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Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 4:55 pm
by gdub
It would be nice if the style effects, such as gradient, could be bound to a bone.

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 5:08 pm
by Greenlaw
Not exactly sure what you mean. Do you mean controlling gradient settings (key positions and colors) with a smart bone, or do you mean deforming a shape filled with a gradient effect using a bones?

Both are possible as far as I know.

For controlling, use an SBD as normal but edit the settings in the Gradient panel. Keyframes will be created when you click ok.

For deforming a gradient with bones, make sure your filled shape supports the needed deformation. By this, I mean enough points along the edges.

If you mean deforming the gradient with bones inside a shape without deforming the shape, that's matter of binding and masking.

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 5:20 pm
by synthsin75
You can also have a smart bone control the gradient handles.

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 6:29 pm
by Greenlaw
Oh, that's right. Good call Wes.

Which reminds me, I can think of a couple of reasons it would be useful to be able to bind a Gradient's handle to a bone: 1.) You would be able to move and rotate (and maybe scale?) the Gradient from the Bone layer and 2.) You can Shiftkey Constrain a bone's position but you can't do that with a Gradient's handle.

I asked a while back if the devs could add Shiftkey Constrain to the effects handle (most notably the Image Texture effect*,) but now I think bone binding might be even more useful. Probably time to revise my request.

(*Using Shiftkey Constrain with Image Texture is useful for sliding textures in 360-degrees body and head turn SBDs, as seen in the Puss In Boots rig. Without the Shiftkey Constrain modifier, setup requires drawing guide overlays and careful eyeballing of the handle position to complete a wrap precisely; with the Shiftkey, it should mostly be click and drag.)

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 6:31 pm
by synthsin75
Yeah, I thought effect handles should have been bone bindable from the get go.

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 6:45 pm
by synthsin75
Here's a quick example of how to set up a gradient controlled by a bone:
http://www.filedropper.com/smartgradient

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 7:03 pm
by Greenlaw
Greenlaw wrote: For controlling, use an SBD as normal but edit the settings in the Gradient panel. Keyframes will be created when you click ok.
Note: This gets tricky if you're using the effect within a Custom Style because, in this case, the effect keyframes won't appear on the timeline. To workaround this issue, copy the un-seen keys using the Copy button in the Styles window and then ctrl-v paste them in the timeline for a regular Style where you can see them. (It's important to note that these are two different copy/paste commands.) There you can edit the keys, and then copy (ctrl-c) and paste (Style window button) the keys back into the Custom Style. Yes, it's very convoluted but it works. IMO, better to avoid the situation if you can. :P

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 12:17 am
by gdub
[quote="Greenlaw"]Not exactly sure what you mean. Do you mean controlling gradient settings (key positions and colors) with a smart bone, or do you mean deforming a shape filled with a gradient effect using a bones?

I have a character, with a wand in her hand that I gave a gradient to. When I animate the hand using the manipulate bone tool, the gradient doesn't go with it. Even when I manually move the gradient tool, the gradient doesn't move with the wand. Only when I move the actual vector wand does the gradient go with it.

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 12:24 am
by synthsin75
Fill effects are only influenced by bone strength. So if you've only bound the points/layers, you probably need add some bone strength for the gradient. You can use Bone>Use Selected Bones for Flexi-binding to make sure that bone strength only affects certain layers.

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 12:54 am
by Greenlaw
Yes, the gradient actually does move with bones. If instead, you're animating the points independently of the bone, the gradient won't move with the shape even if the shape is bound to the bone. You need to allow a bone to move the points and the gradient will follow.

That said, I'm a little puzzled by your description of what's happening in your project. If the shapes are bound to the hand bone, the gradient should move with the wand since they are being moved by a bone. Can you post a stripped down version of your project with just the hand/wand setup so we can see what's going on?

In any case, what I would probably do is bind the wand to its own bone and then parent that bone to the hand bone. This way, you can 'detach' the wand from the hand in the animation if needed.

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 4:46 am
by gdub
Thanks all for the suggestions, I'll give it a try.

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 1:58 pm
by gdub
I wasn't aware of the bone strength control over the style effects. I've always bound the points to the bone and ignoring bone strength altogether. I did a test part using bone strength to control the vector art and the gradient stayed with the wand. I did notice that even though the gradient stayed with the vector, the gradient handles didn't move when animating, but that really doesn't matter as long as it works. Thanks for all of help and information.

Here is a link to the Moho file with the gradient test that I made.

https://cartoons1o1.com/index-a%20gradi ... 20test.htm

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 3:18 pm
by Greenlaw
That is interesting--I would have assumed point binding to bones alone would work too. I also noticed you're still using point binding in both examples, so maybe the bones need at least a little strength to become active for gradients to move with the points?

Thanks for sharing your file. I'm thinking now that maybe I haven't run into this specific situation before and will have to keep it in mind when I'm rigging. :)

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 3:23 pm
by Greenlaw
Oh, btw, yes, the gradient handle should NOT move if you want it to appear 'locked' to the shape. The position is relative to the artwork's position at frame 0, so if it it moves at a later frame, it's going to drift away from the art's position at frame 0. Sometimes you want this effect (like in Puss' turnarounds in the example cited above,) but not in your case.

Re: Bind Style Effects To Bones

Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2019 4:55 pm
by SuperSGL
This is a great tip wished I knew this along time ago! Thanks guys!