.

Since this thread exploded in the last 24 hours, I take it I'm not alone.

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by RorrKonn
I don't have MOCCO,But if the directions for MOCCO our anything like the Directions for C4D Bones.
Ya need a how to book,Translator ,teacher and a few prayers to the 3D Gods wouldn't hurt either.
Man I am so tired of manuals that some third party that's never 3Ded Wrote.There a waist of paper.

RorrKonn
http://www.Atomic-3D.com

Maxons manuals are written by maxon not a third party.

But seriously, cafe makes an interesting comment imo, I halped him out with Claude Bonet, but what did I say other then what pages of the manuals to look at?


as for the comments about CB, I"m quite surprised by them myself, CB has made painting the mesh a lot easier for me, but this propelm with control and innaccuracy, how are you painting, just taking made strokes at it, or finding the most adequate angle to paint for each individual bone or section.

But seriously if its that hard to control why aren't you using vertex maps? doesn't get any more accurate then vertex maps, you paint them with a set strength or add or subtract from that set strength, use the structure manager to check the value of each point etc.

[cafe]

Hey thanks. Man I hope im not a burden.Obviously one has to read the rather voluminous manual entirely. But i like to do stuff as i go along following the manual. As you know there are countless gaps in explanation in the manual.And i dare say I hope Im not judged for going ahead and asking questions on areas i have not read yet.Sometimes i find that asking a question realated to areas that are mentioned in the book yields countless angles of opinion. Thus for example, my next question would be on a general synopsis of vertex mapping as compared to the CB tool. now i looked at the mocca manual pdf and it does say that one has to increase the subdivisions at joints to be deformed so as to have a smooth deformation -with the knife tool, and it mentions edge loops.

well assuming the knife tool works only on areas one can see, how is one able to increase to poly count in isolated areas of an already dense mesh like say in the shoulder area for example or is the a way to subdivide the mesh in certain areas only.i have zbrush and that program i believe has a function where you apply a mask and subdivide in that area. is therer a function like that in C4D?

Also the reason that having read the book clarified the issue of CB for me was not that i had not read that section, but that after much concentration in an effort to retrieve answers from all of you-the mind suddenly is capable of interpreting the data in the book in more unique way. more elaborate ways if you will. Its not simply reading the manual that helps one to undestand, but also writing questions and discussing the issue. For these activities accentuate the ability to digest information. As one might expect different minds learn in different ways.i learn not simply by reading, but by interacting through the medium of discussion. it has been said by many writers that writing is a way of learning.Thus i am writing.

Again the issue of subdivision of isolated areas on a mesh rises.

[Siddhy]

well most of the new cb painters are newbies. may sound strange to experienced users, but there are guys (like me) who started to learn with r8 and therefore begin with mocca (if you own the module, but as it is in students edition its very likely for newbies to have it. again - like me). mocca is advertised to be easy and fast to learn. thats why people start to use it.

there are numerous people complaining about mocca in germany and all i hear or read is its easy or why don't you use vmaps. a manual must not consider everyone to be a updater or a switcher or something.
right now i start to get the idea of correct maps, but as long as they are just "easy" you can't expect noobs to immediately paint the perfect map.
i mean what else can you do than rtfm? and i'm sure that the mocca manual is not the best out of the c4d manuals. they may be greater than other apps manuals but there's no doubt that many people run into probs with mocca. and that is _not_ necessarily only linked to the CA as a hard task for itself.

i know that newbies keep asking stupid questions, that is discussed in another thread pretty good, but if you don't know what to ask you break your arguments down to "how do i..."

cheers siddhy

[cafe]

By the way the Mocca manual is pretty much a joke. i have it on PDF and it give a cursory explanation of stuff.For example if you use the search utility on the pdf for say vertex map you get one find-the actual term and not much more.I know, I know we should already know what a vertex map is. its like my brother siqad to me, "so why do you want to buy a guitar you dont know how to play"? Well if I dont get a guitar I never will.HEHEHEHEH!

[cafe]

Even a noob can give ya an answer. I noticed that my CB mapping was not working right when bending at the shoulder for example.So after searching for the illusice subdivision tool which was supposed to smooth the area of the bend. I realized that its the hypernurbs.So i just thru my mesh in there and presto a smooth deformation.much smoother in comparison to no hypernurbs. Although a significant slowing , but manageable.peace.

[bugzilla]

Originally posted by Pate
Anyways, I then decided to avoid bones as much as possible (gotta hate them bones), and finally figured out that you don't actually need bones (not to mention soft IK) most of the time.

