Hey I loved the video BTW~
It was amazing.
I wish i could work with those guys.
elastigirl
bobzilla
#22
Actually, if anyone is using Cinema 4D and they have CD IK Tools, I believe there are settings for making bones stretchy.
I don’t have it in front of me right now so I don’t know if it’s in all the set ups or just the Spline IK set up.
BTW CD IK Tools…highly recommended!
Ithuriel
#23
Nice eek, looks good,
Im not to familiar with max, so im don’t really understand the pic you posted, im more familiar with maya.
I presume the blue lines are the IK handles and the green is the bone structure
with two sets one bendy.bones, ik.bones and i presume there is skinable.bones (constrained between both) in there somewhere.
and the bendy bones try to maintain a curvature but still have a expression that effects there scale??
As you can see above, still a little bit confused… but thats what im understanding here
Nice work thou eek, i know what im going to be playing around with tonight =)
Harvey
#25
Eek, thats very cool looking, couple of questions. How fast is it as far as animator interactivity? And can it handle more extreme deformations…things like wrapping around other objects, etc…?
I built a fully stretchable rig a few months back (not as extreme as Elasti Girl, but the limbs and torso could contort and stretch in pretty much anyway you wanted…but not into things like the parachute seen in the Increadibles). I would love to share some screen shots from the RnD phase but I will have to get clearence first due to NDA’s. The biggest issue for me was speed (I had to have huge number of bones do to the extreme actions it needed to perform). Strangely enough the biggest slowdown was from a series of nested position constraints that were put into the rig to aid the animators.
Anyway looking foward to seeing more of your rig…I will try to get permission to upload something.
eek
#26
Hey Harvey,
Well thats was just proof of concept.
Eek, thats very cool looking, couple of questions. How fast is it as far as animator interactivity? And can it handle more extreme deformations…things like wrapping around other objects, etc…?
Its pretty fast, theres a tiny slow down when you beginning moving things. Your exaclty right about the nested constraints, there the things that cause the slowdown. Thats why im gunna go to into expressions.(fry my head for a day or two).
I dont see why not for bending round corners, its just more of the same. Its making it fun for the animators thats the hard part -more controls more complex.
As for the parachute/boat stuff, there must be morphs going on in there. I watched the vid and the key is generally the stretch comes from extreme, it looks like the arm can stretch from the elbow to wrist, and shoulder to elbow - so basically a floating elbow. Now i dont know if the arm is fk or ik or both.
Its how you approach it eg. do you do a fk/ik rig with a stretch rig over the top? Thats how i would do it. But its a little more complex than that. e.g Does the fk follow the ik stretching? can the fk stretch. Does this break the laws or whats meant to happen? is it too complex for the animators?
Do you blend from fk to ik? What if ik’s stretched and you do a blend to it from fk? I think you keep fk/ik seperate and blend rig between the two that bends and stretches as generally elastigirl is acting with out stretching - only in extremes does she stretch plus when shes angry with mr incredible hehe. So its where you approach it from.
I’ll post some more Harvey hopefully over the weekend, more to come.
Hey I loved the video BTW~
It was amazing.
I wish i could work with those guys.
Its pretty complex a little overly, so im gunna trim it down.
Yeah, please explain the set-up when you get some time.
Yes, definately. The basic premise to most of my complex setups is a floating rig. But ill show you guys more soon.
eek
Edit:
More thinking… stick to rotation/transform rules. Fk joints should only be rotated. Ik joints are driven by position. Therefore the stretchyness should should come off the back end of the ik transform data, not fk. So the rig ill make will be a stretchy/bendy ik rig that can blend back and forth to fk. Performance would be fk/ik but stretchyness would come off ik but could blend back and forth for ik/fk. If that made any sence…(sorry its my brain talking)
Plus maybe a tweakable elbow wrist area for things like knots etc etc…
Also looking at the vid, it looks like there driving the arms with a morphjoint, basically a poly(with lots of sides), riged up to hinge but also stretch/bend/twist. This means they can use a clever skinning approach.
Harvey
#27
Eek you are sooo right about the hard part being making it fun and simple for the animators…and yet still maintain a complex system with lots of control.
