Cinema Newbie transitioning from Daz Studio (Very wordy. More questions to be asked in the future)

#1

I’m a bit nervous about asking, but here we go.

Like the title says I’m transitioning from using Daz studio for animations to Cinema 4d because someone showed me some physic stuff Cinema and I thought to myself “I really want to do be able to do that” . And Daz studios is not great for animation. In particular I was also interested in the IK system which I’ve never used before. And quite a few of my issues are related to IK so I could use some help understanding what I’m doing wrong and some errors I seem to be getting.

Because I got a bit too wordy here’s the things I need help with that I’m having trouble finding tutorials on. Feel free to share them if you know what i should watch. I’ve been going through a lot, but there’s a lot to learn and it’s hard to tell what I should be looking for.

  1. Why do the legs on my human model bend inwards and distort when I rotate the full model? (When I tried IK chaining it manually(more details below) I got the same issue even when bending the knees, and feet first to allow the IK system to better understand how it should bend. It works fine either way when rotated, but I can’t figure out why the legs distort.) Mind you this doesn’t happen when it’s just an FK model. And the weights work and look fine.

  2. How do I use fingers in an IK system? I’ve seen some stuff about xpresso, but it seemed old and I’m not sure if it’d correlated to R23 or my particular rig. (Again more details below) . As far as I can tell if I want to use the finger joints I have when the model is IK’d then it’d ruin the whole arm. I can bend the hand, but the fingers are stuck in place and unusable with no nulls for me to use. Wuat do I have to do/add to the IK system I have now to use them while it’s IK’d.

For a lil more context I have been watching videos regarding IK and how to set it up. I think I did pull off some IK chains that worked ok, but in regards to the issue I’m having I used Daz Studio’s bridge system to transfer over the model and auto IK rig it. For the base mesh this works fine, but for my custom model the legs have a particular issue in which when I rotate the model completely 180 degrees the knees bend inward and the ankles bend out. I’ll attach pics below of this.

Now I have IK chained it with IK Max and I didn’t have this issue, but the clothing didn’t deform as well and I really don’t want to lose the weighting from the clothing. I think I also tried IK-chaining it manually, but I’d have the same issue with the rotation plus my own IK chaining didn’t seem as good. I compared the settings of the joints, the purple joints created from the Daz Auto Rig, and the nulls to the base mesh from the custom one and even moved the bones around to better match up and it made the IK while the model is forward better, but I still had the same issue with rotation.

On a side note this stuff is just a hobby thing for me (I like doing nsfw stuff. Not sure if that’s taboo on here. Sorry if it is), but I’ve been stuck since I’ve gotten into C4d on this. I’ve done the tutorials to understand how CInema works and even did the lil fishy in the bowl thing which was fun, but the things I went into Cinema for I haven’t been able to do. I wanted to do the IK stuff, have clothing on a model react to what’s happening underneath it (Like if the body expanded) with the clothing I already have made, jiggle physics(lol) and do some really cool effects like showing 1 human mesh absorb another and having the one enveloped bulging underneath the skin of the absorber(I’m kinda getting there, but I could also use some help understanding the collision tool and how to create this effect. I seemed to get it a lil, but the models wouldn’t line up properly and I’m not sure what’s going wrong. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first two questions above are more important. If there is someone on here who is willing to help me out I appreciate it. If not I get it. I’m hesitant to share the project file since it’s nsfw stuff, but I could do it if there’s a DMing thing on here? Tho the file shared is just of the character mesh and the rigging. The pictures more or less give the idea of what’s going on aside from specific settings on the joints/nulls themselves.

Regardless if you read all this thank you.

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#2

I guess I turned people away with either the words or the content. Unfortunate. Well I’ll figure things out eventually I guess. Or workarounds tho time and mistakes coulda been saved. From all the softwares I’ve used Cinema seems to have the coldest community lol. Can’t be helped I guess. Ty for your times.

#3

I don’t think the c4d is ‘cold’ it’s just you’ve chosen the wrong forum. May I suggest joining Core4d and asking there.

@ThreeDDude hasn’t been around for a while but he was a Daz and C4D character animator who could’ve helped. I think he has transitioned to Blender though. Maybe drop him a DM and it might send an email notification to him.

@everfresh is probably the most highly skilled in this area but I think you’re more likely to find him over at Core4d.

Historically character work with C4D has been a fringe pursuit so the number of people with the experience to help you is tiny and there’s probably fewer on this forum. I used C4D for well over 10 years and never rigged a single character.