Not using bones might not suit your purposes, but what I actually mean to say is that there are alternatives, and even if you need to use bones, forget SIK and all those fancy techniques whenever you can, at least at first.

Pate [/B]

Could you tell me what character animation techniques you use that don't involve bones? I'm dying to know. The astronaut animation you did uses this boneless technique?

[bugzilla]

Originally posted by Pate
Anyways, I then decided to avoid bones as much as possible (gotta hate them bones), and finally figured out that you don't actually need bones (not to mention soft IK) most of the time.

Not using bones might not suit your purposes, but what I actually mean to say is that there are alternatives, and even if you need to use bones, forget SIK and all those fancy techniques whenever you can, at least at first.

Pate [/B]

Could you tell me what character animation techniques you use that don't involve bones? I'm dying to know. The astronaut animation you did uses this boneless technique?

[cafe]

How is it possible whithout bones???? Unless somehow the limbs are seperate and are cleverly joined so as not to notice the seams.

[LucentDreams]

well not all meshes are single solid meshes guys. A robot or an astronaut (de[ending on the suit design) have no need for bones. honestly Bones are mainly designed for influencing sectons of a single mesh, if a mesh is in parts one can aply IK directly to the objects rather then bones.

[Siddhy]

I don't know why, but most people seem to think a bone is more like a human bone. But it is a deformer, a special one of course, but still "just" a deformer. If there is nothing to be deformed there is no use for a bone, isn't it? :)

[cafe]

I can envision some nice models with seperate parts.The Zygote guy in C4D is a bit strange in that if you bend him at the hip theres a strange component sticks out from his butt area. Would be nice to see some examples of high quality seperate limbed characters in animations.Guess i could try making one or two(thinking out loud again).Would probably save alot of computing time.

i guess one could make a character thats a combo of both. hey kaiskai i just want to say thanks again.if it wasnt for my discussion with you id never have figured out CB.man that still is one powerfull tool.Although i wish i had a conceptual understanding of vertex mapping as compared to CB. And what is an edge loop???? They mention edge loop in the manual as if Im very familiar with it. Man im on my way. i mean i took this dead model and with CB was able to bring some fluid movements to it.YAY!:bounce:

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by cafe
And what is an edge loop???? They mention edge loop in the manual as if Im very familiar with it.
Well I think this is an example of where taking baby steps in learning 3d is a good thing. Good edgeloops lead to a good animatable mesh. IMO one shouldn't be rregging till one understands the concepts nad ideas behind this stuff.

Last thing we need is another "Monster by mistake" carton where they do know how to put bones in a mesh, but the modelers had no clue how to make a mesh for animation, add to that sloppy rigging and you have one horrible animation even though the animators could have had potential themselves.

These comments about rigging documentation and such not being noob friendly, all honesty, I t was hard for me to start learning after two years of doing 3d, and to be completely brutally honest, I didn't seriously get far into rigging until about a year and a half or two years ago.

Not saying one can't do it faster, but only way I see one doing it faster is in a school.

[Siddhy]

Well for me i spent a whole year on learning to model. I'm familiar with edgeloops and the principles of keeping your mesh clean for animation. MeshSurgery was a major help getting this to work. I even know what a hypernurbs is :cool: :p

So i am still a beginner when it comes to rigging. Just because i don't want another stupid monster cartoon i try to get it completely. But where shall i begin if i can't get the info on how exactly vmaps and cb work. Maybe i'm too curious but there are many unanswered questions which keep getting ignored.

[cafe]

Precisely what im avoiding. I find that school here in the states(been around the world), is so aimed at extracting ones bills that it is hardly worth it. I mean train yourself and skip the middle man. Almost every one I know with a PHD or masters is asking "WO! What was the purpose of all that studying and loans if I dont even have a JOB". Yes my friends. Sadly In many cases the time put into school here is not proportional to the compensation. One is lucky to have a job these days.

[cafe]

Say! Whats an edge loop? Also Siddhy in reference to what you where saying that CB isnt accurate at times in a smooth deformation. Did you consider hypernurbs then deform.just a thought.

[Siddhy]

An edge loop is an loop of edges. Trust me :)
Its a basic principle for getting a "flow" in a mesh for smooth deformations. You will find bazillions of threads and google hits for this. Please care to read this because otherwise this thread will be going bad because people start complaining.
A Hypernurbs is some kind of subdivision surface. You don't weight the subdivisions. Again this is a very basic term, although cinema4d only. Its explained very good in the manual.
Thanks for trying to help me by pointing that out an please don't feel offended but i think we should stick to mocca things in this thread and only ask when we're really at a loss. I hate rtfm, too but there's no way around it.

