New hand rig results

DominiqueBray · Post by **DominiqueBray** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 1:11 am

wow, impressive

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 1:00 pm

Okay, I'm officially going to call this my 2.9D rig, since I've not seen these kind of results from AS. Here's the body. It's about 130 bone (about 45 of which require manipulation) on one bone layer, with about 45 vector layers, and plenty of layer sorting.

phastraq · Post by **phastraq** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 8:32 pm

2.9D FTW! This is by far the most significant innovation I have ever seen in AS. The fact that you have come up with this over a few days is even more impressive.

AS animators will be studying this for years to come.

FCSnow · Post by **FCSnow** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 12:40 am

I am truly impressed!!!

When can tell us how you did it? I'd love to try out this rig on some of my own characters!

A question though, will this technic work with head turns?

FC Snow

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 1:09 am

FCSnow wrote:A question though, will this technique work with head turns?

That's my next mission. The results so far have me very optimistic. As I've said, I really want to see how far I can take this before presenting the technique. That way I can explain how it works for the whole character.

phastraq wrote:This is by far the most significant innovation I have ever seen in AS. The fact that you have come up with this over a few days is even more impressive.

AS animators will be studying this for years to come.

Thanks for the encouragement. I had actually been thinking about ways to do this for quite some time. Just finally stumbled across the right idea, and it's been almost building itself.

phastraq · Post by **phastraq** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:59 pm

One thing I am curious about though is can your character make a full 360 degree turn with this technique? Not that I think it's necessary but it just occurred to me to ask.

If not then for each character you will need a front view and a back view but within those views you get any angle or position you could possibly want.

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 11:41 pm

The rig does front to side rotation, so with layer sorting that becomes front to back. With a symmetric character, a layer flip would allow a full 360, but you would need an extra view for any asymmetric parts.

There are a few limitations. If you try to do a diagonal foreshortening with anything but the arms and legs, it kind of collapses since it's getting scaled on both axes. Not anything I can't live without.

phastraq · Post by **phastraq** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 4:55 am

That would be more than adequate.

Again I would be very interested in seeing an AS file as I am working on a feature length film and this rig would greatly improve the speed in producing the fight scene that I am now doing.

Here is a little taste of what I'm working with so far http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpXF4Psn ... annel_page

The fight scene is supposed to be more like a traditional anime though and from what I see your rig is capable of it would really help.

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 6:04 am

Sorry, I don't know when I'll have this ready to share. That's the main reason I posted it in the 'Share your work' section instead of 'Tips and Techniques'. There are still a lot of things I need to work out.

But I'll see if I can put together a simple example file of the technique, as soon as I get a chance.

jitendas · Post by **jitendas** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 8:05 am

great work
I greatly impress

phastraq · Post by **phastraq** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 12:05 am

synthsin75 wrote: I'll see if I can put together a simple example file of the technique, as soon as I get a chance.

Much appreciated. I have been telling the guys in the crew that much more is possible with AS if they would just open their minds to the possibilities. You have now proven my point.

SweSpy · Post by **SweSpy** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 12:56 am

I love it

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 2:53 am

Okay, as promised, a very simple example file of the technique.
http://www.mediafire.com/?xez9b2wm2yj

It's only a body, but it should illustrate the basic idea behind this. If you hit play, I've set it up so you can watch an animated version of the construction details. The two large horizontal bones handle the turning, and all of the small bones are scale constrained to either a vertical or horizontal bone.

This is all done by making cross-sections of certain parts. Namely the top, bottom, and profiles, although some extra might be needed depending on the shapes. Arms, legs, and fingers are handled similarly, but they don't have the profile cross-section. Limb turns don't really show much change. The palms are built like the chest.

The feet are built similarly, but require little different approach.

Also, you'll notice my trick for having a continuous outline. I just select all and create the outline shape at the bottom of the shape stack. Then with no outline fills I create the rest. That bottom outline shape automatically shows around the edges no matter which shapes might overlap.

And just to update my progress, the head is coming along very well so far, though it requires a slightly altered version of this technique.

Like I've said, once I finish all this, I plan to do a more in-depth tutorial of the technique. Unless of course, it is a simple enough idea that this example explains it.

phastraq · Post by **phastraq** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 5:05 am

WOOHOO! I finally get my hands on it. Thanks a mil. I'll be up all night studying your rig but I'm sure it will save me days or weeks of production time.

Thanks again.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 6:03 am

Cool rig Synth!

You beat me to it!

I've been working on something similar using a "dedicated script" for "aiming bones" and bunches of constraints... it's not even as close as yours though. Can't wait to see the whole thing.

I'm really interested in how to deal with "scaled foreshortening" and "rotations". I ran into a snag with that particular hurdle.

-vern