Curved elbow

[karip]

Hi

I've testing with this character and I'm wondering how to make more curve to the elbow?

I've used the create smooth joints for bone pair but it cannot be adjusted. Is there another way to make curved arms? Like in toon boom harmony they have curve bone which does the job.

Kari

[slowtiger]

I do this by creating enough points around the elbow, and maybe creating one or two additional small bones as well. Sometimes I even use control bones for this.

[karip]

Ok, thanks. Adding points took me closer to solving how to manage the overlapping outlines when bending.

And with control bones, you mean smart bones? What do you control with that? Do you animate the curvature of the point?

[sillyanimate]

Lol Smartbone is a feature so you can use it fix distortion around knees and elbows
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-9weqs4Ju ... e=youtu.be

[slowtiger]

Control bone: when you select a bone, you have a popdown "bone constraints" on top of the project window. This is where you can have one bone control another. The controlling bone must be named first.

[karip]

Thanks Sillybone and Slowtiger!

Sillybones video was spot on, this was exactly what I was looking for! I didn't know that you can put actions into any bone, which is.. just .. opens up so many new ways to .. wow. I really enjoyed to understand that idea.

[Lychee]

I think "create smooth joints for bone pair" on vector shapes is more easy and effective for some reasons i can't describe now (sorry i have to go work).
As Slowtiger said, créate 2 points exactly where the joint is, and 2 others points up and down the joint points (6 points so) and it will work better.

See the result:

[karip]

Looks good and thanks for the explanation. I tried the concept earlier, but didnt get that you have to be precise. Will test that later.

Now I notice that maybe my question wasnt precise enough. I wanted to make a hand that when bending, doesnt show elbow at all. I'm not sure, but maybe you guys call it a noodle arm? And for this purpose, the smooth joint solution wasnt going far enough. (It could be nice to animate it though, to increase the bend)

But Im still struck and amazed by the smart bone use what Sillyanimate proposed. Its just feels like its potential usage could be massive. Maybe im wrong and there is a limit, but it got me energized!

[karip]

Control bone: when you select a bone, you have a popdown "bone constraints" on top of the project window. This is where you can have one bone control another. The controlling bone must be named first.

Slowtiger, how do you use this technique? Why does the other bone control the other - if we think about the elbow example?