smart bone poster with text and illustrations

[Hoptoad]

I saw a video on YouTube where the Moho animator had made a "poster" (a colored rectangle) to the side of his bone-rigged character, and the poster held numerous smart bones. Rather than using bone labels, it looks like he used text layers, which was nifty. Also on the poster were little illustrations to show what the art looked like in switch layers. At the top was a pin bone that allowed the entire poster and all the smart bones, text and illustrations to be moved as a unit. Everything was positioned so nicely on the poster, it was impressive.

How did he make that poster? I know how to make smart bones, but not that poster. There must be a group folder in the character's bone layer, and text layers and vector art illustrations in the group layer. Right? And a pin bone was placed above the poster, and bind layer was used to bind the group layer to the pin bone. . .

But how did everything move together?

The smart bones on the poster were the control types, not the bending arm types. I thought control-type smart bones were not supposed to be parented to other bones, and yet all the smart bones moved when he moved the poster's pin bone. I don't get it.

Do any of you make posters like that? I call it a "poster" for lack of a better name. Does it have a name?

Thanks.

[Greenlaw]

I haven't seen the poster but I sometimes use Note layers for bone labels in the workspace. You can probably see this setup (in an older demo reel) with some of my old rigs back when I used Smart Bones for lipsync. What I would do is put the Notes in a separate Switch layer from the mouth shapes Switch layer, and these Note labels were synced to the mouths. This way I could see a text description for each shapes as I turned the dial (This was before Moho got the Switch Selection window which does the same thing without the extra set up.) I've used this method for changing other rig labels as I turned Smart Bone Dials as well.

One advantage to using Note for labels is that they don't jump around like Bone Labels, a 'feature' I normally don't like because it sometimes makes it impossible to read the labels. With Notes, the 'labels' stay put exactly where I place them. Tip: If you're going to use Notes this way, you'll want to enable Enable Note Scaling.

Of course you can use Text layers instead for more variety in styles, but I prefer to use Note because it's clean and easier to work with.

As for moving everything together, just parent everything to a master bone and move the master bone. You can parent any Note or Text labels to the master bone too. If you want the Smart Bones and custom labels to move with the character, parent the master the root bone. Tips: instead of parenting directly to the root, parent to a small child bone parented to the root. Then enable Independent Angle for the child. This keeps the Smart Bones setup from tumbling around when the character rotates. Also, you might parent smaller groups of Smart Bones to their own 'mover' bones and parent those to the child. This way you can move the groups individually as necessary (like when another character crosses into the bone group's territory or when you need to move the Smart Bones to see them better in the camera frame.)

The above tricks are easy to set up and over the years I found them to be very useful.

Hope this helps.

[Hoptoad]

Thanks for the information, I'll give it a try.

I found the video on YouTube. Here's a screenshot.

And a link to the video.

https://youtu.be/S4rqmGH9kQU

[Hoptoad]

See the character in the screenshot? Why is there a pin bone between the stomach bone and the chest bone? I've seen that in a few rigs and I don't know what purpose it serves. Thanks.

Edit: Also, see the pelvis? I'm guessing the pin bone is the root bone. Why are there tiny bones connecting the pin bone to the thigh bones? I make my character's thigh bones float a distance away from the the pelvis root bone and they rotate fine. Are the tiny bones to re-position the thigh bones while animating? If so, doesn't transform bone already do that?

[Greenlaw]

I can take some guesses but you'll have to ask the guy to built the rig to be sure. Moho's rigging system is very flexible and bones like these can be used in any number of ways. I think many artists will just make stuff up as the need arises.

For example, the pin bone could be attached the one of the spine bones and it may be used to offset the torso while the character is standing, or it might be used to expand the chest to make it look like the character is breathing. Or it could be the 'child' bone I described earlier that moves the control panel with the character. (I tend to hide these bones using Shy so they don't get in the way of animation.)

Personally, I find panels like this to be a bit much...they can take up too much space in the workspace and may get in the way of animating the scene. It's like face joystick panels created in Moho...they're cool in a demo but kinda limiting in practice. Plus, who has the time to put all that stuff in there when there's animation to create? But that's just me of course. Everyone has their preferences and should work in the manner that works best for them. I don't know what this rig was created for and it could be the best rig for the job.

[Hoptoad]

Personally, I find panels like this to be a bit much...they can take up too much space in the workspace and may get in the way of animating the scene. It's like face joystick panels created in Moho...they're cool to look at in a demo but kinda limiting in practice. Plus, who has the time to put all that stuff in there when there's animation to create? But that's just me of course. Everyone has their preferences and should work in the manner that works best for them. I don't know what this rig was created for and it could be the best rig for the job.

Yeh, I see what you mean. I wonder if the "panel" was made by the rigger to make a separate animator's job easier. But since I'm the animator of my own characters, I'm thinking, do I actually need all those visual aids? Is it worth the time?

Anyhow, I did figure-out how to do the panel, and it works. Yay. Thanks for your help.

Tips: instead of parenting directly to the root, parent to a small child bone parented to the root. Then enable Independent Angle for the child. This keeps the Smart Bones setup from tumbling around when the character rotates.

This was a GREAT tip. I was never able to figure this out previously. With your explanation, I finally got it right - first try. Thanks.

[Greenlaw]

I wonder if the "panel" was made by the rigger to make a separate animator's job easier. But since I'm the animator of my own characters, I'm thinking, do I actually need all those visual aids? Is it worth the time?

Maybe. FWIW, I sometimes make rigs for other animators, and I just provide a PDF or Google Doc to explain stuff and make myself available to the team to answer questions. After a while, I only bother sending a new document when I've done something unusual in the particular setup.

But yeah, if I'm going to be the sole animator, I might skimp on certain visual aids...but not too much because I need those aids too!

This was a GREAT tip. I was never able to figure this out previously. With your explanation, I finally got it right - first try. Thanks.

Awesome!

[SimplSam]

...
I found the video on YouTube. Here's a screenshot.

And a link to the video.

...

He also provided a version of this Moho project on his own channel video which you can download from the description.

[Greenlaw]

Oh, about the child bone with Independent Angle for moving the controls with the character, you'll probably want to Shy the child bone after parenting the controls master to it. Normally you don't want to keyframe this bone so it's best to Shy it.

I may have mentioned that already, just want to be sure.

[Hoptoad]

He also provided a version of this Moho project on his own channel video which you can download from the description.

I didn't know about that. Thanks!

Oh, about the child bone with Independent Angle for moving the controls with the character, you'll probably want to Shy the child bone after parenting the controls master to it. Normally you don't want to keyframe this bone so it's best to Shy it.

Thanks for the extra information. I was thinking about doing that, but hadn't decided yes or no because you hadn't mentioned it.

I'm thinking this bone-control trick might allow me to fix the rigs that had crazy problems whenever I tried using bone dynamics (springiness, etc.) on a string of bones. The bones were supposed to wiggle gently, but they would spin like propellers, even when I changed the numbers to something small, like .1.