Rigging issue with Skin

#1

Hello all,

I’ve rigged a foot and leg model’s bones to Lightwave bones. (all on separate layers) and so far it works good. The issue is getting a skin model (also saved on another layer) to interact with all the bones, so that deforming any of them end up deforming the overlying skin as well.

Here is the foot and leg with the skin:

Here is a look at the bones and LW bones working fine:

And now the skin layer screwing up once it becomes set use the bones:

I’m using LW9 and the problem only comes in when I set the bone properties tab for the “Skin” layer to use bones from the null object labeled “base.” Essentially once the skin is set to use these bones, it just gets thrown out of whack and stays that way.

The bone hierarchy is on the null object “base” and the actual foot bones are individually set to be parented to the rigged bone they should correspond to. I’m trying to set the skin to be deformed by the bones as a whole, that way a movement of the leg would deform the part of the overlying skin for the leg itself.

What am I doing wrong? I’m fairly new to rigging, but I’ve referenced a few tutorials on the LW website and I’ve purchased Dan Ablan’s “Inside Lightwave 9” book, but it doesn’t seem to have anything specific for this kind of rig.

Thanks.

#2

Possibility…oneof the bones needs to be rested “r”

#3

Bingo! It’s working fine now.

What exactly does resting do? The rotational guides are still in the same place though. Or for that matter, how can I reset my bones so that the rotational guides are not in the same plane?

Thanks Proton.

#4

Im still prett new, but from what I know resting is like binding the geometry to the bone at its current rotation and position. if you want to reset the rotation angles hit shift p to record pivot rotations

#5

I have rigged the bones in the leg foot and leg. They work fine with the Lightwave Bones, but the skin on the leg still wants to pull to far away. I’ve added more and more bones in and around the leg, (since that’s what fixed the heel), but the leg is still pulling away.

Adding bones doesn’t seem to fix the leg, although it has fixed the heel and foot so far. I’ve included a preview to show what I’m talking about.

Bonepreview.mov Right Click>Save As…"

Do I just need to add more bones or am I doing something else wrong?

#6

I’ve taken my rig and added literally dozens of supporting bones for the leg geometry. It doesn’t seem to be helping. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but the leg geometry does not move consistently with the two leg bones them self. They end up sticking out as is depicted in the video.

I’ve attached the scene, the two leg bones w/skin layer, and an exported rig into the .zip file. I’m at a complete loss for words. It seems I’ve added a ridiculous amount of LW bones without fixing this stage of the problem.

Unless there is something I’m not seeing, does anyone have any pointers or is there a dvd I could purchase where this kind of issue is addressed?

Thanks

#7

Your video link didn’t work. I looked at your model file, as I didn’t see a scene file.

I would put all your bones into one layer, as is currently you would need to select each bone and assign the “Use bones from” property. Tedious without a script and unforgiving by hand.

After putting all the bones into one layer, and the skin in another layer, then you create the bones in one of the layers. Then select the layer w/o bones, and hit Shift-B and then hit P. That will give you the “Use bones from” property. Select the layer that has the bones.

It should move accordingly.

Your “skeletonbones” will bend. To prevent this, there are several ways. One way is to assign each skeletonbone to LW’s bone by using weightmaps.

#8

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