Auto Scripted 3D rig. Files and Video Tutorial

[Genete]

That was funny!!!! I have to have a look to the file when have time!
The reason of shape order bronken is that maybe the scripts are called AFTER the internal bone dynamics routine is called (maybe before) and the position of the bones are not the correct one. I don't know...
If you did not realize yet, the 3D position of each point is given by the relative coordinates of the Rx (for the x coordinate) and Ry (for the y and z coordinates) bones. The position is relative to its parent (in the most basic case the first bone you create and the rotation center). If you include other bones between that rotation center bone and the Rx and/or Ry bones, then the 3D coordinates are broken.
What you can do is create some limbs and include bone dynamic to the mX and mY bones. It would respect the 3D coordinates and always be coherent.
I hope next week I could finish the tutorials (In fact, I haven't started them jet ).

By the way I think the basic tutorial I'm preparing wouldn't give you new clues. I think you have the main concepts already learned!
Best
-G

[AlanPS]

Thanks heyvern,

I got it working now. Just one problem, the side view shape kinda overrides the front view shape. In other words, when the mouth is turned sideways you can not see the other side of the mouth, which is good, but when you rotate the mouth front ways and any other way, the hidden part from the side view remains hidden no matter how you rotate it. Kinda weird.

[Genete]

Thanks heyvern,

I got it working now. Just one problem, the side view shape kinda overrides the front view shape. In other words, when the mouth is turned sideways you can not see the other side of the mouth, which is good, but when you rotate the mouth front ways and any other way, the hidden part from the side view remains hidden no matter how you rotate it. Kinda weird.

Can you post the anme file and let us see what's happening?. It seems that something weird is happening with the bones positions. Or maybe you're using a non compatible versions of the scripts? Older versions are not compatible with recent ones.

-G

BTW, If you're using the last version (where the Rx and Ry bones are small in both views and represents the x,y,z coordinates) then be sure that the Rx bones are parented to the central rotation bone and the Ry bones parented to the clone bone of the previous mentioned one. The 3Dgrid script use the relative coordinates of those bones to its parent. If not it would use the absolute coordinate what is related to the origin (0,0). If some bones are not parented ot woudl produce strange results.
ALSO the pt bonesmust be parented to the rotation center. If not they would move around to the origin "at the same distance as the Rx and Ry bones say"

Ah! and sorry for not answer your question, but as well as Vern just reply you and him has correct then I did not give it more significance to that issue.

[Genete]

A NEW TUTORIAL HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE FIRST POST!!!
(I'm shouting out... don't think I'm dyslexic )
Enjoy!
-G

[heyvern]

Holy cow!

This tutorial is almost identical to mine... except... mine is a house and I used an older version of the scripts without the popup window.

Question for you Genete,

when you create the first layer for the front view you don't connect the corners of the cube. You explain why later of course.

What I've been doing is to "draw" in "3D" in frame 0 so I can easily connect the shapes.

For instance I draw a square and copy/paste and offset up and to the left. I do this on frame 0 then I connect the corners. Then on frame 1 I put the shapes back into the "correct" position and copy that point motion to frame 0.

Will I still be able to do it this way with the new scripts?

I use the same technique you used in the video tutorial for the side view.

I also fill the shapes as I'm drawing. By being able to "see" the overall 3D shape on frame 0 while drawing I can easily select and create the shapes starting at the back and coming forward.

Your way of creating the shapes on frame 0 while rotating does seem easier though. It would make creating my house demo much simpler. It gets a bit confusing with all the overlapping shapes.

-vern

[JimmyC]

Genete - thanks for all your hard work. I have been trying to follow the thread, and I think I understand a lot of it

I can't see where you changed anything in the first post. I can see that it has been edited today, but it is not marked in the text. I already downloaded the .swf (20.2 megs), has it been changed? Is there any way to download the wink file (cube tut)? Can you please tell me what files have changed, as I want to try to keep up with this?

