Moho Forum

Hey smart people! I've been messing around with my character's short prehensile tail all day trying different bone structures. I have some problems. First, in order that the tail be able to fold behind itself I've broken it into sections of fill. Unfortunately when my tail bends I now have weird jaggies at the places where it bends, I think because of the parts of the line I've hidden.

Also, I want the tail to have prehensile characteristics sometimes, but react to gravity etc. when my character jumps. I'd also like to be able to use bone dynamics to make it float in water but my experiments for that end up with a range of looks from fake, to horribly horribly wrong. Is there any way to combine bone dynamics with regular bone animation? Is it keyframeable somehow?

I wonder if anyone of you has already conquered all these tail rigging problems, and if you'd care to share your findings?

THANKS!

Poz

Whoa! Mmm, I'd probably need to see some kind of example of most of this. Even some sketches, if you can't share the AS file.

First, in order that the tail be able to fold behind itself I've broken it into sections of fill. Unfortunately when my tail bends I now have weird jaggies at the places where it bends

Just guessing, but I'd use two separate shapes to pull that off. I'm not sure how you mean it to bend though.

Also, I want the tail to have prehensile characteristics sometimes, but react to gravity etc. when my character jumps.

I'd turn the bone dynamics on and off for this bit.

For floating I'd think reverse gravity effects. I'd try a locked bone above the tail.

Of course most of this depends on which views/angles you'll need.

I have a character with a long sort of prehensile tail. Not sure what you mean about the "jaggies" at the shape joins but I don't have that problem.

Another trick to use would be a thick stroke for the tail instead of shapes. Originally I had shapes for the tail but went with a thick stroke and custom brushes to make the end round and add tiger stripes.

http://www.lowrestv.com/moho_stuff/larry7b.mov

Another trick I use to smooth out the movement and make it easier to animate is to use two sets of bones. A main set that controls the points and a smaller set that controls the other bones with constraints.

Here's a sample file I had lying about:

http://www.lowrestv.com/anime_studio/bo ... tail2.anme

It has two different tail types, a fill type and a stroke type. You will notice that the stroke version is "smoother" at the joints. The fill type tail could be improved if a bunch of fan bones were added... that is why I went with a stroke type tail. Less work.

-vern

heyvern wrote:I have a character with a long sort of prehensile tail. Not sure what you mean about the "jaggies" at the shape joins but I don't have that problem.

Another trick to use would be a thick stroke for the tail instead of shapes. Originally I had shapes for the tail but went with a thick stroke and custom brushes to make the end round and add tiger stripes.

http://www.lowrestv.com/moho_stuff/larry7b.mov



-vern

Man! I bet that guy had a terrible time in high school! Never quite fit in with the tigers, and the lions thought he was weird...

But that's a stroke for the tail? I'm impressed! what on earth does the brush look like to make all those hairs in the middle?

I'll have to wait until later to check out the file. Thanks very much for your help!

here's what I mean by jaggies...

pozlang wrote:
here's what I mean by jaggies...

Yes, there is not much you can do about that. I get this with arms and legs but they don't have to bend both ways and you can put an extra point in there and move it away to hide the gap. A tail however bends both ways so you would need a bunch of fan bones to make that point move to hide the gap.

Sorry but I didn't put the custom brush in the file I uploaded.

Basically it looks like this:



It isn't a perfect solution because if the tail changes "volume" or lenght extra brush stripes pop in. But it works pretty good.

So there is one shape that is orange, and another shape on top on the same points that have the brush with a wide spacing to create the stripe gaps.

-vern