Bones not behaving

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:52 am

I took a break from using Anime Studio for a few months and now I have to go back and re-learn everything.

I thought I had learned how to set up bones, but I am having trouble getting them to do what I want them to do in this scene. I have a tree with branches and leaves, and I want to shake the tree trunk and have the branches move with bone dynamics.

http://www.adrive.com/public/659d126142 ... cda3d.html

I started with a tree that comes with AS and modified it. It's built with the branches and leaves in separate folders, and I think this is giving me a problem. The dynamics work, but the whole branch is moving, not just the ends. I set the bone regions. It doesn't make sense that the dynamic bone is moving the whole branch. They aren't fixed at the trunk like they should be and I can't figure out how to anchor the points. I can't select the points and bind them to the tree trunk bones because it wont let me, I guess because of the folder.

I have tried several things but none work as expected. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.
-Don

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 8:37 pm

Can anyone help me with this? Is this something that I should know from reading the manual?

Is it wrong to have parts of the tree in sub-folders?

The bones affect these parts, but I have no control over the binding.

Do all the parts need to be directly under the bone structure with no sub-groupings? no sub-bones?

Thanks.

lwaxana · Post by **lwaxana** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 9:04 pm

I'm unable to view your file because i have an older version of AS, but I think I understand your problem.

Yes, if you have vector layers in sub-folders, you cannot use point binding on them. Can the vector layers be taken out of the folder? My understanding is that sub bones will not work. There is a script to copy the motion of a parent bone to a bone in another layer: viewtopic.php?t=15841 But that's probably overkill for this situation. I think it should just be a matter of taking layers out of subfolders.

[edit] Yes, I actually just looked at an old tree swaying test I did. Only mine didn't have leaves. But the point binding should work if there are no sub folders.

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 9:51 pm

Taking things out of the subfolder moves them to another location.

I have to go back and figure out how to parent objects to each other without using folders. I would think this is a simple thing, but now I can't find any info about it in the manual. How did I do this before?

lwaxana · Post by **lwaxana** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 9:59 pm

Yes, often when you remove something from a folder, it will appear somewhere else because the translations and rotations etc applied to the folder no longer apply to the layer.

Once things are out of the folder, you will need to put them where you want them (You might want to use bone offsetting, but it may not be necessary: Tutorial 3.4 http://www.lostmarble.com/moho/manual/ ) Then you can point bind the vector art to the bones. (Tutorial 3.1 http://www.lostmarble.com/moho/manual/ )

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 10:45 pm

How does one control what the bones are affecting if those parts are in a folder?

Some of the bones have an effect, but some others don't. The bone binding commands are grayed out. Bones out on the small branches move the whole branch away from the tree and the parent bones seem to have no influence at that point. Although, if I move the parent bone, it works as expected.

I know on my last project I had things in folders, but bones still worked on them.

I am wondering how I ever did that last project now.

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 11:02 pm

Is there no way to parent layers to each other?

How can I move a whole branch and its' leaves as one object if they aren't in a folder?

I could have sworn I did this before.

muffysb · Post by **muffysb** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 11:49 pm

SpaceBoy:

I'm in a hurry and I'm not a bone expert, but you'll notice that even if you remove all the bones in the lower branch (the sub-bone layers), both branches still rock when you shake the bones in the trunk (the main bone layer). So the lower branch isn't rocking because its sublayer bones are reacting to the main-layer bones.

The two branches are actually moving because of the bones in the UPPER branch (which are part of the main-layer bones). THOSE bones are reacting to the shaking of the trunk-bone, and they're affecting the vector points of the branch below, I guess because that lower branch has no bones of its own...or something.

I'll need to look at it closer, but this seems an affirmation that sub-bone layers do not react to the movement of layers that contain them; the fact that this is happening in your animation is incidental. It occurs even if the sub-bone layers have no bones.

Cheers,
Muffy.

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 4:13 am

Okay, thanks!

It looks like I just have too many mistakes going on in there. I was trying to get AS to do things it couldn't do the way I had it set up.

I took it all apart and reorganized it, used bone layers instead of folders, and re-set everything. It's working better now, though still confusing.

Just because an object is in a folder shouldn't mean I can't set bone binding for it.

muffysb · Post by **muffysb** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 4:31 am

SpaceBoy64 wrote:Just because an object is in a folder shouldn't mean I can't set bone binding for it.

You can bind a FOLDER to a bone using layer binding...but (it appears) you can't bind bones directly to individual bones that are in different layers. Bones only bind to each other within a layer.

This means you can't have a chain of bones, all on different layers, that respond to each others movement.

I think!

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 4:40 am

I'm not trying to bind bones together.

I just want to be able to control the binding of points on objects inside folders. It appears this can't be done.

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 12:12 pm

I haven't looked at your file, but I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to do this without bones? Just put the tree and the leaves in a group folder, then set a leaf's origin to where it joins the tree, shake the leaf separately as secondary animation, then copy and paste the leaf and offset some leaf keyframes where necessary to make the shake look more random. You're probably only dealing with 20 frames for all of this, and you'll probably get a better result than having to deal with bones.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 12:33 pm

Binding only works between two levels: the bone layer and some layer within it.

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 8:08 pm

After a good deal of frustration and reorganization, I managed to get it working the way I want it to look. Thanks.

It still bugs me that objects inside of folder can be affected by bones, but none of the control options are available.

For some reason I was thinking that object layers could be parented to each other directly, and that there was a flow chart view to show parenting. I guess that was wishful thinking. That must be some other app.

Thanks.