Thigh Animation

[agentj64]

I'm stuck

here's the image ::

 

http://server49.hypermart.net/agentj64/meyh.jpg

 

( I dont want to include it to barrage this whole post)

 

I dont know wether the pelvis verts should be binded to the pelvis bone (duh) or lower lumbar and split across the upper femurXYs

 

I must realize she is wearing skintight such clothing, so when he stomach bobs down it should curve like a "\" in a sense...

err heres a pic to illustrat my problem:0

 

 

 

I dunno if I should just attached the whole pelvical area (that is the heart shape from the torso wasitline down to the crotch area, ignoring the thighs since they are apart of the femur) or what..?

 

Im quite confused....heh ANY help is appreciated

 

::dA::

[SilentMobius]

I'm a little unsure as to what the problem is, it is:

1. The mesh is ripping along the waist cap

2. the stomach isn't moving the way you'd expect

 

From your text it looks like 2. from the image it looks like 1.

 

Perhaps a slightly bigger image that has a before and after?

[KapnKeg]

Your problem is that the verts on the bottom of you torso object are weighted completely differently than those on the top of your hips object. More technically, your problem is that you have two independant verts from separate objects, with the same coordinates, but they're deforming in different ways.

 

Here's a way to fix this.

 

First of all, all of the verts from the top of your hips should be weighted EXACTLY the same way as those from the bottom of your torso.

 

Now, say you want the vert directly below the belly-button on your torso object to deform the same as the vert on your hip object. Select that vertex while you're in the skin modifier rollout of your hips object and see what bones are effecting it. You can do this by making sure that under Filters, Vertices is checked. Now, with the vert selected, cycle through all the bones that you've added to that object and look under weight properties. Any bone with an Abs. Effect other than 0.0 is effecting your vert. Make note of these bones and add them to the skin modifier for your hips. Now, scroll down to advance params and save your envelopes for the object.

 

Next, select your hips and get into the skin modifier. Under Advance Params, select Load Envelopes. Highlight whatever you saved your torso envelopes as and load it. Now, in the little pop-up box that you get, make sure that the bone order in the Incoming Envelopes columns lines up horizontally to the order in your current envelopes column. If not, you can add a "blank" for incoming bones that don't effect that vert in your hips and you can delete objects that won't effect that vert in your torso. Click "OK" and your two separate verts should deform exactly the same.

 

 

Hopefully this makes enough sense to get you on the right track. Things get a little more complicated if you need to manually adjust the vertex weights individually, but a flawless deformation is still possible. Keep playing with it and it'll all make sense sooner or later. If not, just ask and I'd be more than willing to work with you on this. Cool model too, btw.

[agentj64]

I must thank you Kapnkeg;)

Yes I never thought about saving/loading evenlopes but it helped out a lot. I decided to reduce the Abs. to roughly 0 for some bones, and rework the linings on her abodmen area etc. I created some crunch zones (actually they already were there) and made them the borders for my thighs to pelvis, and for the stomach, looking at Tavion's deformation helped me solve that problem ( still some work arounds to do ). But none the less the model deforms NEAR flawlessly;)

 

:: A problem and question remain

 

Do I have to have each bone weighted against something (my initial answer is no, since many MP modelers don't bind to face eyes fingers etc.. ) but I dont need her upper clavical bones (the armor is metal I've decided and deformations shouldn't affect the armor..like waving your hands in the air, but just in case i made her shoulders deformable, binding the shoulder verticies to the humerous as shown:

 

 

But the problem is this: Why are there 2 femur bones? I find it naturally impossible to deform my shoulder/bi/tricep in any such way!...

it almost feels like a bone runs from your throaic to your shoulder pivot, and that becomes the humerous, then a elbow joint, and the radius bone follows..

 

but am I missing something? why is are there 2 humerous bones..I dont plan on binding it to anything however..

 

 

 

:: OH!

 

And do we have to bind ( when I say bind I mean weight the vertices to the bone ) the caps? Tim Appleby's tutorial says just mesh and tags but..

[CheshireKat]

Agent!

 

Good to see ya. Model is lookin great, If ya need anything I'll be in IRC on and off.

 

Keep it up!

[agentj64]

irc.gamesnet.net #jediknight ?

[KapnKeg]

As far as weighing each bone to a part of your mesh, no. Your whole mesh has to be weighted to something, but you don't have to use each individual finger bone, or face bone, or even the clavicals for that matter.

 

The reason there's two bones for the femur and humerus bones is that one (humerus and femurYZ) is used to define the orientation of the bone at the top of the joint (at the hip/shoulder). It "tells" your arm to point up/down/forward/back or whatever. The other bone tells your arm or leg how much it should be twisted at the elbow. Hold your arm out straight in front of you with your palm facing down. Now, turn your palm up. Notice how your elbow twisted just a little bit? Basically, the only bone in your arm that moved was your humerusX. Well, if you have anatomy like a jkii model that is.

 

The point is that as far as organic deformation is concerned, you should weight the top of your upper arm to mostly the humerus and the bottom of your upper arm to humerusX. Otherwise your elbows and knees are going to deform a little strangly. I'm not sure about how you would go about weighing it for a robot.

 

Oh yeah ... all the same holds true for the radius/radiusX too.

 

Best of luck.

 

edit: You do have to put a skin modifier on the caps too.

You can do like the tutorial says and just choose the nearest bone and everything should come out okay. If you want, you could also just import envelopes from the object being capped and that should do it too.