Need Help with Rigging

[dcr]

Is there a dummies guide to rigging? Specifically, binding. I'm trying to follow the "Learning Moho from Beginner to Expert" video series and I'm watching Part 6/38 for basic rigging and I seem to go from bad to worse. For example, if I move the upper left arm, the body contorts with it. (All parts are on their own layers.) If I move the left finger, the arm detaches from the body and moves around the finger. If I move the left foot, the leg will eventually disconnect from the body but if I move the right foot, the leg remains connected to the body. But, unless there is a setting I've missed or otherwise overlooked, I can't see where anything gives me any indication as to what is bound to what (except by trial and error of moving things) so it's difficult to compare something that works or sort of works to something that doesn't work at all so I can figure out what I've done right or wrong.

I've reset the bone rigging to start over. But, apparently what I need is something that shows or explains it in simpler terms than the aforementioned video.

TIA!

[synthsin75]

Have you worked through the tutorials included with Moho?

[dcr]

Have you worked through the tutorials included with Moho?

Isn't that this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKG_Ag2Zd7Y

I've watched it three or four times now, not counting however many times I've rewatched a particular section to try to figure it out. And I seem to go from bad to worse the more I try.

[synthsin75]

In the Moho Help menu, there are Tutorials and Video Tutorials. If the video is losing you, the text tutorial may help.

[dcr]

Thanks. I've tried the video tutorials and the text tutorial and, after I don't know how many hours, I'm not getting anywhere. For one example, the "Create Smooth Joint for Bone Pair" is always grayed out no matter what. Other tools don't seem to behave the way they do in the tutorials. It looks like I can only bind one bone to a layer and then the child bones move but the layer art does not move with anything except the bound bone. I just can't get anywhere.

I think I may have to go back to either stop motion animation or puppets to do this project.

[synthsin75]

If you're trying to rush it for a project, yeah, I'd go back to familiar methods until I had the time to learn without any time constraints.

Create Smooth Joint for Bone Pair is a bit complicated. It will be available to use when:
- you have a bone layer with two bones selected
- the bones are a parent/child chain
- the bones are in a fairly straight line, not bent at the elbow, knee, etc.
- you have the sublayer selected with the art you want these bones to bend

Using Layer Binding, you can only bind to one bone.
But there are other binding methods that allow more than one bone to bend and moved the same artwork. I think Greenlaw has a tutorial on all the options.

[Greenlaw]

Hi! I made a tutorial that explains the different binding methods, with examples for when and how to use each of them...

Moho Basics: Learn the 5 Bone Binding Methods!

The lesson assumes the viewer knows very little about Bone Binding, so it's a good place to start.

Hope this helps.

[dcr]

This is maddening.

Okay, so I made a copy of the file, deleted all the bones and started over. Head, good. Body, good. Right arm, good. Left arm, nope. I repeat the exact same steps on the left arm as on the right arm. On the right arm, when I move the bones, the arm artwork moves to match, like you would expect. On the left arm, when I move the bones, the left arm artwork remains unchanged. Bone settings for the right arm layer are exactly the same as the bone settings for the left arm layer. If I delete the bones for the left arm and start over, I get the same result. Bones move, art does not move to match. Move on to the left leg. Works as expected. Start over with the left arm again. Do the exact same thing as the left leg. The exact same thing as the right arm. And, still, nope. Manipulating the bones moves the bones, but the left arm artwork remains fixed.

Finally, found where, on the left arm artwork, the "Warp using bones" option was unchecked. I don't know how that ever got unchecked because I never opened that particular tab until I was trying to find what was different between the left and right arm settings.

So, thinking that might have been my problem, I saved the current file and went back and opened the prior one. Checked the "Warp using bones" and, yeah, no, still had problems with the character working properly. Went back to the copy of the file where I redid everything.

So, I have a workaround for now. My workaround on this second file was to give every body part its own skeleton rather than have one skeleton for the whole character. That's the only way I can seem to get it to work. It means a little more work animating the character as I have to adjust each body part and manually ensure the part stays with the body and that heads and limbs don't go flying off, but at least it will be faster than stop motion.

[synthsin75]

At this point, you'd probably need to share, at least, a stripped down version of the file, for us to diagnosis the problem.

If you haven't already tried it, you might use the menu Bone>Reset All Bone Rigging and try again.

[dcr]

If you haven't already tried it, you might use the menu Bone>Reset All Bone Rigging and try again.

Oh, yeah. I've used that multiple times now.