Moho Forum

Hi, based on this thread I created a video tutorial showing how to rig a rubber arm easily.

You can watch it here.

I hope you enjoy it.
If you have any doubt, please don't hesitate to ask.

Thank you, Selgin.

Ah, more selgin goodness!

This builds on the mandcon rig by increasing the curvature of the elbow points to create the rubber hose effect. I like your thinking. Also, I like how you fixed the wrist by adjusting the points, rather than use a patch layer.

Nice tip on using the path setting in layer. That's a new one for me.

Thanks, selgin. Could have used this technique a while back when I was trying to rig an octopus...!

nice tutorial, thanks for sharing.

thank you. i like the instructional videos so much better than a step by step written explanation. after you completed the bone rig and switched the curvature of the joint points to rubberize it, i involuntarily exclaimed like a little child "ha!"... i stopped short of clapping...

.........Selgin...... Once again, awesome, AWESOME tutorial. I've was curious on how to do this for a long, long time and you explained it so simply and easy! Thank you so much for sharing and making a video for this!!!!!!!

That is very cool, going to have to use that on a character i am working on.

I know this is an old thread but, wow! This is brilliant Victor.

And it's exactly what I needed today. This technique works well with goals too, so I'm able to use it for leg setups with feet that 'stick' to the ground.

Thank you for creating and sharing this tutorial.

Greenlaw wrote:I know this is an old thread but, wow! This is brilliant Victor.
And it's exactly what I needed today. This technique works well with goals too, so I'm able to use it for leg setups with feet that 'stick' to the ground.
Thank you for creating and sharing this tutorial.

Thanks, Dennis
Yes, it's very old, but I still use it, because sometimes it's easier to get good results with this technique rather than using Smart bones. Also, it works nicely for tentacles (and, for some reason, we always need to animate tentacles ).

Rats! It just occurred to me that this isn't going to directly work with texture filled shapes.

However, seeing how this works did give me ideas for making what I have to do work better with Smart Warp.

I should make my own tutorial videos before I forget how I'm doing some of this stuff.

Greenlaw wrote:Rats! It just occurred to me that this isn't going to directly work with texture filled shapes.
However, seeing how this works did give me ideas for making what I have to do work better with Smart Warp.
I should make my own tutorial videos before I forget how I'm doing some of this stuff.

Sorry, I missed this post before. What I normally do is to add the image as a texture and bend it using the strength of the three bones involved. The result won't be perfect, but since the vector which contains the texture is still curved, it helps to give the sensation the texture is curved too.
Well, that's all before Smart Bones and Smart Warp

Thanks Victor!

Yes, the textures in the 'noodle' arms and legs in the character I was working on last week did need to conform to the shape very closely, so I wound up using a Smart Warp mesh with a lot of segments instead.

However, the 'rubber hose' system you made did show me specifically how that mesh should bend to look correct, and I used that as a visual reference. I even used the 'elbow' bone setup from your rig to make sure the elbow region of the mesh held the correct rotation angle and kept its volume before I edited the Smart Bone Action. This helped the final Action deform more smoothly and look more natural.

Of course, I had to manually edit most of the other points to make the final 'hose' shape for the action...thank goodness for the Magnet tool!

In the end, the final setup for the legs resembled what you came up with very closely, just with Smart Meshes instead. Being able to use targets and a minimal number of leg bones in this setup allowed the animator to animate a cool looking 'rubber hose' walk quickly and efficiently. (We would not have been able to do that with a bone chain.)

While I was editing the mesh for the action, I did wish there was a drawing tool that behaved kinda like Bend but can be manipulated more like bones to reshape a drawing. But I'll have to think more about what would have actually helped me--maybe something resembling a few tools I've used in 3D modeling programs like ZBrush.

Awesome,

Just saw this for the first time. Absolutely brilliant. Very helpful, thanks for making this and for the re-post

Hi, I just updated the Dropbox link. Since Dropbox removed the public links option, I will have to update most of the things I posted in the forum.
If you find anything that is not working, please write in the thread and I will fix it as soon as possible.