Bones and rigging!
Dax Avalange
Posts: 340
Helloooo Richard! (Haseltine)
I'm going to complete a new product for my store but a damn Geograft rigged driving me crazy!
Grafted on back head there's a tail, 7 bones.based. I followed some steps from some places but something missed.
Bones applied following a standard (I suppose) by Syckeldyeld, something from Arki but.... why happening what you see in the attached pic?
Moving a single bones, the others are stucked and move all the mesh around! No smoothing, no elasticity from mesh.
What are the right default steps to rig a fluid head Geograft?
Thank you and have a great weekend!
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Comments
First off, it looks like you've got basically one polygon per bone. If you want it to bend smoothly, you'll need a denser mesh. I can't see how it's weightmapped from your screenshot, but you'll also need to blend weights from bone to bone. JCMs would help smooth it out further.
Hey Gordig this sounds really interesting... go ahead. Thanks to answer. Tell me about the right weightmapping and jcm. Do you mean a jcm like when I do correctives on morphs? A note about dense mesh. I used base res cause I know the that to make a geograft need base resolution of the figure. I forgot to say that my new product is HD. Can you do a simple video to show for instance how to make an head antenna geograft posable please? Would be perfect to apply also my head tail! Video better than words! Thanks
I think it only needs to be base resolution where it meets the body; after that it can be as dense as you need it to be to work correctly.
But dense become using Resolution level and SubD level in the Parameter tab? And from here to rigging bones?
You need at least a couple of divisions for each segment, theer needs to be soemthing for the SubD to work with - look at some existing tails (attacments of parts of full figures) for a guide.
In few words, I did a incorrect geograft and rigging I think. Maybe so many times try again and again that probably I thought was correct. Where I can find an attached tail for a guide?
Here's an example using the tail from Sobek HD. Look at how many divisions are around each joint, and how smoothly the weights are blended.
This is my tail and the pics showing bones and weight. I see the weight red only, not smoothing. In your pic I see blue/red weight and main bone opposite direction of the first bone. What I missing there?
You need to smooth the weights.
Try to see this
Felis, thanks. Exactly that video I used! But weight is always red, not smoothed from red to blue and bones seems stucked. I'm sure that I'm missing some step, and I will find that step. As always I did it! I'm greedily stubborn. Professional deformation!
If there is only one ring of vertices per bone then there ios a limit to how much smoothing can be applied.
Ah ok! So, the procedure to solve this what is? What right stepsI do? More SubD? But after geografted?
More base geometry, at least more loops around the tail
More base geometry I can't! Otherwise will not match with base figure! Loops you mean edge loops? Ok!
When adding a GeoGraft part of the art is working out how to make the shape work - you may need a series of loops around the join, gradually adding more polygons in each loop, to reach a point with fine-enough mesh for your purpose. Of course you don't want to go overboard, as it will have the potential not to bend nicely or take projected morphs, but you equally may need more detail then the base figure mesh would support in the graft area.
Ok but how match the base figure polygons with high polygons geograft part? For instance, if the base figure has no subD and geograft has 2 or 4 subD never will match each other! Right?
You start off matching where the join is and add more polygons as you move away - how you do that is down to your modelling software.
Ok Richard thanks. I will make the geograft for the next product I'm starting right now, csuse the current one is almost released. Let you know what happens. Usually for geograft I use Hexagon, more complex modelling in Maya.
Hey Richard, maybe I'm asking an idiot question but, how I do what you said? Loops around joint I mean. I remember that Geograft start in low polygons. Can you explain better with a sample? Thanks.
We are basically saying you need more polygons along the length of each segment, you don't necessarily need to change the number running around (which are what links directly to the base figure) though depending on what you want it may be needed.
like this
i.e., not to subdivide the whole thing more, but to add loops of vertices to the model to spread out the weighting and give you a smoother bend
Ok Richard, so I must to subdivide it with edge loops? Or cut new loop edges? Thanks for the pic Squishy. Only thing is that I dunno, I can't get the gradient red/blue of the weight, it's always all red, like all soft, then, if I move one bone, the other moving as well but rigid. I think there something about rigging/weight that I need to know. May someody write the first important steps from after modelling up to weight? I mean, when import the mesh in Daz for rigging and Geograft. I know how to but some inportant step make me confused. Thanks.
As Richard mentioned higher up, you can't smoth weights if there effectivly only is one loop per segment.
That is why you need to add more loops per segment, as shown above. You shall not subdivide, as that will generate more lines and then it won't match with the toeso target area.
Ok I will go in that direction and let you know!