Moving figures together

Mosk the ScribeMosk the Scribe Posts: 888
edited December 1969 in Carrara Discussion

This is a maddening situation I keep running into. Would apreciate any help figuring it out.

I often have a few different characters in a scene - right now I have a basically empty scene with two m4s and one low res character.

Sometimes the bounding box around an individual character is just enormous.

Often if I click on the top level of the figure in the INstance panel, and then hit 0 in the viewport, it does not zoom to the figure - or it does, but the bounding box is so enormous, you can't see character anyway.

Sometimes going down to the next level will help, or to 'model' and then focusing in with 0.

Right now I cannot align the three figures in this relatively empty scene.

I've tried going to top level, then to the motion tab, then setting positions to zero, unlock hot point and send hot point ot figure - or send figure to hot point and making =sure that's at 0,0,0

Noticing that the top level of the figure has size of 1089 x 1076 x 712 Feet ( can't get in to 'model' level motion tab for some reason - but should be 6 feet.

Align hot points or min / max sometimes helps, often not (now, not)

Have tried setting position both in world and local coordinates in motion tab.

I had been using IK on some of these figures if that could lead to problems.

Any ideas what's going on or how to fix it?

Thanks

Comments

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,237
    edited December 1969

    click on one of these with figure selected

    Untitled.jpg
    354 x 421 - 65K
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    This is a maddening situation I keep running into. Would apreciate any help figuring it out.

    I often have a few different characters in a scene - right now I have a basically empty scene with two m4s and one low res character.

    Sometimes the bounding box around an individual character is just enormous.

    Often if I click on the top level of the figure in the INstance panel, and then hit 0 in the viewport, it does not zoom to the figure - or it does, but the bounding box is so enormous, you can't see character anyway.

    Sometimes going down to the next level will help, or to 'model' and then focusing in with 0.

    Right now I cannot align the three figures in this relatively empty scene.

    I've tried going to top level, then to the motion tab, then setting positions to zero, unlock hot point and send hot point ot figure - or send figure to hot point and making =sure that's at 0,0,0

    Noticing that the top level of the figure has size of 1089 x 1076 x 712 Feet ( can't get in to 'model' level motion tab for some reason - but should be 6 feet.

    Align hot points or min / max sometimes helps, often not (now, not)

    Have tried setting position both in world and local coordinates in motion tab.

    I had been using IK on some of these figures if that could lead to problems.

    Any ideas what's going on or how to fix it?

    Thanks

    Are these figures already animated? Think of it like this: I have a V4 in a scene and animate a walk. If I translate the hip (bone 0) forward, the bounding box gets bigger. If I were to translate the figure group forward, then the bounding box would remain the same size.

    Another possibility is that if the figure is grouped with conforming clothes, perhaps the hot spot for the clothes model doesn't translate with the rig? I had that happen once that I was aware of. Select each object in the group to see where the hotpoint appears.

    One other possibility is that you have some object in the group that is far away from everything else for some reason.

  • Mosk the ScribeMosk the Scribe Posts: 888
    edited December 1969

    thanks wendy - but i've tried doing that

    In this particular case, I think it has something to do with the scaling - finally go t figure near others by moving hip - but can see this being a problem every time I try to load this figure - tried zeroing pose as well - so much time wasted on this ready to pull my hair out . . . but then I'd just be bald and grumpy

  • Mosk the ScribeMosk the Scribe Posts: 888
    edited December 1969

    Evilproducer -

    Yes, the figure is dressed. Just checked the clothing hot points and they're all fairly close to the main figure - not really centered - I think they must be respecting the M4 bounding box.

    And the figure had been animated but I've deleted all the extra keyframes - don't know if any hidden frames get tucked away for Carrara's calculation of bounding box.

    Figure isn't (or at least shouldn't be) grouped with anything else according to the instance panel.

    Any suggestions about using World vs Local positioning, when to lock and unlock Hot Point to prevent these kind of problems?
    Or anything to do with scaling figure manually as opposed to via typing in parameters in motion panel?

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Evilproducer -

    Yes, the figure is dressed. Just checked the clothing hot points and they're all fairly close to the main figure - not really centered - I think they must be respecting the M4 bounding box.

    And the figure had been animated but I've deleted all the extra keyframes - don't know if any hidden frames get tucked away for Carrara's calculation of bounding box.

    Figure isn't (or at least shouldn't be) grouped with anything else according to the instance panel.

    Any suggestions about using World vs Local positioning, when to lock and unlock Hot Point to prevent these kind of problems?
    Or anything to do with scaling figure manually as opposed to via typing in parameters in motion panel?

    What's the scene magnitude? Small, medium or large? Also, did you re-scale the figures significantly?

    Kind of at a loss to explain the giant bounding box. You don't have a light or camera that is parented to the figure accidentally?

  • Mosk the ScribeMosk the Scribe Posts: 888
    edited December 1969

    Scene magnitude is medium (unless I accidentally messed up somewhere - not sure where to check in active scene to make sure medium) -and I'm not sure if I ever rescaled the figures significantly - it's certainly possible however.
    And no - I don't have any cameras, lights or anything else parented to my m4 figure

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Scene magnitude is medium (unless I accidentally messed up somewhere - not sure where to check in active scene to make sure medium) -and I'm not sure if I ever rescaled the figures significantly - it's certainly possible however.
    And no - I don't have any cameras, lights or anything else parented to my m4 figure

    I don't think the magnitude is the issue, but it couldn't hurt to ask. BTW, to check it in an open scene, select Scene in the Instances palette and then at the top of the screen, select the Interface tab.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,583
    edited December 1969

    Are you sure that you don't have any lights parented to the figure? That's how I get my bounding boxes to go huge like that.

    Anyways, try selecting head, neck, and chest, then type "0" (zero) to zoom the camera and

    select the hip of the character to align one to the other

  • Mosk the ScribeMosk the Scribe Posts: 888
    edited December 1969

    Thanks Dartanbeck. I don't think I have any lights or cameras parented - though I didn't open every finger/knuckle etc to see if something inadvertently got parented somewhere.

    The body parts do work for zooming in (I can select hip or other part) and that's indeed how I eventually managed to move my character back into position - but didn't try aligning hips which sounds like a good way in the future to quickly get things in rough position.

    I had also hidden some vertices in the model room for portions of the figure - and that's led to some unpredictable results for me in the past - don't know if that's contributing to this issue.

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