What naming convention do you use for left and right sides?

[JaMike]

I've always used Front and Back, as most of my animation is done at 3/4, it's very rare that I animate face on (or back to the camera), which is the only time Front and Back isn't obvious.

[strider2000]

The problem with using my right & left is that I'd have to be aware of that in the character's back view.

I understand your point, but I have the opposite problem. During animation or rigging, when I have to make a change in the layer palette, I visually know that I'm trying to affect the part on the leftmost or right most side of the screen. I then need to find the layer that is associated with whatever part I'm wanting to manipulate or modify. If the leftmost part is always labelled "left" or L or has any common label or color, I don't have to actually have to do the transformation, in my head, of:

"Ok, he's facing me now, so the left most body part is actually his right, and labeled 'right'."

then

"Ok, now it's the back view, so the left most body part is labeled 'left'".

So when rigging I count from left of the screen to the right: upperarm 1, lowerarm 1, upperarm 2, lowerarm 2

I use A and B,
Those two can be used for any angle

Interesting. If I'm following, these are two variants of the same approach. At first I didn't follow, but I get it now. You're always counting (labeling) from the same side of the screen (even if someone has a R to L locale). So I think that's exactly the same visually intuitive approach I like (it just uses different letters).

Neat trick for renaming a lot of bones, Greenlaw.

Definitely agree. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, in 3D it's always the character's, but then you're always free to look at the scene from any angle while animating so there's less confusion. In ASP, you're almost always animating from the camera's POV.

Right. That's what I was expecting.

As expected I'm sure everyone has their own preference, and once you learn a system it becomes natural to you, but in any case it's an interesting discussion. My wife teaches Jazzercise and she's always saying, "Oh I thought you meant Jazz right". By that she means stage left or right So I'm sure any stage instructors or performers deal with the same issue. Thanks for sharing ideas.

[Greenlaw]

I think I'm going to start parenting a non-renderable 'L' and 'R' to my characters so my brain won't have to do the work. I'm serious.

[strider2000]

Yeah, anything to make things easier

[RichardU]

If 'downstage' and 'upstage' names the limb layers closer to and farther from camera, I like to use 'near' and 'far' because it's makes the name shorter.

Even shorter is Up and Dn.

[strider2000]

In playing around with this idea, I've found that if I color code the bones to match the layers, it really helps resolve the issue. I use yellow on the left side of the screen and red on the right side (kind of like l for left and r for right). I use those same colors no matter what direction the character is facing. This way it's pretty easy, even if the actual layer names are based on the character's left and right. Kind of the best of both worlds.

Anyway that's what's working for me right now.

[Greenlaw]

Yes! I'm glad you brought that up. Coincidentally, I started to doing just that a few months ago. I use Red for Right and Green for Left.

Where it's really been helpful to me is that I like to color code the character's Smart Bone Dials to match the limb bone colors, so even when the character is facing backwards, I can still tell which dial controls belong to which side. It's so much faster than relying on the bone dial names alone, which half the time I can't read anyway since the text tends to annoyingly bounce around and overlap when they're turned.

[synthsin75]

Nice solution by adding bone coloring, guys. I may have to adopt that myself.

[chucky]

Nice solution by adding bone coloring, guys. I may have to adopt that myself.

Been doin it for years

[synthsin75]

Nice solution by adding bone coloring, guys. I may have to adopt that myself.

Been doin it for years

Ya gotta share those kinds of things, Chucky.

[chucky]

Nice solution by adding bone coloring, guys. I may have to adopt that myself.

Been doin it for years

Ya gotta share those kinds of things, Chucky.

Have you checked the scene files in the library bro?
All there ( the CK stuff)
IT'll show how I organise the layer / bone colour to make them appear coherently in the timeline too.

[synthsin75]

Come on, you know how often we look in the library.
New characters..check...done.

[chucky]

Come on, you know how often we look in the library.
New characters..check...done.

Scenes, CK Quick and the Dead,CK Craustacea, in CHaracters the CK animals are a bit wonky, I wish we had smart warp back then, I should look at fixing them for a later release.