[LucentDreams]

My comments were more aimed towards cafe's comment.

okay, you have a mesh, and you have a skeleton. Problem is the computer has no clue how the bones should affect the mesh. Does the arm bone move the points on the leg. one actually needs to connect the two. The best way to do this is a process known as skinning since your connecting the skeleton to its skin, this involve creating a map of the influence on each vertex or point of your mesh, known as a vertex map. Once creates a value on a per vertex basis of how that point should be controlled. There are two kinds of vertex maps in cinema 4D is one has mocca installed. There is the Vertex map, and the Claude bonet map, they are relatively the same thing in function, but in how they are painted and setup they very quite a bit.

A vertex mpa can be created and changed in two main ways, either selecting points and then going to the selection menu as setting vertex map, the other way is to enable vertex painting in the freehand selection tool. You can specify the weight using the slider, and then paint away. One needs to paint a seperate vertex map for each individual bone they'd like to attatch to the mesh. Each vertex map is stored in a seprate tag which needs to be named. You then attatch the vertex maps to the bones using a restriction tag applied to each individual bone, the spelling must be the exact same including case sensitive characters.

CB or Claude bonet maps are in fact easier though they seem more difficult to a lot of people. Fistofall there are no tags to deal with, no vertex maps tags or restriction tags, no worrying about naming and retyping all those names properly. IMO this makes life easier, but a lot of people have trouble with painting itself. You simply select the bone you wish toe "connect" to your skin, then paint on the skin. Paint carefullly though, zoom in close on the area your painting, stroke carefully not all crazy. Be careful and take your time.

Does this help at all.

[cafe]

NP MOCCA got cha. Well! Can you tell me something that i think is related to MOCCA.? Can you give me a conceptual interpretation of what vertex mapping is compared to say CB?That should put me to rest literrally. Think my teeth are falling out from yappin so much.

[LucentDreams]

did you read the post at all?

[cafe]

Thanks again kaiskai! Ill stick with CB. Become a CB expert.HEHEE! Wow that really helped.like my brain is burping.Thats very good.Kinda eases the cranium a bit not to worry about vetex mappin. Narrowing it down.

[cafe]

Last question and i must nap.As you can see im determined.
Is it possible to subdivide only isolated areas on a mesh.I mean pick a spot on the mesh and have it subdivide/ instead of the whole mesh,i.e. on a unified model?

[Siddhy]

hmm, thanks kaiskai. but you are right, what you wrote is covered in the manual. what is not covered is what you describe with "trouble painting". i would say approx. 80% is related to not caring to read what Force Strength and Paint Absolute means, but I'm the lucky guy who is in the 20% left. My Probs arise from not knowing how a overlapping cb map behaves or should behave. Not knowing how to blend them correctly and such stuff. Is this a trial and error thing or is it possible to learn it? Studying cb-painted meshes does not really help because the colors are very unclear imho.

[LucentDreams]

well what your getting involved in there siddhy is a lot of preference stuff, I perosnally odn't blend much, I keep my skins pretty hard, its true you can get nice deformations with goood blending, but coming from mirai I"ve just built a habit of trying to get the mesh to be built as ideally as possible so it should deform well without complex blending. And then I hope that C4D will get a real morphing system thats not a system killer and so many steps to use, to create states for my deformations. Not easily done in Cinema yet, but I can do it easily in maya and its how mirai was designed.

[Siddhy]

ah, i see. thanks again.
so if i model a clean and suitable topology with an eye on deformation i can avoid having a need for extensive blending. thats very cool and i think i'll head this way. its like building a house on a solid rock, me thinks. i'm pretty sure that those morphing features are implemented when i'm used to rigging :)

cheers siddhy

[Pate]

Originally posted by cafe
I can envision some nice models with seperate parts.The Zygote guy in C4D is a bit strange in that if you bend him at the hip theres a strange component sticks out from his butt area. Would be nice to see some examples of high quality seperate limbed characters in animations.Guess i could try making one or two(thinking out loud again).Would probably save alot of computing time.

i guess one could make a character thats a combo of both.


Sorry for jumping on this discussion so late...

Anyways, I originally tried to use bones for the limbs of my character, but got frustrated and began looking for alternatives. Eventually I used separate parts with some help from FFDs. You can see the result on my SnowFall pages, for example check out the "Pilot animation test" (lower left corner) on the Test Renders page:

http://snowfall.patrickaalto.com/SFtests.html

Also, there are some short character animation clips in the teaser animation:

http://snowfall.patrickaalto.com/SFDL.html

I used bones for the fingers, but everything from the wrist up is done with separate objects. I found that much easier to control, and it also works with the space suit joints much better than bones would have.

