Rigging at Straight Angle

Hey, everyone. I've scoured Google looking for a result for this. I'm working on a custom blocky rig, and I've come across a problem when rigging the arms and legs.

This is what happens when I bend the arm at 90 degrees:


What I want to happen is something like this:



And for every angle I want, for it to be not curved, but instead at a diagonal angle, like this:



I hope that's not too confusing. I found somethings about "CV Hardness", but I haven't been able to use it with the joints, so I don't think that can help.

Please help! I've been trying to figure this out for days.

What you want are corrective blendshapes, or a pose-space deformer. Skinning unfortunately isn't enough, on its own.

I found a good tutorial on blendshapes, but when I select the arms and go to create Blend shapes, an error pops up, saying: "No Deformable Objects Selected."

linear skinning can't do this due to it's nature. You can compensate some of it with dual quaternion (or dq blended) mode, but I don't like DQ due to it's other problems (like, scaling issues).

For simple bends like elbows and knees, corrective blendshapes really is the way to go. You can also go for corrective joints, e.g. scaling at the elbow proportionally to bend angle.

You'll want to select your corrected shape first, then shift select the target object you want the blend shape applied to.

On another note skinning from joints in most cases are just rotations from a pivot point. Any more than that and you'll have to guide maya with either corrective shapes (which has already been mentioned above) or helper joints.

A good example of the effect you are after can be found in Disney's Wreck it Ralph. If you watch Ralph's elbows, they're really pointy!

pointy pointy pointy

hey Victor, wud u recommend using Pose Space Deformation or Corrective Blendshapes... ?? yes, Corrective Blendshapes r faster but isn't PSD quite intuitive? even if at some later point of time, if we want to tweak our deformations, we can do it in the same pose... wat wud u suggest? this is quite cumbersome in case of corrective shapes... am I correct?

what do you mean? corrective shapes *is* PSD deformation... if done right.

ooopss.., wat i meant was using Michel Comet's PSD plugin, it's a great tool...

I still don't understand. Based on a tutorial I watched, this one, when I go to a blend shape and deform it, the other one should be deformed along with it, no matter what formation it is in.

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