Thanks once again. Best Wishes

[Genete]

Genete - thanks for all your hard work. I have been trying to follow the thread, and I think I understand a lot of it

I can't see where you changed anything in the first post. I can see that it has been edited today, but it is not marked in the text. I already downloaded the .swf (20.2 megs), has it been changed? Is there any way to download the wink file (cube tut)? Can you please tell me what files have changed, as I want to try to keep up with this?

Thanks once again. Best Wishes

The first post is a little ... big. I'll emphasize the changes. Look the post again.
All the old post have now small font size.
I update the post adding at the top of it.
The swf of 20.2 MB is the old one. Read the cube.html file.
If you want to watch it off line download here:
http://www.darthfurby.com/genete/3DrigT ... s/cube.swf

Please respect the credits of the tutorial. You can use it for non commercial propose and can derivate other works from him if you maintain the credits of the first creator (that's me). Also you should license your work with the same or similar attributes. That's called Creative Common Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported. Anyway all the animations done using the scripts are completely yours!
Thanks.
-G

[JimmyC]

Thanks for replying so quickly. One small point. In this section

"AND HERE THE TUTORIAL:
http://www.darthfurby.com/genete/3DrigT ... s/cube.htm (3,4 MB)
http://www.darthfurby.com/genete/3DrigT ... /cube.anme
"

The second link which should be cube.anme, saves as cube.html when downloaded. It just needs to be renamed, and loads up OK in ASP,but might confuse some of our newer members (like me!)

I am not complaining, just trying to help

Thanks for your help, you are a star!


EDIT :

Got the file cube.swf - many thanks. If I ever wanted to use any of your stuff commercially, I would of course ask your permission first. Thanks again for all your help.

[Genete]

Holy cow!
This tutorial is almost identical to mine... except... mine is a house and I used an older version of the scripts without the popup window.
Question for you Genete,
when you create the first layer for the front view you don't connect the corners of the cube. You explain why later of course.
What I've been doing is to "draw" in "3D" in frame 0 so I can easily connect the shapes.
For instance I draw a square and copy/paste and offset up and to the left. I do this on frame 0 then I connect the corners. Then on frame 1 I put the shapes back into the "correct" position and copy that point motion to frame 0.
Will I still be able to do it this way with the new scripts?
I use the same technique you used in the video tutorial for the side view.
I also fill the shapes as I'm drawing. By being able to "see" the overall 3D shape on frame 0 while drawing I can easily select and create the shapes starting at the back and coming forward.
Your way of creating the shapes on frame 0 while rotating does seem easier though. It would make creating my house demo much simpler. It gets a bit confusing with all the overlapping shapes.
-vern

What ever you do at other frames than 0 and later copy it to the frame 0 is OK for all the scripts versions. If you do it BEFORE rig the model, of course. Once rigged the points will follow the bones at any other frame than 0 so your points modifications will be relative to the .pt bones coordinate system. In fact what you do (draw at 0 in a Picasso projection style (*) and later at frame 1 correct the position and copy to frame 0) is mainly the same that What I do. I only use the advantage that at frame 0 only the X position of the points are useful and at frame 1 they will go to the Y position given by the side view. It let me maintain the points separated at frame 0 for future corrections (for example add a point in the middle of an edge, what would be difficult if the front view is a a normal one.)

Your way of creating the shapes on frame 0 while rotating does seem easier though

Not at frame 0, but at frame 1! I said it three times during the tutorial! Later I copy the created keyframes at frame 0 (but really it is not necessary beacuse my animation would start always at frame 1). It could be cool to have only construction curves at frame 0 and shapes from frame 1 due to the fact that at frame 0 the figure is vertically split.

I want to see your tutorial. I'm sure it would be better than mine!
-G

(*) Picasso developed an style of drawing where in the same view it have the front and side views of its model.

