Moving bones after creating body turn

[gdeadtoo]

After creating a body turn, how do I move the bones into the correct position? Selecting the bone(s) with the Transform Bone tool also moves the vector art. I have a front-view character and created a Smart Bone dial to create the body turn. After creating the side-view, the arm bones are now outside his arms (created using two vector layers). So when I create a new pose, the upper and lower arm are off-center.

[Greenlaw]

You can do that in a Smart Bone Action, but I don't recommend it.

This will restrict the range of your character, which can get very frustrating when you need to make your character perform outside of what the Smart Bone Action allows. Also, building too much of the animation and posing into the turn Smart Bone Action can make the animation look generic and boring.

I suggest limiting the Smart Bone's control to just the tedious bits, i.e., the deformations of the artwork required for the turn, and just animating the bones/limb positions where you want/need them for a given pose.

But if you really want to go there, you'll need to keyframe the bone positions before and after you switch the pose inside the Smart Bone's animation. This will 'pop' the limb bones into position. This only works if you stay within the limits you're setting for the rig...if you try to offset the limb positions during animation, you may as well be doing that manually anyway. Otherwise, you'll find yourself counter-animating against the Smart Bone Action, which is a headache and no fun at all.

Hope this helps.

[gdeadtoo]

it does, thanks. it seems that i should create different rigs. one for turning, then another to do everything after

[Greenlaw]

There are a lot of ways to approach this. I usually just make separate turning body and head groups, with free-moving groups each arm and leg that are not part of the turn.

This is how the 'general purpose' Moho rigs I make at my workplace are set up. These rigs do the bulk of the acting in a show. They take time to setup but they're fast and easy to animate with.

Sometimes, I need to make special 'one-off' rigs when the character needs to do something the 'general purpose' rig can't do. I hardly spend any time rigging this type because these rigs are very simple and only do the one or two things the scene calls for.

Naturally, I avoid building in too many 'special' functions that hardly ever get used into a general purpose rig. I try not to unnecessarily complicate a rig because then it becomes too difficult to modify it when needed. That's where the 'one-offs' come in.

Hope this helps.