Parent this object to my character's head?

[myleshi]

Hey guys. Would love to share my work here as a rookie user, but I've run into a bit of an issue. I want these eyeglass arms to stay attached to his face properly. I thought I just needed to attach it to the same bone as the rest of the head, but I think I'm missing a step somewhere. Can someone point out what I'm doing wrong here? Hopefully this video shows enough information.


Edit: havent used a message board in a while, so I also need a lesson on how to properly link a video as well. xD
[youtube]https://youtu.be/1Ma8vfhTs4A[/youtube]

[Daxel]

Flexibind layer is to use the force of the bones to move the selected layer, that's why you see the layer origin cross being moved. To disable that, use Release layer.

From what I can see, it looks like your head drawings move with the head bone without any distorsion, and you are using some bone strenght, so I guess you used Use selected bones for flexibinding. To do that with the glasses arm, select its layer, then pick the select bone tool, select the head bone and finally click on Use selected bones for flexibinding. That option means "use only the selected bones for flexibinding with the selected layer/layers" or in other words, don't let other bones, like the torso bone, influence the selected layer with its strength.

Let me know if that works.

[myleshi]

Flexibind layer is to use the force of the bones to move the selected layer, that's why you see the layer origin cross being moved. To disable that, use Release layer.

From what I can see, it looks like your head drawings move with the head bone without any distorsion, and you are using some bone strenght, so I guess you used Use selected bones for flexibinding. To do that with the glasses arm, select its layer, then pick the select bone tool, select the head bone and finally click on Use selected bones for flexibinding. That option means "use only the selected bones for flexibinding with the selected layer/layers" or in other words, don't let other bones, like the torso bone, influence the selected layer with its strength.

Let me know if that works.

thanks for the help. So in the video I tried with both the flex bind and without. You're right, I need the flex bind option on. It would move with the head, but it just moved in a way I didnt want. I realized that I had to set the origin of the object to match the glasses for it to rotate with it properly. Problem solved, but I want to leave this up to see if theres any alternative ways in handling this as well.

[Greenlaw]

For rigid items that I'm not bending with bones, I just use Layer Bind directly to a bone. Example: for 'prop' items like hat, glasses, etc., I layer bind these directly to the head or face bone. It's simple, direct and it works perfectly.

If the item is inside a Group layer, you can layer bind the group but be aware that this effectively layer binds the entire contents of the group to that bone. If you want some items inside the group to be controlled by different bones, you should bind the contents individually and not as a group.

If you have a lot of items to layer bind to the same bone, you can multi-select them and bind them all at once. (This works when using Use Selected Bones For Flexi-Binding too.)

[Greenlaw]

If the issue is that some items appear to drift from the bones when animated, chances are the item is positioned at a different z-depth from the rig. You can check this by looking at the scene using the Orbit view or by selecting the drifting layer and checking its z position. If it's not at 0, set it to 0 and see if that fixes it.

[Greenlaw]

If you want to use Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding, you just need to select the bone or bones you want to attach or deform the layer or layers with, select the layer, and then apply the command. (Menu command or Ctrl+Shift+F. If you're using MQC, there's a button for it.)

What Use Selected Bones For Flex-binding does is it limits which bones can affect the selected artwork to ONLY the selected bones. So if this is applied to a 'hat' layer and the 'head' bone, then the hat will be 'attached' to the head bone and be unaffected by other bones in the rig. This is basically the same result as what I described above, just a little more complicated to set up. (Which is why I suggest Bind Layer for this.)

Note that any Flexi-bind mode requires the bones to have some strength value above 0 as it has no effect with 0 strength. Bind Layer, on the other hand, doesn't care about bone strength.

One more tip about Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding: Just because you assigned a few bones to a layer selection doesn't not mean those bones won't still affect other layer not in the selection. When you use this feature, you will probably want to use it for the entire rig to make sure specific bones affect specific artwork throughout the character. (You can still use Bind Layer and Bind Points additionally.)

Wait, I lied...here's on last tip: if the current binding doesn't work the way you expected and you think you broke something, just select the layers in question and choose Reset All Bone Rigging. What this does is it strips away the current binding from the selected layers applies the default Flexi-binding mode to the selection. This is almost always easier than trying to fix the problem manually...just reset and apply the new binding.