[Genete]

Thanks for replying so quickly. One small point. In this section

"AND HERE THE TUTORIAL:
http://www.darthfurby.com/genete/3DrigT ... s/cube.htm (3,4 MB)
http://www.darthfurby.com/genete/3DrigT ... /cube.anme
"

The second link which should be cube.anme, saves as cube.html when downloaded. It just needs to be renamed, and loads up OK in ASP,but might confuse some of our newer members (like me!)

I am not complaining, just trying to help

Thanks for your help, you are a star!

Maybe, it depends on the browser. Just make a click on the link and save the plain text file as cube.anme when finish the download. It would work.
You're welcome!.
-G

[heyvern]

Your way of creating the shapes on frame 0 while rotating does seem easier though

Not at frame 0, but at frame 1! I said it three times during the tutorial!

Dagnabbit! I meant to write frame 1 and completely zoned out.

It's weird for me because when working with AS I always avoid changing or creating shapes on frames other than frame 0 because the shapes are different on frame 0. I need to get over this "fear".

I definately like this way better (shape creation on frame 1). It is very nice to rotate those hard to reach areas in the "back".

----

Is my tutorial going to be better? Uh... I don't think so... the English won't even be better... I don't have ANY text instructions in mine! It's all visual... step by step. I wanted to keep it as "universally" simple as possible. It seems to be clear enough to understand what I'm doing. I put in a few more "steps" so you see everything I click on.

I wish so much Wink worked on the Mac. I am so slow working on the PC... different key board... different mouse... and I can't watch movies while I'm using the PC.

-vern

[Genete]

Ouch! 535 bones makes my computer slow down a little
Here a sample of what can be done with the use of limbs...
http://www.darthfurby.com/genete/Other/twoeyes2.anme
http://www.darthfurby.com/genete/Other/twoeyes2.swf
I promise that the tutorial would be more simple... BTW once I have an eye drawn it was so easy to copy it twice and 3D rig both of them. It only took me 10 minutes.

(Remember to drop the anme file in a folder where sort_shapes9.1.lua and 3Dgrid9.lua files exist to make it work.)

Best
-G

[Neoranma]

I figured I would share with you guys a bad example of how to do it.
This is one of my characters that I decided to 3d-erise. well since it is a ball, it was a good choice.

If you look at how the eyes are done, you will notice I did not do it the same way. Instead of the concentric circles, I made more of a barrel shape.
First off instead of curving out, it curves in so if you look at it from the top he looks like a cross shape.
Also if you notice I was able to move the mouth, but when he starts to rotate, it messes up the shape order. I'll figure that out eventually.

video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4_UWPhKxKY
file:
http://www.tetsuyama.com/files/BubbleHead_3dv2.anme

I've also noticed that it is better to have a different mentality when making a cube or a sphere. basically when I make the back side. I moved the points from the back (top) down and welded it to the front.
for cubes, to give it depth, I used the create line tool to connect the top to the bottom, and created a new shape between them all.

I also found a quick way to make a sphere. I'll maybe share it in another thread/post. Of course it probably already is well known.[/url]

[Genete]

First of all thanks for follow the tutorials and test the scripts.
Please use the LAST version of every script because they have almos the last bug solved. sort_shapes9.1.lua is the last one.

Regarding to the messed up shapes in fact there aren't. The problem is that you have not created all the layers that covers all the "sphere" surface, so there are real holes on it. Maybe it have some strange response due to the fact that some of the shapes are not so flat in the 3D space so, as well as its Z depth is the average of its surrounding points's Z value it would produce a Z that is not the real one.
Remember, to achieve good results the shapes should be as flat as possible. This implies more shapes needed to achieve smooth surfaces what is a bad new for script performance.

-G

[Neoranma]

I think I just figured out what I did. tiredness.. in my attempt to bring the edge of the back, down, I forgot that I must have been creating new shapes along the way. oops!
Hope when I say mess up. I'm not critisinging you. I am simply experimenting, and figuring out what works well and what doesn't.
what I Should have done was to delete some lines before I connected.. but that also defeats the purpose of my idea for a little shortcut.
definatly am using version 9.
Guess the only bug you can't fix is user error.