Moho Forum

I updated the file and the movie sample. I added arms and rearranged some bones.

Hands can be locked and moved independently. I added a bunch of new hip bones... well... 2 more I think. One moves the hips alone, hips and shoulders, hips arms and shoulders. Added an arm root bone at the top.

Well I discovered this sort of by accident while working on a sample file for my new body rig with aimer script. I invented a new rig that allows locking of feet and still be able to move them. I don't know how else to describe it.

Basically there are 2 "hip" bones. A top hip that moves everything, and a sub hip that moves everything but the feet. The knees also can be moved independantly from the feet with another bone that moves the knee AND the foot.

I LOVE THIS RIG! It is fun fun fun.

It also incorporates the benefits of my new aimer script that allows for 3D adjustment of limbs. Anyway looking at the file will make it all clear.

http://www.lowrestv.com/moho_stuff/scri ... ot_rig.mov
http://www.lowrestv.com/moho_stuff/scri ... ot_rig.zip

(the script description is located here)
viewtopic.php?t=7842

Forgive the simplicity of this demonstration file. I am working on a much better one with arms and everything.

As you can see from the sample animation you can easily have the feet completely locked down solid without any drift and without any other changes just moving different bones you can move the feet. Later you could "lock" them down again by just moving different bones.

There is a control rig to the left in red and blue that doesn't render. I would suggest turning off construction curves in the display settings. I hope it is clear. The red "dots" indicate bones to be translated to move the main body. The two hip bones can be rotated for different positions.

Arm controls are indicated in blue. There is a bone that moves arms and hips in purple. Play around with the bones and it should make some sense.

The sub hips move the hips and knees but the feet are locked. The "top" hip bone moves everything. There are two knee bones. The top knee bone moves the knees AND the feet. The lower smaller dot indicates the sub knee bone which moves the knees without moving the feet.

Play around with it. It is a total blast. I am still fiddling with it but wanted to share it.

-vern

First of all, good morning (UK), and thx for sharing this.

I am gonna fiddle around with this.

This is very very useful. thx again.

Thanks for sharing this Vern - I love it!!

I really like how you made a control that moves both the knee and foot together, was that done just by clever parenting?

Anyway I think its great- well done and thanks again

donnie wrote:I really like how you made a control that moves both the knee and foot together, was that done just by clever parenting?

Yes it was. Most of this was "accidental" discoveries. Like "flipping" the bones for joints so the ends touch. I wrote the script but had no idea what I could do with it till I started playing around.

My reason for creating it was so simple... funny how it turns out to be one of the best scripts I've written!!!

-vern

good morning (Chile) vern.
very clever, as always. i will apply your technique to all my right from now. your script is really really great. it would be part of the AS package.

thanks for always be sharing your discoverers. we are lucky to have a vern here

Hey Vern
I went to your tips page for MOHO and
really appreciated the way you explained things.
It made MUCH more sense more clearly
than the tutorial does. I really hope
you write a manual.

I was thinking a nice approach for a manual
would be to do a project from start to finish
that uses everything you need to put out
a nice cartoon.

Sorry to sound dumb, but where do I need to place the script to get it to work?

BunyanFilms wrote:Sorry to sound dumb, but where do I need to place the script to get it to work?

just uncompress all the files in a folder.
the script will work. but if you want to know how to use it, read about the Heyvern's Aim Bone layer script

Amazing!
It is like if all the bone ends/begin were locked continuously but at the same time you can move them.
I love specially the sub hip control bone rotation. It is really smart!

A little complex to perform by one self without copy your model but I imagine that studying it carefully it is possible to create other kind of connections.

Congratulations!

-G

Woohooo!!

I can do the same thing with the arms that I did with the legs! Great for characters hanging from something or climbing.

------

It isn't like you couldn't do this before with careful key framing and hard work... but this just makes the whole thing so "brainless"... and the feet are just LOCKED SOLID BABY!!!

Even on my best day I always had trouble keeping the dang feet LOCKED during walk cycles. There is just no rig possible with "traditional" bones that can do this.

No more sliding feet!

Now there is even more incentive to finish my action import/export script. Save out walk, run, jump, climb, dance actions that could be used for the same rig with different characters.

-vern

Ran into a snag with the arms and locking the hands.

The legs make sense. Lock the feet move the hips etc etc... but what to do with the arms???

The arms should "move" with the hips, either the sub hips or the main hips. The trouble arises when trying to have the hand locking/unlocking feature. I can't see a way to do this.

I have to use parenting and NOT constraints (bug in the script I can't solve) to control these sets of bones. In order for the torso to be attached and follow the hips which drive body motion the upper body MUST be a child of the sub hips... there is no way around this I can find yet. If that happens the arms will always rotate with the hips and the hands can't be locked.

I could do it... but during animation you would have to move the hips AND another torso bone to get proper body movement.

I will finish this version of the body rig without the hand bone locking feature and keep trying to solve it.

Uh... I could probably do this in the script but there has to be another easier way.

-vern

I updated the rig download zip file in the first post.

http://www.lowrestv.com/moho_stuff/scri ... ot_rig.mov

As you can see I added arms.. AND I figured out how to do the locking of the hands. Required a few more bones and some fancy parenting to pull it off.

I hope it isn't getting too complicated. The control rig needs some work. It tends to get a bit confusing.

I rearranged the spine bones. Works pretty well. I'm tempted to do a short with just the stick figure. I can get so much personality from him it's a lot of fun.

-vern

Nice one. Gotta figure out how this works.

Thanks for sharing. You're very generous with your discoveries and inventions.

I plan to add some new features to my aimer script:

There is a problem with bone scaling/rotation when doing profile or simple movements that don't require bones to "scale". For instance a profile of a walk cycle when a calf bone rotates to a new position many extra keys are required to maintain the length.

I had planned to add scaling as an option but I really need it to be a "toggle" that can be turned on and off.

My thought is to link this option to another bone either to translation or more simple rotation. Rotating a bone like a "switch" would prevent scaling, rotating it "back" turns it back on.

That is my initial idea but if anyone has a better solution for turning scaling on and off I would love to hear about it.

-vern