Help, bind artwork won't deform

[anim8ortim@yahoo.com]

Hi everyone,
I have been following McCoy Buck's rigging tutorial, but I'm having a problem and I can't figure it out.

I'm having a problem with artwork not binding to a skeleton. When the arm I'm working with bends, it's not deforming at the elbow. The whole arm rotates.



I've tried reparenting but that didn't work. I want the shoulder to stay still and the arm to deform at the elbow. What am I doing wrong?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[slowtiger]

I can't see from the small screenshot, but: does it have points around the elbow? No points, no bend.

[synthsin75]

Might be as simple as using the menu command Bone>Reset All Bone Rigging or setting it to regional binding, but it's hard to tell from a single screenshot.

[hayasidist]

are you on frame zero and using the transform bone tool? if so that is not intended to bend the artwork - it allows you to move the bones to reposition them. maybe try again on frame 1?

[Greenlaw]

Or, if you're on frame 0, use the Manipulate Bone tool...that one will let you test IK bending at frame 0. Otherwise, test the binding at a later frame as suggested by Hayasidist in the previous post.

The only other thing I can think of is that you might have applied an inappropriate binding method, like Bind Layer, for example, which doesn't deform anything. Or, if you're using Point Binding, you may have the selected points bound to only 1 bone. You could try to figure which method you have applied and fix it but, as Wes mentioned, it's probably easier to reset it and just apply the binding you want. That said, figuring out why it's not working might be worth your time.

BTW, when you use Reset All Bone Rigging, be sure to select the layers you want to reset first. This will reset ONLY those layers and leave the rest of the rig alone. Otherwise, Moho will assume you want to reset every layer, which will probably hose your whole rig.

Good luck.

[Greenlaw]

I'm looking at your screen cap again and I'm a little puzzled by the number and types of bones you have in that arm. It looks like the arm has multiple Pin Bones at the joints in addition to regular bones. Is there a reason for that? I can't say this is the cause of the problem but it probably doesn't do anything good either.

Check your bones list and make sure you don't have unwanted bones present in the rig. Tip: name your bones as you create them to make them easily identifiable.

Hope this helps.

[anim8ortim@yahoo.com]

Wow You are all awesome!

Thanks everyone!

I'm off to try out your suggestions

[anim8ortim@yahoo.com]

Again Thanks!

I found if I bind the arms points to each corresponding bone and add a smooth joint it would work

[Greenlaw]

For an arm design like that, I typically take one of two approaches:

1. Select the two arm bones and apply Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding on the arm layer(s). This limits the deformation of the arm to only these two bones.

2. Use point binding. Bind the shoulder points to the upper arm bone, the wrist points to the lower arm bone. Then add a third elbow bone and add a constraint that rotates it half the distance of the lower arm bone. Bind the middle points to the elbow bone. This keeps the 'elbow' points aligned with the angle of the bend. (Thanks to Victor Paredes for this idea! This method is what I use most of the time now when using vector art.)

In either of the above methods, if your elbow points aren't 'pointy' all the time, you'll want to add a Smart Bone Action to the lower arm bone to change the curvature of the inside elbow point when the arm bends. Do this for both 'elbow' sides of the arm.

Re: Smooth Joint, I only use this method for bitmap limb designs that have fairly parallel sides. In many cases, Smooth Joint looks good with detailed textures too. However, IMO, there's not a lot of benefit to using a Smooth Joint with vector art--I think either of the two methods described above work better.

Hope this helps.

[anim8ortim@yahoo.com]

Greenlaw,

Thanks for your help. I'm very new to Moho pro (My wife got me a copy for Christmas) and I'm trying to learn it for character animation because I heard the rigging of characters, bones and smart bones, were quick and had advantages over Harmony and Animate CC which I'm more familiar with. Your suggestions and help is greatly appreciated.

[Greenlaw]

Sure, ask any questions.

Where I work we use Moho, Harmony, Animate, AE and other programs for animation, sometimes together in the same scenes. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, and they can compliment each other too.

For rigging and puppet-style animation, I agree, Moho is the probably the best. The other programs are capable of puppet-style too but IMO they don't have nearly the level of control and flexibility Moho offers.

[alanthebox]

2. Use point binding. Bind the shoulder points to the upper arm bone, the wrist points to the lower arm bone. Then add a third elbow bone and add a constraint that rotates it half the distance of the lower arm bone. Bind the middle points to the elbow bone. This keeps the 'elbow' points aligned with the angle of the bend. (Thanks to Victor Paredes for this idea! This method is what I use most of the time now when using vector art.)

This sounds really interesting! I'm having a little trouble visualizing this setup, though. Are any of the included example files setup this way, or are there any tutorials that specifically cover this? I'm always having elbow problems!

Thanks!

[Greenlaw]

Sure, here's a simple example:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cjnl9z4my7acs ... e.zip?dl=0

The things to look at are:

1. The constraint for the elbow bone. Note that it's set to -0.5 of the rotation of the armLo bone. It usually doesn't matter which side of the arm this bone is on but If the bone was on the other side, the constraint value should be 0.5.

2. The two smart bone actions for armLo. These actions change the curvature of the inside point from smooth to peak depending on which direction the armLo bone rotates.

Victor made a video about this technique. I'm sure it's on his YouTube channel.

Also, notice that the bones in this example have no strength. If this was part of an actual character rig, and since I'm only using Point Binding, I might disable the bone strength like this so they don't unintentionally affect other layers. But it really depends on what else the arm has to do for the character.

[Greenlaw]

Here's the thread with Victor's video (it's apparently not on his youtube channel.) The video is actually more about creating a 'noodle' arm rig but the elbow bone technique is in there.

http://lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... rm#p116411

He's using an older version of Moho in the video but obviously, the technique is still very useful.

[alanthebox]

Here's the thread with Victor's video (it's apparently not on his youtube channel.) It's video is actually more about creating a 'noodle' arm rig but the elbow bone technique is in there.

http://lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... rm#p116411

He's using an older version of Moho in the video but obviously the technique is still very useful.

Thanks so much for linking! That was super useful! I actually ended up utilizing this method in a project right after viewing that video and playing around with your example rig.