Automatic bone layer

[amanandink]

Hey does anyone know of a script or process to create an automaticaly create bone layer for an image layer. So if I have a bunch of image layers the script will create a bone layer for each image layer and name it the same as the image layer is named.

thanks
Jeremy

[jahnocli]

You could try on the 'other forum' - http://www.animatorsforum.com/
Mike Kelley has done some work automating the creation of rigged characters; he may be able to help...

[Breinmeester]

That doesn't sound to hard to code, Jeremy. Can you be a little bit more specific on how it should work? I think i'd be able to build that in a short time.

[amanandink]

That would be great B

basically we export psd from photoshop for rigging in asp and i get something like this example




which has all the layers as separate pngs
then I have to rig each one with a bone layer and have the png inside it like this




I spend so much time doing each one individually, it would be great to save time creating each bone layer and naming them
thanks
J

[Víctor Paredes]

I spend so much time doing each one individually, it would be great to save time creating each bone layer and naming them

Why would you want that? Do you really need a separate "rig" for each little part of the image? Sorry, but there's something I can't understand. You could perfectly rig all that using only one bone layer (maybe 2 or 3, if you want to separate some stuff), but, to me, one bone layer for each image layer looks excessive and extremely hard to work with.

[synthsin75]

I agree with Selgin. Since you can now "Use selected bones for flexibinding", you can isolate each image to only be warped by specific bones in a single bone layer. I can't imaging switching layers that much while animating.

That said, such a script would be easy to write, but I would highly advise you to reevaluate your workflow in this case. You may very well find that you don't need such a script and that animating goes much easier and more efficient.

[amanandink]

Maybe you guys are right, we should try as little bones layers as possible, to be honest its not usually this divided, this is the extreme I was using for an example, but we intentionally split it to this extreme as the animator is only getting used to ASP and had trouble keeping track of her keys when there was multiples on a timeline, so we split it for her to make it as easy to see whats on each layer.

J

[synthsin75]

I would suggest using colored keyframes and bones to help her keep track of what keyframes relate to what bones.

[Víctor Paredes]

I would suggest using colored keyframes and bones to help her keep track of what keyframes relate to what bones.

Also, hide and set shy bones are a huge help.

[amanandink]

I remember using a bone group script once, way back before coloured bones, having the ability to group bones and later select and hide them would be useful for this kind of setup, when there are so many bones. does anyone know if such a thing exists?

j

[Breinmeester]

Hi Jeremy,

I tend to agree with the rest that it's better to have all the bones for these elements in one layer. It makes it a lot easier to edit the animation without losing oversight in the heap of different layers. Also, while Bone Groups is not a bad idea that i've been asking for myself, i think you're better off with using different colour bones because these all have their own channels in the timeline. That way it's very easy to see what animates at what point in time. That makes it much easier to edit timing.

If you still need the script, i think i could easily code it.