gradient & bones problem

Svastara · Post by **Svastara** » Thu Sep 22, 2011 7:27 pm

hi guys,
i have a weird problem when i want to animate objects using the bones and a gradient fill effect

here is what happens

http://youtu.be/6a2zKf6gABk

when i try to animate "arms and legs" for example, and apply gradient over it, then place all the layers into a new bone layer, and then move the bones with the z shortcut, the gradient gets all mixed up, i thought this was only in the preview mode, however even when i render it, it still looks tangled and mixed up

am i doing something wrong or is it a bug?

can anyone try and replicate this and see if they get the same result?

Svastara · Post by **Svastara** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 1:32 pm

I've added some more explanations for the problem

jonbo · Post by **jonbo** » Fri Sep 23, 2011 4:13 pm

Gradients follow bone strength, so on the arms and legs the bone strength is a little higher than it needs to be and the body needs a lot more strength. The bone influence should reach just a little outside of the shape it affecting. Another problem I see is your shapes are rectangles. When you bend the arms or legs, the gradients bend with the bones but the shape can't bend. Add more points to the middle of the shapes so they can bend and follow with the gradients. In general, I don't use gradients on boned shapes for the reasons you seen. I use the shaded effect or other shapes with lower alphas over the originals instead.