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HORRAY!!! I've finally successfully rigger a character!!
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HORRAY!!! I've finally successfully rigger a character!! // Roundtable
Post by Paul Boland // Feb 7, 2006, 8:56am
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Paul Boland
Total Posts: 383
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Well, let's see if I can recall the facts...
About 10 different characters...
Approximately 2.5 years...
Many hundreds of hours...
Numerous tutorials...
A handful of posts...
And a lot of cursing and swearing with rage...
And today, Tuesday 7th February 2006, today I have successfully rigged a full character model for animation!!!
:banana:
It's been a dream of mine to create a full character and do a movie around him, along the lines of Rust Boy and Blue and for years I have being trying to get it to work and always I met with failure. I started off rigging with bones because they were so easy to work with and offered the best results, but encountered a lot of problems with them linking into parts of the body that I didn't want them connected to. Then I tried hinges (IK). Had some success but this threw up its share of problems. Then it was a mix of hinges and bones which after three attempts, I totally dropped because they just don't seem to want to work together at all, it's one or the other, not both. Went back to bones, went back to hinges, pulled the hair out of my head with rage!!!
LOL!!
But today, I've done it. I have just succeeded in rigging a full character, with head, body, arms and legs, together using hinges, with the help of Puppeteer. My little guy bends where he should bend, moves how he should move, he does exactly what I want him to do. Now, after two years of screaming at TrueSpace, I can now finally get into full character animation.
The next step is to practice animation with this rig. I've had some experience from working with my Shooting Stars gang, but I've never worked with a fully connected, full rigged model before. The next few weeks should be fun as I try and learn how to make this guy walk, run, jump, climb, etc.
This has been achieved using TrueSpace 5.1 and I can tell you, it has driven me nuts trying to reach this goal. I look forward to seeing what TrueSpace 7.1 offers in its new animation department. Hopefully, it will make this type of work a lot easier.
As soon as I have a grasp of how to work with my new little guy, I'll post some screen shots. |
Post by Tiles // Feb 7, 2006, 9:06am
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Tiles
Total Posts: 1037
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Don´t forget to avoid animation upwards the hierarchy. Else your character will start shaking in not expected ways. Good luck ... |
Post by Naes3d // Feb 7, 2006, 12:15pm
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Naes3d
Total Posts: 0
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Congratulations. I have yet to accomplish that feat. Good to know that someone was able too do so.
Hinges and Puppeteer, huh? Maybe I should learn what a hinge is... |
Post by splinters // Feb 7, 2006, 12:40pm
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Now this is something I need to do...I have lots of character models and I produce static poses for illustrations but more and more I need to 'pose' them more fluidly for more exciting composition. Attempts at rigging have failed and completely put me off using animation so I am looking forward to seeing how TS7.1 will address the 'newcomer' to character animations as well as the veteran...;) |
Post by W!ZARD // Feb 7, 2006, 7:52pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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WooHoo! Congratulations - ain't it sweet when a plan comes together?
Your acheivement is one I have the greatest respect for - I made my first animations using a bone system in Anim8or several years ago - it was reletively easy. Then I discovered tS (3.2 at that stage) and switched because it was easier to model with and had a better rendered finish. I was most disappointed with the bones though and this has continued (and apparently will until tS7.1.
I know there are third party solutions, Motion Studio, Puppeteer etc but all involve me parting with money I don't have :( . I've perservered though and had a great time as a result. The advice I have is 'Save multiple copies of your rigged character'. Imagine my frustration over having successfully rigged a character (probably no surprise that it was a Wizard:) ) only to find that I crashed tS which corrupted the scene which therefore would not open and all the rigging work I'd done was ....gone:mad:
Anyway, well done. Once you figure out bones it becomes lots easier to pose characters and nothing beats the feeling of having finally accomplished a long term goal - well done and good luck with your future animations Paul - be sure to share the results with us! |
Post by Paul Boland // Feb 8, 2006, 9:13am
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Paul Boland
Total Posts: 383
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Thnaks for the supportive posts, appreciate it. I've updated the 3D page on my website with a pic of my little guy, BFree. This is the third version of BFree to be made so it is BFree 3 that you want to look at to see this guy. The link is here:
http://www.iol.ie/~pkb/PKB3D.htm
Or here is the image below:
http://www.iol.ie/~pkb/BFree3.jpg
I agree with you all have said in your posts, rigging is very difficult in TrueSpace. As I said above, I am eager (as you lot are) to see what TrueSpace 7.1 will offer.
Wizard, hard luck on losing your rigged character model (Ouch!!). You can be sure that I have made backups on BFree for safe keeping.
And I will let you know how my animation work with the little guy turns out. |
Post by mrbones // Feb 8, 2006, 9:30am
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mrbones
Total Posts: 1280
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Hi Wizard,
I created a tutorial for rigging (http://www.truebones.com/magifix/), I hope it helps.
Thanks again and Cheers
Imagine my frustration over having successfully rigged a character (probably no surprise that it was a Wizard:) ) only to find that I crashed tS which corrupted the scene which therefore would not open and all the rigging work I'd done was ....gone:mad:
Anyway, well done. Once you figure out bones it becomes lots easier to pose characters and nothing beats the feeling of having finally accomplished a long term goal - well done and good luck with your future animations Paul - be sure to share the results with us! |
Post by Paul Boland // Feb 11, 2006, 9:24am
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Paul Boland
Total Posts: 383
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Hi Everyone.