Pate

[jabbermacy]

Here's an imported MB character.

http://home.comcast.net/~jeffrey.binns/cb4-01.jpg

How can you get GOOD falloff between bones like this with the existing CB paint tool?

How are the different CB maps different colors?

There's no mesh tearing or other issues. Is it too much to ask for HOW to rig a complex model? Is it beyond the ability of the Mocca CB paint tool?

Even the pre-rigged Otto model that somebody uploaded has SERIOUS tearing issues....

[LucentDreams]

each bone has its own CB map, each CB map automatically takes on a new colour so you can see the seperation between them.

As for serious tearing, half the files I've seen with tearing is simply because of the wrong heirarchy when using HYpernurbs. Lots of people have talked to me on msn about their model tearing and I simply rearrange their heirarchy and it works, everyone seems to want to deform the Hypernurb mesh for some reason.

As for blending, well you paint the main area of the map, then decrease the pressure and start blending further into the other maps. Its easier to calculate how far to blen id if you have good edge loops as you can maybe blend in three loops, so the first loop would only be 75%, then 50%, then 25% Nice even blend Or 80%, 50%, 10% for a eased falloff. But paint all the main areas of each map first, then blend.

[jabbermacy]

Thanks. I'm going to try it out with 'banding' to see if it saves some time....

[Siddhy]

oh i have a question on this, too. how is this evaluated by c4d? is this the correct hierarchy?

HN
|-Null
__|+Mesh
__|+Bones

or

HN
|-Null
__|+Bones
__|+Mesh

'_' should be spaces

I've seen both ways in example files, but i can't tell when the HN'd-mesh is deformed and when the mesh is deformed. The Null is because i read that bones should be on the same level as the mesh or the null containing the mesh parts.

cheers siddhy

[LucentDreams]

both are correct, switching it so mesh is above or below doesn't make a difference as they are still on the same level of the heirarchy, the key thing is that you have a null in th HN with the mesh and bones, too many people simply have an HN with the mesh and bones and the problem iwht that is the subdivided points won't be deformed so all the subdivided points get left behind crating tonnes of tears.

[Siddhy]

so the same level is the key.
thx kai. again and again :)

[jabbermacy]

FINALLY! I got pretty decent results with the 'banding' technique!!! Paint 100% in the major areas, zoom in, and progressively decrease influence as you get into and slightly past the natural joint. Many thanks to all who read my posts and think 'dumba$$, just do it again and this time TRY' ;)

I'M TRYING!!

Cheers,

[jabbermacy]

Another good tip as I learn:

Paint the bones as you think looks OK, (and here's the interesting part), ROTATE one of the bones and observe the deformation at the joint (and elsewhere). Just add/remove and add/subtract to the maps as you go!! Believe me, this is a pretty efficient way to do it and I don't think this is common knowledge by a long shot.

[acmepixel]

Originally posted by jabbermacy
Another good tip as I learn:

Paint the bones as you think looks OK, (and here's the interesting part), ROTATE one of the bones and observe the deformation at the joint (and elsewhere). Just add/remove and add/subtract to the maps as you go!! Believe me, this is a pretty efficient way to do it and I don't think this is common knowledge by a long shot.

That IS a good tip. Thanks.

This may have been mentioned before, but Idea-graphics sells an invaluable plugin called Tag-manager, which has a vertex map/claudbonet map smoothing function with a curve editor graph.

Also, the Bonderland Beta (now, on hold because of the tragic loss of Karl K) has a "Leak map" function for tracking down leaks in the maps.

[Siddhy]

hmm, i just deactivate the other bones so only my selected bone is deforming and i can easy test it. for observations on the map theres an option in cb to show only the selected bone.

[cafe]

Excuse me gentlemen.might i humbly ask for opinions on what banding , and edge loop serve, and how they are made.
Also, Pate that art is wonderfull.I wonder how you did the control panels they look so involved. Thanks kaiskai. So i should have a null object under the hypernurbs with the mesh and bones in that.ok. Thanks all.Seeing that art by pate is very inspiring.

[LucentDreams]

You do have ato do a little seraching man. Edgeloops ae coevered all over the place. Basic explanation is in terms of character modeling is a selection of edges that create a loop following the paths of the human muscles. It simple modeling terms its exactly what its called, its a clean loop consiting of edges. If one can get the edges to follow the proper anatomy of actual muscles, the mesh almost naturally deforms as the real body does..

[cafe]

ok! Thanks kaiskai.:beer: :wavey: :eek:

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