Character Rigging suggestions

[NanotechBeasts]

I was rigging a canine and a ferret. They are on the more realistic side. I was wondering if there may be a better method to go about on rigging these guys. Usually I rely on point binding, but my wolf has an armored back and my ferret well ferrets are very bendy and have odd curves (starting to really dislike trying to animate that ferret). Anyway I tried turning on the bone strength instead of point binding. These rigs will have a very limited use so I may be better off just getting a walk cycle out of them by going frame by frame.

I am on Anime Studio Pro 11 so I can't fix this with a mess, which is probably the obvious solution.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/qf39ckzh ... 1.zip/file

PS. my head turn is improving but not there yet so please ignore.

[hayasidist]

(I don't have 11 installed, but I did have a look at this in 12.5)

First observation on the Ferret's tail: not enough points for the bones to do what you want. If you think of a simple "elbow" - you'll need points at the elbow and that's where the two arm bones meet -- in the tail you've got a whole chain of "elbow bones", but not every place where bones meet has (enough) corresponding (mesh) points.

There are various techniques that you can use to maintain the volume of the joint, for example extra points on the outside (longer) curve of the joint, but probably not needed if you have only very gentle bends (which you could achieve with angle constraints on the bones; and, maybe, more bones to which you point-bind the "tip" points rather than rely on bone strength.)

Counter-intuitively, the opposite approach might work better with the spine. The long (parented) chain there makes getting a nice "arched back" a chore as you'll need to (starting from the tail) raise the first bone a lot, then slowly reduce the angle until the bone nearest the neck dips down to put the front paws back on the ground. (Oh the left front leg (leg 2) isn't parented to the skeleton.)

this is a first hack (still lots not quite right) that I hope gives you an idea (worked in V12 but exported as V11 -- hopefully the file will work for you) https://www.mediafire.com/file/125bic6l ... anime/file

[NanotechBeasts]

Hi, I was able to open the file. I fixed my parenting and target bones. I was just getting frustrated by the ferret's odd shape and movement. They are built weird, they have long back legs and short front legs and weird curvy backs. On top of things their long back legs seem to disappear into their body. I had keep moving the legs around trying to figure out if there should be more space between them or less space. If the legs on the opposite side of the body should look further away and smaller/short or the same size. I have a good run reference from Monika Zagrobeln's tutorial but finding a a good walk reference was harder. The things are spazzy it's hard to see their walk circle. I finally found a good reference under ferret locomotion, "Why are Ferrets So Bendy? | Weasels: Feisty & Fearless | BBC Earth". So after I am done rigging I'll create my walk and run cycles.

Thank you for giving me some tips on improving my rig. Your right point binding on the tail works better. I went though and did a bunch of neat little chain "elbow bones". I need to do some more work on the spine, but I'll repost then.

It's not a rig I will use much of in my trailer. I don't mind having to do a lot of point by point, frame by frame corrections. But at the some time it may end up being a rig I use in most of the show's episodes so I would like to keep it as functional as possible. Messy rigs are messy and probably harder to fix once you have actions like walk and run cycles. I feel like I have done better rigs on griffins and dragons. You helped me out with the dragon. But this ferret and cyborg wolf have me a bit stumped.

I also found the ferret's arched back and tail movement adorable when I opened the file. Reminded me of a ferret about to do a war dance. It was the first actuate looking animated behavior from this rig I have seen and been like yes, it is starting to look like a ferret and usable rig.

[hayasidist]

glad to have helped... keep it coming!

[NanotechBeasts]

Here is the updated file. I am have a few different spines (I did try a chain spine along with the big bones spine) and am just going try them out with my walk cycles and go from there. More of re-uploading because of my mistake with the target bones and parenting.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/fdoonsfm ... 2.zip/file

Once again thanks for your help hayasidist! : )

[hayasidist]

one of the things the spine with fewer longer bones gives you is that it makes it easier to change the length of the spine. Just by way of benchmark (rather than to suggest that my original "war dance" as you called it [made me smile] is the standard at which we should aim) I tried to reproduce the front recoil in the short bone version, and found it a bit fiddly. That's in part because the lower torso (tummy) has more points than needed -- it has to make a quite tight curve, which meant manually shifting the points.

However, as I often bleat on about, my advice is to rig for the animation you want, rather than to try to make a rig for all purposes. By all means re-use the artwork BUT (just to illustrate) if you wanted to do a close-up of the ferret's head and needed a lot of facial expression bones for that sequence, there's no need (and I'll go so far as to say, it will probably make the rig you have unwieldy) to add it to THIS (side on, walking running, posing) rig.

Example here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/p48b94dv ... anime/file

yeah - target bones and IK -- the general advice is to have the fame 0 pose with angles set to be the way you want it to bend. More here: viewtopic.php?p=208509#p208509 - I haven't tried to fix that for you.

[sang820]

Here is the updated file. I am have a few different spines (I did try a chain spine along with the big bones spine) and am just going try them out with my walk cycles and go from there. More of re-uploading because of my mistake with the target bones and parenting.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/fdoonsfm ... 2.zip/file

Once again thanks for your help hayasidist! : )

Hello,
I tried simplifying your file and making a walking loop. But it always pops up that the file [_1] is missing, and then the program crashes. If you want to animate soft animals and you're using 14.1, compressing curves is a good choice. (Perhaps it would be better to simply color in, without using color samples)
wish you all the best
Yang

https://www.mediafire.com/file/aoqkyqxm ... .moho/file

[NanotechBeasts]

Well I just upgraded to Moho pro 12, thanks to SimplSam! I am so happy to get to play around with some new features! : ) I'll be doing a lot more this summer.

[NanotechBeasts]

Thank you for the reference walk cycle file. I'll hopefully update my file soon.

Here is the updated file. I am have a few different spines (I did try a chain spine along with the big bones spine) and am just going try them out with my walk cycles and go from there. More of re-uploading because of my mistake with the target bones and parenting.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/fdoonsfm ... 2.zip/file

Once again thanks for your help hayasidist! : )

Hello,
I tried simplifying your file and making a walking loop. But it always pops up that the file [_1] is missing, and then the program crashes. If you want to animate soft animals and you're using 14.1, compressing curves is a good choice. (Perhaps it would be better to simply color in, without using color samples)
wish you all the best
Yang

https://www.mediafire.com/file/aoqkyqxm ... .moho/file