Bone + Mesh Mirror

[teotoon]

Hello Folks,

Is there a way to copy and mirror "Bones + Meshes + Actions" as a whole, say "the left arm" with all these elements to "the right arm" ?

Thanks in advance,

LG

[synthsin75]

If you build a rig with modular limbs (separate bone layer per limb), you can flip the limbs' group/bone layer.

[teotoon]

ı see, thanks synth...

[Greenlaw]

If there's an Action associated, you'll need to change the name of the Action to correspond with the duplicated bones names. (By default, Moho will add a number to the bone names.)

I find this sort of thing is easier edit when you bring the part by itself into a clean project. There you only need to change the name of of the original bones and actions without all the other stuff muddying things up. Then you can bring this part into the original project without conflict.

Note: In some situations, you'll want to preserve the hierarchy of the rig for part when you bring it into another project. Otherwise, rotation for Smart Bones can get broken and will need to be re-keyed. You can import the rig, including the SBD, and delete everything outside of the hierarchy and the part. Then, after you've edited the names, you can import this stripped down rig with the new part into the original project, and simply reparent the part without worrying about breaking any SBDs or Actions.

The above might sound complicated but it's actually easier and less prone to error after you've done it a few times.

[dstofka]

I'm glad I stumbled upon this recent discussion! (I just asked a very similar question on a Facebook group but it's still unanswered.)
Greenlaw, I'm very encouraged to hear your proposed solution but want to understand the details. By what means do you "import this stripped down rig with the new part into the original project"? Do you copy-paste the artwork layers and copy-paste the modified bones into the original bone layer and everything gets magically relinked?

[Greenlaw]

When you duplicate a limb and just flip it, the actions in the duplicated limb may not work because they're still associated with the original limb and actions. If you try to update within that project, it's complicated because you need to essentially re-create the action there.

HOWEVER, if you create a standalone project with the flipped limb, you can simply rename the Bones and their associated Actions (from 'left' to 'right', for example,) and resave it. Then, when you import that standalone project into the original project, the imported limb should work perfectly because it now has its own matching bones and actions and the naming conflict won't exist. For me, this is easier and I'm less likely to make mistakes this way.

In this situation, I suggest importing the standalone project over cutting and pasting the items between projects. But if you want to do it this way, use Copy Layer and Paste Layer, not Copy and Paste.

Once everything is in the same project, you should be able to just re-parent the flipped limb to the original character. When you've done this a few times, it will make sense and become easier to do.

I think I mentioned earlier that for SBDs, you want to preserve their bone hierarchy if you want to preserve the rotation keys inside the Actions. If you do somehow break this, it's pretty easy to fix...the error should only be in the SBD itself, not the animation it controls, and to fix it, just delete the dial's keys and reset them.