Posing "The Constrictor"

Anonymous111

Hey there! I’m having quite a bit of trouble posing „The Constrictor“.

I want to pose the snake from the head downwards, toward the tail. Since I’m trying to pose a scene with it eating a prey item, I need to be able to know where the snake’s head will be before I start posing. From where I’m standing, that will be essential for posing the coils around the prey.

My issue boils down to this: I cannot for the life of me get the head to stay still. A lot of people are happy with this model, so I’m sure the issue is on my part and it’s actually super easy to do. I’m probably just missing a clue.

What I’ve noticed is that the snake is split into two parts, neck and tail. Whenever you move a bone of either parent, the „tip“ of it is what moves (see pictures). I’m despairing of this because it seems really counterintuitive, whether you want to pose from the head or the tail (the issue remains the same after all).

Neither purple nor red pins work. Red pins do in a very limited fashion, the head is actually fixed if you use the Active Pose Pool. But the pins are ignored when using the usual sphere for posing, which I would greatly prefer.

What am I missing here? Thank you in advance.

 

 

Richard Haseltine

Pinning the end of a log chain is going to be tricky - the pins in DS, at least those for regular IK, are not very sticky. I can't say this is based ion experiene but if possible you might try pinning the head and posing the few upper bones below, then pinning the last of thos and posing another batch of lower bones, and so on until you hit the root - after that the tail should be fairly simple to pose.

Anonymous111

Richard Haseltine said:

Pinning the end of a log chain is going to be tricky - the pins in DS, at least those for regular IK, are not very sticky. I can't say this is based ion experiene but if possible you might try pinning the head and posing the few upper bones below, then pinning the last of thos and posing another batch of lower bones, and so on until you hit the root - after that the tail should be fairly simple to pose.

 

Using pins works somewhat, but not well (especially with my limited computing power and the Active Pose Tool). Also end up looking rather clunky.

I'm admittedly crapshooting here, but could it be to do with bone hierarchy? "Neck 01" is in the center of the snake, it only makes sense that it'd pose from that bone as it is the parent.

If so, is there an option to essentially reverse the hierarchy of that particular section (Neck)? Preferrably without breaking any morphs. 

I know that's probably impossible, but I don't really get how people pose snakes otherwise. Failing your way to success, or am I just going about it the completely wrong way (probably)? Are you just not meant to pose it with a specific "goal" in mind?

Hope the pics are attached this time.

 

Paintbox

I would recommend https://www.daz3d.com/wild-journey-poses-part-2

It has some poses for the constrictor. Posing it otherwise is indeed a lot of work.

Anonymous111

Paintbox said:

I would recommend https://www.daz3d.com/wild-journey-poses-part-2

It has some poses for the constrictor. Posing it otherwise is indeed a lot of work.

Thanks, I already know about that pose pack. Some good ones, but I'd still like to be able to create my own poses. Also, this is actually more of a documentary style render with a crocodile prey, and the poses are only for human prey.

I don't mind it being a lot of work, as long as said work is just tedious bone posing. But the way this model (and the Morphing Python) are rigged, I find it difficult to pose at all.

What I'm currently trying is parenting the crocodile to the head of the python, then posing around it and hoping to find a spot in the scene to put that entire construct in the end.

scorpio

Are the posing dials no help - I find they can be a starting point

Richard Haseltine

Active Pose, although its pins are stiffer, does not respond to anything but dragging to translate in the Viewport which makes it very hard to cotnrol. Using pins with the Universal Tool is not as secure, but it does allow the use of rotation sliders and widgets as well as straight dragging in the Viewport.

I can't recall if this is true of the Constrictor (and it isn't installed right now) but I think what scorpio means is that many figures with long chains of bones have sliders on each bone to apply a rotation to each child bone (Bend All, Twist All and so on) - so you can readily get fairly natural looking curves. DS also allows you to select multiple bones and pose them all at once (in the Parameters pane option menu, the lined/hamburger button in the trop corner or right-click the tab) under Preferences you want Consolidate Proeprties on and Display Separate Items off.

Paintbox

Good tip! I didn't know you could select and manipulate multiple bones!

Anonymous111

Thanks all. In case anyone's interested, I've also found a different solution that works fairly well.

1. Parent a camera to the figure you want the snake to interact with.
2. Parent that figure to the snake's head or tail.
3. Parent all of it to the enviroment you want to use.

You can now freely pose the snake, the figure will move with the snake. This completely destroys the rotate axes (hence why you should parent it all to the enviroment first), but the translation sliders should be unaffected.