Note that this 'scary' sounding command is safe when you select layers before you use it. If you don't select any layers first, Moho assumes you really do want to reset ALL Bone Rigging and will reset all the layers.

Hope this helps.

[myleshi]

If the issue is that some items appear to drift from the bones when animated, chances are the item is positioned at a different z-depth from the rig. You can check this by looking at the scene using the Orbit view or by selecting the drifting layer and checking its z position. If it's not at 0, set it to 0 and see if that fixes it.

Thanks for all the ideas.

When I am scrubbing thru the timeline of the smart bone I made for the head, the objects stay attached just fine.

When I go into the mainline and scrub thru the timeline on my animation, thats when the object shifts off the head and gives me issues. There's a bind, but it drifts as u said.

When I go to check the orbit view, everything appears to be on the same depth/plane.

[Greenlaw]

Hmm...that makes me wonder if there's a conflict with another Smart Bones Action. You might want to go through your other Smart Bones Actions (if they exist) to see if any of them affect the 'drifting' item. Delete the keyframes for that item in each Action that shouldn't have them, even if those keyframes don't do anything.

Another thing to check is bone influence, meaning: could another bone be unintentionally affecting that item?

If it's a bone influence issue, the first thing I'd check is the Smart Bone Dials. Make sure the Bone strengths are set to 0 for all of them. Then make sure any other bones that shouldn't have or don't need bone strength are set to 0.

If you're using Use Selected Bones For Flex-binding, make sure only the bones you want to affect the item are part of the binding. You can tell which bones are included from the way the bones are highlighted.

[Daxel]

thanks for the help. So in the video I tried with both the flex bind and without. You're right, I need the flex bind option on. It would move with the head, but it just moved in a way I didnt want. I realized that I had to set the origin of the object to match the glasses for it to rotate with it properly. Problem solved, but I want to leave this up to see if theres any alternative ways in handling this as well.

But have you tried to use specifically the Use selected bones for flexibinding? Because it looks like the points of the glasses arm that are closer to the head bone are affected by it, but the ones that are more to the left could be closer to the influence of the torso bone. And Use selected bones for flexibinding solves that letting only the head bone affect the points of the layer.

[myleshi]

thanks for the help. So in the video I tried with both the flex bind and without. You're right, I need the flex bind option on. It would move with the head, but it just moved in a way I didnt want. I realized that I had to set the origin of the object to match the glasses for it to rotate with it properly. Problem solved, but I want to leave this up to see if theres any alternative ways in handling this as well.

But have you tried to use specifically the Use selected bones for flexibinding? Because it looks like the points of the glasses arm that are closer to the head bone are affected by it, but the ones that are more to the left could be closer to the influence of the torso bone. And Use selected bones for flexibinding solves that letting only the head bone affect the points of the layer.

Yeah. Every item on the head was flexibinded to the head bone. When I do head turns, the glasses float away, and the nose floats away also. I'll probably have to just reset all the bones and try again... but I'd rather not! haha.

[myleshi]

Hmm...that makes me wonder if there's a conflict with another Smart Bones Action. You might want to go through your other Smart Bones Actions (if they exist) to see if any of them affect the 'drifting' item. Delete the keyframes for that item in each Action that shouldn't have them, even if those keyframes don't do anything.

Another thing to check is bone influence, meaning: could another bone be unintentionally affecting that item?

If it's a bone influence issue, the first thing I'd check is the Smart Bone Dials. Make sure the Bone strengths are set to 0 for all of them. Then make sure any other bones that shouldn't have or don't need bone strength are set to 0.

If you're using Use Selected Bones For Flex-binding, make sure only the bones you want to affect the item are part of the binding. You can tell which bones are included from the way the bones are highlighted.

I think I've fixed it! Thank you. I turned the bone strength down on the torso, and now the objects seem to all work fine with rotations.

[Daxel]

I think I've fixed it! Thank you. I turned the bone strength down on the torso, and now the objects seem to all work fine with rotations.

Nice but keep in mind that If you solved it turning the torso bone strength down then you didn't use the Use selected bones for flexibinding correctly, because then no other bone could affect the points of that layer.