body turn bone issue

[synthsin75]

Pictures or file?

[Greenlaw]

Hi,

Maybe some of the layers have been positioned at different z-depths. Make sure the artwork layers are at the same z-depth as the bones.

Otherwise, the description of the issue is too vague for a more specific answer. Can ​you can upload screen caps, video and/or the project file. Posting the latter would be the most helpful in figuring out what's wrong.

...rigging only works on frame 0.

Rigging is normally done on frame 0, not on other frames. You can do some limited IK testing on frame 0, but full rig testing and posing has to be done on frame 1 or later. In brief: Rigging is only done at frame 0, animation and posing is done on frame 1 and later.

Hope this helps.

[synthsin75]

Looks like you just moved the art for the turn without moving the bones. How you'd usually do this is to first move the bones and then animate the art.

[Greenlaw]

There are a few things going on here but I need to know what you intended/expected to happen.

I'm guessing you want the character to turn 180 degrees. If so, to me it looks like you're transforming a group layer and/or the drawing layers where you should be animating the skeleton instead.

For example, to move the orange guy's camera-right shoulder to camera-left side, you should move his near upper arm bone across the body to the left, and the far upper arm bone to the right. At the moment, it looks like you're squishing a group and moving the layers of the vectors instead, which moves the drawings away from their bones. To fix this, try killing the keyframes for these unwanted transforms and move the bones instead.

(I can post an example a little later.)

In general, try to do all your animations in the bones layer, and then do any corrections or secondary animations to the drawing layers. Following this workflow should be easier and more predictable.

Hope this helps.

[Greenlaw]

Here's the example I promised...



The 'turn' is accomplished by sliding the upper arms bones across the body. (Plus, sliding the face bone from right to left.)

As you can see in the screen cap below, all of the character animation is done on a single bones layer including the layer order animation for the arms and head. I didn't bother doing any transform or point animations to the character's drawing layers...



To be clear, I don't mean you shouldn't add transform or point animations to those layers but that's a step I prefer to take after the bones animation has been done.

Believe me, it's much easier and faster to animate in stages like this. You can, of course, go back to earlier stages to make adjustments as needed, but you should build a good 'first pass' in stages first. This will help you keep the animation on fewer groups and layers, making it easier to find the keyframes and manage the project.

Hope this helps.

Here's the demo file if you wish to examine it. Feel free to ask any questions.

ArmsCrossOver.moho

Edit: These files have been slightly updated since the original posting.

[Greenlaw]

Some basic rigging tips:

I used Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding separately for each arm and the body. This keeps the influence of these bones limited to each body part. The head and face layers use Layer Binding because they each only need to follow one bone (head and face respectively.)

I set the bone strengths for the head, face and root bones to 0. Since I'm using Layer Binding for the face and head, bone strength isn't necessary. It's important to remember this was done though, in case you decide later to change the binding and the bones don't seem to ​do anything. The root bone's strength is 0 because it's only used to move the rig, not deform it.

For the rest of the rig, the bone strengths are reduced to control how they bend the artwork. If you increase the strengths you get a wider and smoother bend, and if you decrease it, you get a sharper bend. This character doesn't illustrate this very well because the body and arms artwork have only a single point at the joints, but if you add more points in the 'bend' areas, you'll definitely see the effect of bone strength.

[Greenlaw]

Earlier I talked about doing the character animation in stages. Here's a general guideline...

1. Bones. Animate the skeleton to get the main key poses done, then add any in-between poses to smooth out the transitions. Remember, you can move and scale bones too, you don't need to rely only on rotation and IK. Moving is mainly done to the upper limb bones like the upper arm or upper leg during a turn, and maybe during walk animations.

When I'm posing a character, I'm usually using the Manipulate Bone tool for IK and holding Alt down to temporarily switch to FK mode. This is a very fast way to pose a character. To move or scale a bone, however, I need to switch to the Transform Bone tool. You can temporarily switch tools by holding down a Tool's shortcut key but I don't recommend this for posing because it slows down the rig too much; IMO, it's better to completely switch to Transform (tap T) and then switch back to Manipulate Bones (tap Z).

If you have Smart Bone Dials in your rig for posing (i.e., turning body parts like the head or torso,) you should animate these at this stage as well. Any pose related Vitruvian Bones should be animated now too.

You should also do any Layer Order Animations that affect posing here. If the bones layer has Animated Layer Order enabled, these keyframes will appear in the same bones layer on the timeline, keeping the keyframes for the character easier to manage.

2. Transforms and Point Animations. This stage is when you edit shapes and artwork to smooth out transitions or to make corrections to bad deformations caused by bones. This can include transforming the layers using the Transform Layer tool or editing the points positions directly using Transform Points or Magnet Tool. This is probably where you want to do Mesh Warp animations too.

3. Face Animations and Lip Sync. It's actually arguable when you should do this animation. For example, I might animate parts of the face in stage 1, but even then I might only animate the face after the main body animation is done. Lip Sync should probably be done at this stage but it might be harder to animate lip sync while the character is moving around. I haven't really had any problems with this but If it helps, try muting the main bones channel to hold the face 'in place' while you work on the lip sync. Unmute those channels when you're done with the lip sync.

4. Secondary Animation. Now is the time to add any extra motions like hair bounces, cloth motions, etc. This is where I might also add squash and stretch to the entire rig by transforming a 'master' group layer...I often to this when a character is running or making very broad motions. If you have Mesh Warps set up, this can be another good stage to use them.

About Switch Layers. If my Switch Layers are controlled by Smart Bone Dials, I'll animate these in Stage 1 where appropriate. These keyframes will appear in the Bones layer along with the rest of the skeleton animation.

There's a lot more we could go into obviously, but this list should help get you started with rig animation. Note that this list is not a hard and fast rule, it's just a guideline. You should do what works most efficiently for you and your production.