How Do I... Anchor Bone Dials to a Rig?

[styrofoamhead]

I'm very new to ASP; just bought v10.

I'm having trouble anchoring bone dials to a character. I've tried attaching them directly to the rig and attaching them to an intermediary bone (with and without independent angle applied to the intermediary) and I keep getting the same result: The dials skip states in the middle and at the end of the switch arc.

Thoughts?

Right:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3AGtB ... sp=sharing

Wrong:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3AGtB ... sp=sharing

Parenting:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3AGtB ... sp=sharing

Just because...
https://youtu.be/aWdY2aQwv0s

[Greenlaw]

What I like to do is parent all my dials to a single 'SBD Mover' bone, and set that bone to have Independent Rotation. Then I parent this mover bone to the root bone of my character. With this setup, the Dials track with the character and they don't flip around when the character rotates. If I need to move the controls relative to the character, I just re-position the SBD Mover. Just be sure to use Step keys because it's annoying to have the controls drift while you're trying to animate.

This setup works really well. I've been using it for a couple of years for my own personal shorts and and with the rigs I make at work.

Another useful tip: Use Enable Grid when positioning your Dials. The Grid makes it easy to line up the bones nicely and give them all a uniform length.

Hope this helps.

G.

[Greenlaw]

Here's an example:



The 'Mover' is the only bone with Independent Rotation enabled, and by parenting it to the root, it's less likely to move around when you're animating the character except when you need it too. And if the Dials occlude a part of the scene you want to see, you can just move the 'Mover'.

[styrofoamhead]

Sorry for the delayed response—thank you for your reply.

The method you describe is the one I was using when I encountered the error. I've since had success with another model, so I can only assume that it's something else... The bone dials are still erring when bound to any other bone.

[Greenlaw]

Hi,

I guess I'm not sure I understand what the problem is. From looking at the images you posted, it appears that your setup is behaving as expected. What is it exactly that you wish to do?

G.

[styrofoamhead]

I'm trying to attach the bone dials to the model.

I probably haven't explained the problem very well.

It seems that the parent bone is causing the dials to skip half of the states that they control. For instance, when parented, the bone dials stop working when turned past a certain angle and resume working when turned back past that angle.

I'm pretty sure that it's something that I did, but I don't know enough as of yet to explain or troubleshoot it.

[synthsin75]

When you reparent bone dials it changes their default angle to that of the parent bone's coordinates (instead of the layer's coordinates). To fix this, you will need to update all the smart bone actions by rekeying the bone dial rotation keyframes. As a general rule, you want to do all of your smart bone parenting before creating your smart bone actions.

[Víctor Paredes]

When you reparent bone dials it changes their default angle to that of the parent bone's coordinates (instead of the layer's coordinates). To fix this, you will need to update all the smart bone actions by rekeying the bone dial rotation keyframes. As a general rule, you want to do all of your smart bone parenting before creating your smart bone actions.

That behavior was fixed on 11.2
There shouldn't be any problems with re-parenting smart bones now

[styrofoamhead]

When you reparent bone dials it changes their default angle to that of the parent bone's coordinates (instead of the layer's coordinates). To fix this, you will need to update all the smart bone actions by rekeying the bone dial rotation keyframes. As a general rule, you want to do all of your smart bone parenting before creating your smart bone actions.

Thank you! Issue resolved!

That behavior was fixed on 11.2
There shouldn't be any problems with re-parenting smart bones now

Unfortunately, I'm still on 10.1.3, but will hopefully upgrade in the next few weeks!

[synthsin75]

I thought the problem had been fixed, but the description sounded like it. Glad I could help.