Use one rig on different rigs

[Metoo]

I have spent a lot of time creating the ultimate hand rig. I would like to import this hand rig for all my animations. The problem that I'm having is I created this rig with all the fixins. I have 5 object layers composing of all the parts of the hand. Nested inside a bone layer. With 3 smartdials. But when I try to import the hand rig into a full body rig. The hand bone layer won't work with the other body rig bones. So if I move the arm the hand won't follow. And I can't just and the hand object layers to the body rig because the smartbone/dial actions are tied to the hand rig bone layer. I really don't wanna build this hand rig every time. Do anyone have any suggestions?

[chucky]

I can only suggest , begging the developers for nested smart bone rigging
I know your pain.

[synthsin75]

You can chain higher smart bones to control lower ones. They just have to have different names.

And you should be able to layer bind the hand group/bone layer to the main skeleton arm bone.

[chucky]

Different names?
I have found that only a percentage of the actions follows through, so are you saying Wes, that if bones names don't match , then all the actions can be controlled by the upstream smart bone?

[synthsin75]

Different names?
I have found that only a percentage of the actions follows through, so are you saying Wes, that if bones names don't match , then all the actions can be controlled by the upstream smart bone?

Yep. The problem with bones named the same is that the higher bone will try to take over for the lower one with the same-named action...or not work at all.

[chucky]

OMG, I wish I knew this before, Cheers Wes.

So is scenario would nested SBs work?

Parent Bone layer contains all smart bone dials (not character skeleton)
Child Bone layer contains all basic skeleton (limbs and torso)
Switch group no bones HEAD SWITCH -Child of limbs and Torso Bone layer .
Children of Head switch - Side Head has bones and 3/4 Head has bones - the smart actions of the top parent would work? Even the vectors inside these two would move to the head turn of the top parent?

As long as no child bones had repeated names from above?

[chucky]

https://1drv.ms/u/s!An9E1CVuSl-zgbcEWukEEcP4240ZZw
Like this super simple ex.
If it does work, then the modular hands and heads would be good

I had modular hands before but I've always had to go digging into the hierarchy to animated them

[synthsin75]

https://1drv.ms/u/s!An9E1CVuSl-zgbcEWukEEcP4240ZZw
Like this super simple ex.
If it does work, then the modular hands and heads would be good

I had modular hands before but I've always had to go digging into the hierarchy to animated them

For that file, you just need to change a few things for it to work.

1. Instead of layer binding the HEAD switch to the head bone, layer bind the switch's child bone layers individually.
2. On the Skeleton layer, add a transfer smart bone.
3. The dials layer Open SB needs to control the transfer SB, and the transfer SB needs to control the two mouth SBs.


EDIT: If the Open SB is on the Skeleton layer, you'd be able to have it control the mouth SBs directly, but the transfer bone is needed for this much nesting...because of which layer is doing the layer binding.

[chucky]

Thanks Wes,I got most of that working, certainly the mouth and the head switch, but I haven't got a turn to work yet.
Unfortunately I'm bogged down with work, so I can't experiment at this moment.
If this can work as I'm hoping, then , good times are ahead.
pity about having to put all those intermediate bones. could get complicated.