#4

Thank you for the info. I tried here, because someone had referred me to this forum. It’s fine. I did find at least how to move the fingers. I don’t know if it is the correct way, but it works . And for the auto rigger I just have accept it’s a lost cause in regards to more custom’d models. Ik Max rigs the character well enough and I just have to learn how to weigh the clothing to the joint properly in Cinema since IK Max seemingly deletes the weight mapping on the clothes or learn how to transfer the weight map from the already weight’d clothes to the newly IK rig which would be much quicker I’d imagine.

I was wondering why it was that there were barely any more realistic looking humans in Cinema tutorials. I guess I got my answer. I didn’t realize character work was “fringe” . Maybe I’m just dumb, but I’m starting to wonder if Cinema is worth it when other software seems to do things better. At this point I’m just in it for Cinema’s physic and animation stuff, but perhaps I should go to Blender as well if it can do what I want the same.

#5

All main 3D DCC have their niches, C4D has been synonymous with Broadcast Motion Graphics design and that’s the largest user base by far. There have been a few notable character projects done in C4D but these have always been the minority. Everfresh is the best example I can think of and is a very fine animator. He doesn’t appear to come here much nowadays.

Maya and Blender are much more associated with character animation and huge communities with knowledge to draw upon. I don’t know your circumstances but if character animation is something you’re just getting into I think you’d be well advised to go down the Maya route for long term job prospects. I believe Blender has some powerful character tools but I cannot say how user friendly they are.

Sorry I can’t help more, unfortunately you could write all I know about character rigging on a postage stamp.

#6

Yeah I don’t know about things like that. I just saw pretty things in C4D and wanted to be able to do that. If there are softwares better at what I want then maybe you are right. Everything I wanna do I think is character based if I get that right. I just looked into that EverFresh guy and his animations are nice. I mean it’d seems fine. It just sucks since I spent the last 2 or 3 months learning how Cinema works and getting comfortable with it.

I’ll stick with C4d for now, but I am still considering Blender. Maya is like a last resort thing. Never been crazy about it. Always seemed like above what I could do or something. The help is appreciated regardless. I actually liked the rigging and weighting in C4d compared to Blender or Daz. It was just the Ik giving me issue. It’s not like I’m good with this stuff either.

#7

The C4D animation features have improved over the last versions, but indeed C4D was never known as a character animation tool, and from what I hear from professionals C4D gets into trouble with several animated characters at the same time. I’m currently trying to get into Blender’s animation features but it’s a pity because of all the accumulated C4D knowledge being totally worthless there.
Anyway, it’s hard to see what’s going on with your character without a file. I’d say the pole of the leg is on the wrong side / got the wrong parameters but I may be totally wrong. I am not familiar with DAZ bridge rigs.

#8

I wish I had known this beforehand haha.I had seen the R21 videos I think that showed their toon rig and stuff and that’s what had made me consider going into it. I thought C4d was like all about character stuff, animation and physics. And I was like. “Oh! This is perfect!” tho again it was also by someone showing it to me. It is unfortunate to hear that it isn’t. It’s also troubling if that several animated characters thing is true. I mean I should never go past like 4 characters in a scene, but I just never like the idea of being limited in what I can do. It’s why I’m moving from Daz.

As I wrote before I get the knowledge :frowning: . It’s really unfortunate that I might end up hitting a roadblock if I stay with Cinema if what I’m trying to accomplish could be done better in other software more towards it.

As for the leg issue. Maybe it’s the poles? Idk if I know how to mess with that. I did move them around before and it did seem to affect the legs, but the results were all over the place. Maybe I should just upload the file if it means that I won’t have to figure out how to repaint the clothing exactly like they already are. But I kinda have to learn that to give them more clothing options in the future… How would I share the file? Like do I just save it as a c4d file and upload that here?

#9

I found rigging extremely difficult no matter what the system - by nature of the deformation calculation, which does not take into account the involved masses but just a floppy skin, tending to intersect in all the wrong ways. I am still not sure how to rig and weight a body for extreme movability (like hips and shoulders) with the intersections being unnoticeable. Anyway.
It is a long time since I uploaded anything here, but either a c4d format or a zip should work.

(Core4D these days is the better forum though, more frequented and with more helpful people.)

#10

Maybe I’ll try core4d then, but I’mma think in regards to whether I should continue trying to pursue things in C4d or not. Seems more like I wasted time getting a handle on it.

As for the rigging thing, I probably am wrong, but I never considered the masses.I’d just paint the weights and smooth them out where I thought they should deform at. Then again I learned weights in Daz and just applied that knowledge to other software tho it seems the same in Blender and C4d. Just with better tools in the respective softwares, but still pretty similar. I still am a beginninger with it too tho and have my own issues when I paint stuff and then child bones end up replacing the parent bone’s weight and all that. Cuz I’m dumb.

