Basic bones setup help?

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cartoonmonkey
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Basic bones setup help?

Post by cartoonmonkey »

Hey there,

I have a general question. Whenever I set up a character for a bones setup, currently, I place all of my drawings far apart from one another on frame 0, then do the skeleton, pulling everything together on frame 1. (to avoid the bones warping the incorrect shapes)

Is there another method I should be using? It gets tiresome to zoom in and out of the stage, putting bones first in the torso.. then finding an arm.. doing the bones for an arm.. then finding the hand .. putting bones in the hand.. etc.

What I'm saying is this: Is there a way to merely do the entire skeleton in place, with a character's parts set up on separate layers? Have I been doing it backwards all along?

C
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slowtiger
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Post by slowtiger »

You're already on the right track.

You can create your character on as many layers you want, as long as they are all inside the bone layer they will be moved by those bones.

Look up the "offset bones" tool. That's what you use in frame 0 to put all things together. You create a body part, create its bones, bind the parts to the bones, then grab the topmost bone of that body part and drag it to its final position.

You not only place the separate body parts far from each other, you also adjust the bone strengths. My characters' parts all fit within the normal view during creation, without the need to zoom out to see them all.
omenriver
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Post by omenriver »

Interesting. I had not through of that.

So, When I create the bones I should not have them in a skeleton format.
I should have the spread out to keep the wrong bones from influencing the wrong images.

I had been creating my images and bones in close proximity [though not put together] and have experiences some warping and unforseen results.

I even started having multiple bone layers but that was not a good solution.


Omen River
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slowtiger
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Post by slowtiger »

It took me some time to understand how bone offset works. My workflow now includes it, but not for every body part - mostly just for those which overlap some other part (or will do so in animation).

Usually I group my characters like this:
- body and head
- left arm
- right arm
- left leg
- right leg (sometimes I keep this in the same group with the body)

That's enough for me. These parts I place within the work space, with the body in the middle. I have the habit to first create the artwork (like for a leg) in place so it fits the body, then shift-drag it to the side. This way I can use shift-drag again later with the bone offset tool and be sure the leg ends up in the right position.

Image

This is a manipulated screenshot, I highlighted the bones which I will drag with the bone offset tool, and you see the bone strength of each bone.
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cartoonmonkey
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Post by cartoonmonkey »

Ahh, thanks for the tips!

Here's my initial setup.. but I find that even still, adding bones affects the other shapes.. I'm trying to play with the strengths..

Image


Your drawing is great! Done is AS?
C[/img]
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heyvern
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Post by heyvern »

Check the Layer Settings | Bones | Binding Mode of your bone layer. If it is set for Flexible Binding then no amount of bone offset will stop bones from influencing points. Flexible binding means that ALL bones effect ALL points (unless you use point or layer binding).

To avoid this set the Binding Mode to Region Binding. With region binding the bone or bones closest to the point and covered by the strength envelope of the bone will have control of those point/s. Other bones will not effect those points.

When you switch from flexible to region binding the bone strength tends to "increase" and you may need to adjust it.

You could use Flexible binding mode with bone offset but you would have to move the "parts" much further away from each other and you would still have some small amount of influence.

---------

p.s. I just uploaded part one of a tutorial series "All About Bones" on www.lowrestv.com that covers flexible/region binding and also some bone offset as well as layer and point binding if you are interested.

-vern
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cartoonmonkey
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Thanks!

Post by cartoonmonkey »

I'll check it out! Thanks everyone for the tips.

I'm so excited to own AS 6! It's such a great, lean and mean piece of code!
I hope it stays that way!!!

If you guys need any beta testers, I do that sort of thing.. :D

Here's my little morning test. Imported .swf and corrected the hands a bit.. then exported as .png at 200dpi.. then brought into TVPaint. (Did the shadow and shading there..don't know why really.. Just a process I've been using.)
I
Someday, I'll learn to do things properly in AS, and get my cycles right..

Image

Best,
C
omenriver
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Post by omenriver »

That looks very good.

Omen River
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