Just wanted to let you know that the BFree website has gone live. It contains a complete introduction to the project, some art work and a short movie of my initial movement tests with the little guy. Just follow the link below and click on the BFree banner to go to the website.
Enjoy :) .
Paul. |
Post by mrbones // Feb 11, 2006, 9:28pm
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mrbones
Total Posts: 1280
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It was a good visit, and nice to read about your 3D experience's Thanks for sharing!:)
Hi Everyone.
Just wanted to let you know that the BFree website has gone live. It contains a complete introduction to the project, some art work and a short movie of my initial movement tests with the little guy. Just follow the link below and click on the BFree banner to go to the website.
Enjoy :) .
Paul. |
Post by W!ZARD // Feb 13, 2006, 3:56am
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Hi Wizard,
I created a tutorial for rigging (http://www.truebones.com/magifix/), I hope it helps.
Thanks again and Cheers
Mr Bones - I've been meaning to get back to this thread to comment and thank you for the great tutorial. I had a real 'Aha" moment when I saw you using the pre recorded animation to assist in the rigging. It also helped immensely to see the order in which certain tasks are approached. The manual describes the tools and how to use them but does not give a suggested workflow (probably because there are so many variables).
Whilst I'm still not convinced that tS native bones are 'easy' to use I'm happy to take responsibility for not having fully learned how to use them - I feel much better about the whole subject now that I'm getting to the stage of being able to consistently get results that I can use with them. Your tutorial has helped a lot. Thank you very much for that. |
Post by mrbones // Feb 13, 2006, 8:44am
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mrbones
Total Posts: 1280
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Thanks Wizard, No problem, Im glad I could help, Cheers :)
Mr Bones - I've been meaning to get back to this thread to comment and thank you for the great tutorial. I had a real 'Aha" moment when I saw you using the pre recorded animation to assist in the rigging. It also helped immensely to see the order in which certain tasks are approached. The manual describes the tools and how to use them but does not give a suggested workflow (probably because there are so many variables).
Whilst I'm still not convinced that tS native bones are 'easy' to use I'm happy to take responsibility for not having fully learned how to use them - I feel much better about the whole subject now that I'm getting to the stage of being able to consistently get results that I can use with them. Your tutorial has helped a lot. Thank you very much for that. |
Post by GraySho // Feb 13, 2006, 12:14pm
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GraySho
Total Posts: 695
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I wonder if anyone has done charakter animation with truespace native bones successfully, except tiles (I know he did :confused: ). I was so excited about the bones when I got truespace 4.3 first, but was even more frustrated when it didn't work as I expected. Working bones in tS (without plugins) would be a bigger breakthrough than anything else IMO. |
Post by DanX // Feb 13, 2006, 12:33pm
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DanX
Total Posts: 36
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Hey GraySho
I have set up a few good rigs if you want I can send you if you like. The caracter is not mine but I riged it as a test a long time ago.:banana: |
Post by mrbones // Feb 16, 2006, 8:14pm
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mrbones
Total Posts: 1280
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Thanks again Wizard for your kind words, There are indeed many variables.
Im glad my tutorial was helpful in understanding how to avoid some of the pitfalls when using bones. I hope to make some more soon.:)
Thanks again and Cheers
Mr Bones - I've been meaning to get back to this thread to comment and thank you for the great tutorial. I had a real 'Aha" moment when I saw you using the pre recorded animation to assist in the rigging. It also helped immensely to see the order in which certain tasks are approached. The manual describes the tools and how to use them but does not give a suggested workflow (probably because there are so many variables).
Whilst I'm still not convinced that tS native bones are 'easy' to use I'm happy to take responsibility for not having fully learned how to use them - I feel much better about the whole subject now that I'm getting to the stage of being able to consistently get results that I can use with them. Your tutorial has helped a lot. Thank you very much for that. |
Post by W!ZARD // Feb 16, 2006, 8:34pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Thanks again Wizard for your kind words, There are indeed many variables.
Im glad my tutorial was helpful in understanding how to avoid some of the pitfalls when using bones. I hope to make some more soon.:)
Thanks again and Cheers
Hi Mr B - I should be thanking you - oh wait! I did! Let me thank you again then. I first encountered Bones deformation systems with IK using ANIM8OR which is free and easy to learn. Because of the UI - it has a four 'room' system with a room each for modeling, rigging, animating and scene - it was fairly easy to follow the most effecient workflow. With surprisingly little difficulties I was able to build, rig and animate a cartoony Wizard character playing a guitar (sound like anyone you might know?) and render a reasonably funky little movie - by comparison my TS animations consist largely of solid objects (spaceships) moving across the scene whilst the camera follows.
I was totally unprepared for how difficult comparatively it was to use the TS bones so I really identify with GraySho's frustration. What I finally figured out, through trial and error after error, was the sequence of actions to use when rigging a sleleton to a mesh. Sadly the manual describes the tools and their functions but is not too clear on what order to use which tools.
Your tutorial also helped hugely because it shows the whole process and allows one to see which tool gets used where.
I'm currently involved in a large project which does not leave me time for animation but yur input on rigging has already helped me with posing static figures which is all I currently require. So Thanks again! |
Post by Leif // Feb 17, 2006, 12:42am
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Leif
Total Posts: 276
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I actually visited your website some days ago (before I saw your post here) and noticed the recent update and accomplishment.
Congratulations to you. |
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