In regards to the model it mostly definitely has to do with how the auto rigger calculated how the legs work. I checked and the second model I had used the bridge with that was of similar shape and height to the base model almost worked, but also has deformation when rotated which I just noticed when I was working with the bigger animation project. And again when I tried the IK Max auto rig stuff the legs were fine when rotated. I wish I could just have the legs re-auto rigged to fix the issue. I might upload the file. Gonna think on that as well then.

#11

Upon reading their rules I’m not sure core4d is the place for me. One of the main things being no “pornography” . As a creator in adult content that’s probably not the place for me. Also they keep saying how their site is free, but to register you have to pay…In fact it doesn’t seem you can even look at the forum stuff without being registered. Unfort.

#12

Maybe my expectations for rigging are too high, or people change their weights specifically for the movement in that scene, or they use a ton of helper bones… but to get a halfway working skin on a shoulder, I need at least four helper bones (unless I apply corrective morphs after the fact), and it’s still far away from looking “good”. Duh, that can’t be the solution, and I did more tutorials than I can wave a stick at. Okay, I never tried Daz so perhaps they have found the philosopher’s stone.
(Looking at how bones work, I am fairly sure that this is not a software specific issue either.)

#13

Hmm, about Core4D now I am confused. I never paid a cent on that forum.

Don’t care much about pr0n rules as I don’t have a portfolio there either way (at the moment) but I am fairly sure most technical issues can be discussed without private parts :wink:

#14

Oh, I didn’t know that. It’s a very short-sighted tactic to keep content hidden and to charge for new registrations. I heard that Maxon pulled their funding of the site which probably means the economics of running the forum is on the borderline so he’s trying to get a few contributions for the maintenance costs. Discord servers have put the nail in the forum coffins in recent times. Maybe someone could recommend a C4D centric discord server?

Core4d is what used to be known as C4DCafe which used to have an enormous training database. Igor who runs it is a decent chap, he once sent me a private message telling me to shove Houdini where the sun doesn’t shine so it’s quite funny to see him embrace Houdini so enthusiastically. It might be worth a small registration fee to get access to people who could answer your questions though. You won’t find them here unless you’re very lucky.

@xblurp I would send @ThreeDDude a private message, it might send him an email to notify him. He was a big proponent of using Daz and C4D together and would likely have valuable knowledge to tap into.

#15

My understanding is that many production rigs are designed for a specific camera framing (wide shot vs close up) or limited range of movement*. You’ll see complex rigs on showreels from riggers that do everything but in practice production rigs are far more shot focussed and pragmatic. *Unless you’re Disney.

Knowing the real world production workflow and how to cheat is often the missing part of the puzzle.

#16

I know Maxon sent them a cease and desist last year making them change their name, but I was not aware there were fees involved to join…seems odd.

#17

That’s strange to me. Maybe it’s cuz I’m spoiled by Daz’s rigging, but a should doesn’t seem like it’d need 4 help bones. Daz is free. You can try looking at how they have their joints and weights set up if that helps. Or my file when I upload it.

#18

And you are prob right on this. I’m probably just being paranoid due to the nature of the stuff I make. I guess I figured it just being on an adult topic would make it that asking how to make certain things happen would be null.

I’m actually surprised I didn’t come across any C4d servers. I’m sure they exist somewhere. I’d be surprised if they didn’t, but it’d probably be a bit more active and accessible since it’s easier in general to have open at all times.

I’m still considering paying the small fee. It’s only $5 but it was just odd and gave me bad vibes with it putting everywhere how free it was while asking for a fee lol. I guess I can also try messaging that ThreeDDude guy. Tho I feel bad bothering em. He’ll probably re affirm the thought I have on what the issue is. Being that the Auto rigger is only meant for the base G8 model or something along those lines. And that custom morphs not having the same parameters causes the issues.

#19

I didn’t know that Igor was forced to change the name, I thought he did it to make his forum less C4D centric and more accommodating to other 3D software. I heard that Maxon pulled funding but I didn’t realise there was more to it.

I guess charging a fee is a way of stopping anonymous accounts being made or stopping bot accounts. I expect it’s counterproductive in the long run as people who can’t see the content beforehand are not exactly going to hand $5 willingly when there’s so much free social media instead.

@xblurp I think $5 will be $5 well spent joining core4d. The owner is sound.

#20

C4D Cafe was at least acessable … whereas Core4d is just a pita to get into
and this new info above just makes it all the more unwelcome …imho.