Moho Animation Forum

Hey there, people.

I'm having trouble setting up a bone rig for hands. Quite simply, I suck at it!! Is there anyone out there that can provide some handy dandy tips and hopefully point me in the right direction?

Darramouss

I need some examples of your hand design and some info about what those hands need to be able to do before I could provide any helpful hints.

How do I attach a file on to the forum or get one over to you?

If you have some webspace available, you can upload it there and put a link to that URL into your posting. If anything else fails, you may mail the file to me.

I don't know if this will help but it's a technique I use and like very much. It has a lot of potential for any number of poses but requires a switch layer for "flipping" front to back

http://www.lowrestv.com/moho_stuff/larry_hands2b.mov
http://www.lowrestv.com/moho_stuff/larr ... pload.moho

Here's the link to the original topic I posted it in:

viewtopic.php?t=10051

-vern

heyvern wrote:I don't know if this will help but it's a technique I use and like very much. It has a lot of potential for any number of poses but requires a switch layer for "flipping" front to back

http://www.lowrestv.com/moho_stuff/larry_hands2b.mov
http://www.lowrestv.com/moho_stuff/larr ... pload.moho

Here's the link to the original topic I posted it in:

viewtopic.php?t=10051

-vern

I've been using this technique ever since I saw the original posting although now, with layer order being an animatable element, it's much easier.

i'm almost inclined to just use switch layers with different hand pieces - which you can then do point animation on for subtle and linking movement... i just dont think its possible to peroperly open/close hands etc using bones that rotate around an axis - personally i find it too confusing...

http://www.lowrestv.com/anime_studio/ha ... hands3.mov

Works for me. If you use scaling you can "simulate" foreshortening of the fingers bending towards the veiw.

-vern

yeah - i did experiment with your (very cool) method - but I had trouble going from open hand to fist or pointing finger for example - also, for a more cartoon human hand without 'furry bits' to cover the joins I couldn't make it work so well...

I accept that it was probably entirely my own ineptitude - but personally i find it much quicker and more versatile to draw several hand positions with a single wrist bone, rather than spend a long time trying to perfect a master rig - that way i only start with the main hand position and add more as and when i need them in the sequence - no up front rigging i may not actually use.

Well it really depends on what you need or want. If you want "fists" and pointing fingers at odd angles then using a switch will be the way to go. If however you can "cheat" with bones they work quite well and you can have more options.

There is no reason you can't mix the two techniques. You could easily have a fist layer inside the boned finger switch and just release the points. Then you could use bones for hand positions work well that way and use the other switches for positions that can't be done using bones.

Best of both worlds.

-vern

Here's one of the simplest hand rigs I ever did. Just one bone for each finger. Still it has a lot of possible positions if you don't need super realism:

http://www.lowrestv.com/anime_studio/ha ... _hand2.mov

Here's another one with more bones. Each finger is a separate shape and I used bone offset to assemble it. I haven't applied the "flip" trick to it yet but it would work in a similar way. The trick is to align the shapes so the joints are hidden. I used the "furry" hand as a demo... and yes the fur did help hide the joints but it just happened to be the character I was working on when I came up with the technique.

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

-vern

yeah they both work really well vern...
as always with AS everything has a million possible executions depending on your needs