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Bone Dynamics making me crazy!

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:09 pm
by Pandaman
Hello everybody,
I've been following some post on this very prolific forum and now it's time to write
I've been using it for a couple of weeks and been struggling to understand why sometimes bones don't work the way I want.

I basically have a simple character with a some hair dangling on his forehead.
I want the hair to move accordingly to his head movement.

I did a simple test with bone dinamics with only a head and the hair and it worked perfectly, I just had to tweak a bit the dynamics but it was ok.

If I do the same thing over the character I'm working on (wich maybe has a complicated bones structure) the hair move like they're too springy or never stop from moving... not even if I lower so much the dynamic values!

Can someone please have a look at the file please?

http://www.void-animation.com/download/anthony.zip

Thanks! :)

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:53 pm
by Víctor Paredes
Hi, welcome to the forum. I downloaded your file, can't see any image because you didn't put them on the zip (but it's ok, seeing the only the skeleton is ok).
First, dynamic bones looks different on real time, but on final render will be always the same, so don't worry if you get weird results meanwhile you animate. I know it sounds bad, but has a logical explanation you can find on forum.
Now, the important, how to solve/fight with this. First, uncheck "allow frame skiping" on Animation menu. With that unchecked, when you press play you will see exactly how your dynamic bones will be on final render. If your animation runs too slow, just hide some layers or uncheck some items on Display Quality pop up. It's all about your computer capacity.

There is a fancy trick you can try: you can edit the dynamic values while the animation its being played in real time. To get it work, select the bone you want to edit, open the bone constraints pop up and hit play (use the Play button on screen, not the spacebar). Now, drag the mouse right button on Torque, Spring or Damping force value. If you drag it to left, the value decreases, if you drag it to right, it increases.

I hope it be useful for your animations, I use this dynamics tricks all the time.

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 5:47 pm
by Pandaman
Yeeeeeeaaaaahhh!!!!!!
That was it, I had to disasble the skipframe mode :)
Thanks for the very VERY useful tip! :)
Oh and also the keyframing dynamic properties tip is really interesting, I'll try it as soon as I'll have a few spare time!
Thansk again!!!

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 6:38 pm
by Víctor Paredes
Pandaman wrote:Oh and also the keyframing dynamic properties tip is really interesting, I'll try it as soon as I'll have a few spare time!
Thansk again!!!
You are welcome, but just to clarify, when I talk about editing in real time, I'm not talking about add keyframes to dynamics values, that can't be done (you only can turn on/off them). The tip is to see and edit in real time the effect of the values you are giving to the dynamic bone.

Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2010 10:09 am
by Pandaman
tried it, works nice, I suppose the best way to try dinamic dynamics (?! :) ) is by looping the part you want to experiment with... very useful.
Thanks a lot Selgin...
Oh, by the way I just downloaded your locked bones technique.... it's amazing!!!!!! :) :)
I'm going to try it out now! :)