FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selgin

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Fahim
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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by Fahim »

Here's the video.

Character Rigging Using Smart Bones in Anime Studio Pro 9

http://mysmithmicro.com/webinars/anime- ... art-bones/

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DK
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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by DK »

We HAD to use switch layers with this project.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19240

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Víctor Paredes
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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by Víctor Paredes »

DK wrote:We HAD to use switch layers with this project.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19240
Sure, DK. Mikey Kelley didn't like my answer about switch layers too. Sorry if it sounded like a I'm switch layer hater and think nobody should use them. The questions and answers part is the hardest to me, it's very hard to think complex answers in English in "real time". I only tried to tell that for most of my projects I prefer to not use switch layers. Of course there are many workflows were it's easier to use switch layers for some tasks or even some kinds of animation (like working with images) where you must use switch layers.
Please take this like an erratum.
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DK
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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by DK »

Hi Selgin. no problem. I was just putting forward an example of where switch layers are needed requested in solrak29's post. Personally I don't think I will be using them as much as I have in the past due to smart bones either.

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Admiral Halsey
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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by Admiral Halsey »

Hi, guys! First of all I want to say big thanks to Selgin for very useful seminar. I learned a lot from that. I can see that smart bones is really a powerfull tool. I have only one question - in woman rigging example her arms were placed behind the body and it didnt look right to me. Im wondering is it possible to animate layer/shape order using smart bones as well so you can also animate the arms position - in front of the body or behind it?
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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by neeters_guy »

Admiral Halsey wrote:Im wondering is it possible to animate layer/shape order using smart bones as well so you can also animate the arms position - in front of the body or behind it?
SB doesn't currently support animated layer ordering. In this rig, you could animate the layer order manually, but since the upper and lower arms are in one layer, it wouldn't look right if the upper arm goes in front of the torso. The solution is to separate the upper and lower arms into their own layers.

The woman rig is available on content paradise as part of the Anime Studio 9 Character Pack Volume 1
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Thrashador
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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by Thrashador »

Are you saying you can't use animated layer order anymore on your characters, if they're rigged with smart bones? That seems like a HUGE loss!

What can you do to make up for that in the middle of a scene? Do you have to have a "dumb bone" version of your character to use animated layer order?

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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by neeters_guy »

Thrashador wrote:Are you saying you can't use animated layer order anymore on your characters, if they're rigged with smart bones?
Sorry if I wasn't clear. Smart bones use actions to accomplish their task. Currently only point motion, width, and curvature are supported in those actions, not layer ordering. As I said, you can still layer order in the usual way. In fact, you can animate layer ordering with regular actions, just not smart bone actions.
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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by Admiral Halsey »

I see. So it's still desirable to separate your character on as many layers as possible to avoid problems in the future.
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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by Víctor Paredes »

Hi, thank you again for watching the webinar. I hope you enjoyed it.
There were some question I couldn't answer during the webinar, so I'm gonna answer them in this post (sorry for the delay):

Can smart bones be used with layer order or vector order?
No, right now Smart bones only support point movement, curvature and line width. Mike Clifton have announced in the future Smart bones will cover all the animated channels. Meanwhile, you can still animate the layer order by hand.

what about headturn of more complex charecter having hair?
More complex characters will always take more time to rig, but there's no "technical" limitation for that. With the same principle, you can make head turns of almost any character you want.

can i use how many smart bones thats i want ? some limitation ?
You can use as many smart bones as you want. Each bone can have two actions: one rotate to the right, the other to the left.

If I heard correctly, he prefers to do the lip sync manually. Can you use both, for example using the switch layers to fine tune the phenomes?
For lipsync you can do whatever you think is more efficient to get the results you want. This software is a lot about experimenting, you can try combining switches and smart bones. But remember Smart Bones only works in the vector layers which are immediately inside the bone layer. If you are working with vectors inside a switch, you will have to add bones in the switch layer instead of the bone layer.

you are moving the arm in the back, what about if I want to move the arm in the front?
Just use animated layer order if you want to move the arm from back to front. To get better results, many times it's better to have the arm separated in several layers (for example: arm, forearm, hand).

Can you show a bone lock for smartbones?
Smart bones doesn't change the usual way Bone locking works. So it will work the same for the new rigs.

Do you build the face turning before the face expressions? Is it hard to create expresssions that work throughout the entire range of turning?
For me, it's generally better to have the head already drew in different angles.
With Smart bones it's easier to get the same expression in different angles. In most cases, you only modify the expression once and the software will calculate that expression for all angles.

it is possible Spanish language the next time?
Absolutely. We are working right now in a new webinar, this time in Spanish. It should be around November 8.
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ThatsNotAllFolks
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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by ThatsNotAllFolks »

I am sorry if this question has already been asked/answered.

In the webinar, I noticed that selgin binds the points of the layers to the bones that will be used to create smart bones actions. Is this step necessary if the bone is already bound to that layer? In other words, when I rigged the character with bones, I then binded the respective bones to the layers, but I DID NOT bind the "Points" to the bones.
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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by neeters_guy »

ThatsNotAllFolks wrote:I am sorry if this question has already been asked/answered.

In the webinar, I noticed that selgin binds the points of the layers to the bones that will be used to create smart bones actions. Is this step necessary if the bone is already bound to that layer? In other words, when I rigged the character with bones, I then binded the respective bones to the layers, but I DID NOT bind the "Points" to the bones.
Version 9.0 doesn't support smart bones with layer binding, but it will be added in the 9.1 update.
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Fixes/Improvements in this Anime Studio® Pro 9.1 Update
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-Smart bone actions now work on bound layers.
wagmun
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Re: FREE Webinar: Character Rigging Using Smart Bones - Selg

Post by wagmun »

Hi
After reading these posts, and after my own experience, looks like it's not possible to use switch layers (for lip syncing) inside a smart bone layer if mouth should turn with head.
Or am I missing something?
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