[kilvano]

Ill start a thread when i have something actually worth seeing,

ive had an idea i was going with but i think ive got a new one.

I was wanting to animate a guy floating through different parts of a space station.

Im ognna do some experimenting tonight with medelling. Ill post what i do


______________

AMD Athlon 64 3400+
1.5 Gig DDR 400
120Gb HD
Matrox 256Mb Parhelia
2 x 19" TFT

[davie563]

Im rigging my character the now, and ive watched a few of the vids on this site about rigging. I was just wondering if some1 can tell me why ppl seem to use 3 bones for the lower arm, i dont under-stand why this is done, is it for more control, even so that part of the arm cant bend anyway, so i was just wondering if some1 knows why this si done, cheers

pic-1 : Is the way ive done it, useing 1 bone.

pic-2 : The way u see it done in all the tuts ive seen.

[KrisYoung1980]

Hey Fraser,

The reason I use multiple bones for the lower arm is to get better control of forearm banking, if you use 1 bone it distorts the elbow joint in an unrealistic way. A real forearm has two parallel(ish) bones in it that twist which is very hard to recreate using lightwave bones, so i pop one bone at the top for the elbow pitching and another one after that for the forearm banking, i guess people might use three for the same reasons... but i could just be talking mince?!!?

Looking good by the way! Had to give my machine a complete overhaul so it'll be a while before i can get anything worth showing posted...

[kilvano]

yep i knew that. only cause kris told me but it does make it easier. i tried it out on my animation tech stuff (which i have finished woo hoo)

[davie563]

cheers

[davie563]

test render

:p

[simple]

Now that is looking good, oh and in using three bones your m8 is right it helps for control, but what you have to remember is there is also the wrist joint, thats why a third bone comes in handy, for pivoting etc.

Alot of my characters, if I`m using inverse kinematics and I want the hand movements and arms to be very realistic, then I would add three bones or more depending on what am doing, for the forearms.

what your learning on fridays class is simply the basics for forward, inverse and endomorphing, also motion designer, a character animation would use all of these things if you were really looking for total control.
Like facial movement endomorphing, upper torso movement forward kinematics etc.

Inverse kinematics I usually only use for the lower part of a character.

When you design the character, you need to also design, how the character is going to move what your going to see alot of, if you dont need alot of movement in the arms dont put it in.

Also watch out for render times, enhanced low anti-aliasing will allow you to do alot of things, also check out a slight motion blur effect can give realism to movement.

Other than that m8 I want to see this animation, Im usually in on a Monday morning and friday afternoon.

Check this website out its called http://www.xenomorphic.co.uk its by a guy called Peter Draper he uses Max but its how he renders that matters.

[davie563]

just wondering what u think of my rig, are the arms done well for maximum control

cheers

[kilvano]

looks good...i like the extra bone for shoulder control.

Best way to see it to play about with it. You gonna IK it?

Chris


PS update you AVG!

[kilvano]

that looks like a lot of polys. whats the count?

[davie563]

My character is 30k Polys


Right, next problem, Weight Maps, i got a feeling i will have to make alot of them for individual parts, like belt, face finger ect...

By the way, does anybody else find it hard to get a bone with proper axis in layout, every time i import a skeleton in, i always find that some fingers done have any axis's for me to use, they are all wonky and somtimes the bank and pitch are at the same angle, wierd,

:p lol, im using my New comp, it aint online, so im not at any real risk, i keep transfering my jpegs over to family comp for uploading, they are both sitting right next to each other so i can keep my comp of the net :p

[kilvano]

kris is your man for that sort of stuff.

hes not online just now i dont think? well hes not logged into MSN anyway.

[davie563]

whats ur MSN, and Kris aswell, im on MSN the now

[kilvano]

mine is adodgybloke at hotmail dot com

ill give u kris's on msn. i alread added ur hotmail to my MSN but i may have the wrong address

[davie563]

this is the final rig, i think ill fix the rest of the mesh with weight maps, ive made we ribbs and stuff, to keep the main torso in shape, ill see how it goes :p