As to the set-up I used its was basically a basic IK/FK arm rig with a third stretch rig that sat on top. The stretch rig is what actually did all of the deformation and would just blend into a constrained position on either the IK or FK rig. When constrainded it would simply follow the basic rig, but when unconstrained, it’s controls would be free to move around however you wished. Of course its controls have a series of things layered on top of them to assist the animators so things didn’t get “tangled” up.
I definately would like to revist it sometime to make some improvements…one being speed, and the second being ease of use for an animator (as I said I did have controls in there but I think it could be better). What I did like about it was that is really did have almost unlimited flexiblilty (limited only by the geometry itself).
eek
#28
Haha Harvey,
We think alike, thats exactly the setup ive done, and what ive read on Pixars set. Basically an IK/FK setup but with a curvy setup ontop.
One important thing here were trying to achieve is a goofy artistic stretch not reality. Its more contorsion than stretch. E.g an elastic band when stretched doesnt bend, round corners its sheers, so we want more artistic freedom.
Atm my rig is a bit slow, so i need to do a biggish re think, im gunna start writting a new expression system called “goof” this weekend. And if youd like to get together on this, you have my email and msn - be great to work together.
eek
seven6ty
#29
The basic premise to most of my complex setups is a floating rig
What do you mean by a “floating rig”? Like as in one that just has the geometry bound to it, but has it’s movement driven by other joint chains, that kind of a thing??
eek
#30
Umm kinda seventy,
“Floating rigs” are old old techniques in rigging as are “floating pivots” ; Floating rigs are rigs that in essence float on another rig, either by expressions or constraints etc etc. So with my stretchy setup i have a stretchy rig that “floats” on an ik setup controlled by constraints, expressions and all manner of things.
So as promised i worked on a faster setup over the weekend, and also managed to pick up some more info on elastigirl. There able to control the curve like the f-curve. So i decided to make the f-curve 3d!, this way theres still only 3 points on the curve but now you have the ability to control the tangents too. So you can make sharp 90 degree bends, or curly loop the loop, zig zag etc etc. (ah i love you max) The tangents are also controlled by constraints.
Pic:
Vid:
Theres lots more to do:
Stable twist
F.A.A.P deformer(flat as a pancake) -possibly using a patch model and driving the bezier handles between it and a flat surface.
eek
PEN
#31
Very nice eek. I have done some interesting setups like this as well. On application was actualy for a robot that has stretchy arms as well as defined joints. It all works fast but you are right that expressions where ever possible should be used.
Fabiomussarela
#33
Wooowww, very nice, I think I have understood 50% of the whole stuff!!
after trying a lot of things, I kind of get some stretchy bones, but how to control the bezier handle without getting in the subObject mode ???
In Maya you just select the bezier handle and create a cluster, but in 3dMax…???
The LinkedXform just grab the vertex but not the handle!!!
Is there a way to do that ???
Thanks a lot 
eek
#34
There is,
Im using a float point3 on the point, which basically exposes the handles, which then im driving with an expression.
eek
eek
#35
Im thinking of developing this system even further , i.e the entire body. After reading “the illusion of life” and taking a look at baloo the bear, its got some amazing squash and stretch, heads bending and squishing, and his entire body stretches. So im gunna develope a system that either completely works from scratch, or takes an existing skeleton and turns it into a stretch based/2d sytem.
it will control:
Bone stretchiness
its curviture
squashiness
more to come…
eek
Harvey
#36
Check out this thread and the 10second club if you haven’t seen it already Eek. Jason is doing some very cool rig stuff with 2d squash and stretch feel.
http://10secondclub.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=69&st=90
I haven’t had a chance but I have been meaning to make one in max myself.
eek
#37
Yep Jasons, rig is very clever, it seems as if the skin interpolation changes from a straight skin to bones and a curved between each joint. This and stretching is not too hard to replicate( i think), im gunna add the functionality of handles, so the animator can actually control and in essence draw the curve, for instance a character walking to running, i’ll have a slider that gives a bend to the legs and arms, but also they curve control the curve -make it wobble invert it, all manner of things.
eek
Fabiomussarela
#38
Hi Eek, thanks a lot for the tip
I´m able to control the bezier handle now!!! it´s giving me more control
I´ll post a test rig I made, but as you said, it´s very slow because the lots of position constraints
This thread is becoming very interesting
It opened my mind to new kind of rigging styles
Thanks a lot for everyone
