A very complicated character rig.

[Heriberto]

Hi there! I really hope I'm not bothering anyone, I tried to follow the program's help file tutorial but couldn't do squat.



This is Violet. She's going to be used as a videogame Sprite. So, I need her walking nice and pretty. I'm not really an animator and I'm trying to get this to work on anime studio.

I drew the character in Photoshop and used the export to anime studio Script. which worked wonders.



I started rigging as the tutorial said but the images would not even bend! I actually want all the rig to work very tight (specially the hair and head parts) So I wanted to ask you, how would YOU rig this so it's smooth and nice? the tutorial also seems to be about rigging with vectors.

I also checked a caveman tutorial on the website of e-frontier but i'm still on the same problem.




I separated the pieces so you can have a better look at them. I would love to have control over the hair so I can do very dynamic walk cycles or idle poses. the ribbon is also separated so it can bounce accordingly. I planned how limbs would bend too by leaving a sort of safe area.

Thanks a lot! Help is much appreciated. Thanks in advance and have a good day.

[slowtiger]

Be on frame 0.
Select one image layer, say left foot.
Choose "Layer Bind" tool (bottom left corner of bones tools).
Click the left foot bone. Should be red now.
Press space bar once.

Repeat with all other layers.

[Heriberto]

Still can't make it work. Is it valid to make groups as I did? (you know, grouping all head related objects into one?) or am I screwing it up?

[Genete]

Bones could not have influence to the sublayers that are inside a group folder. So you should put all the image layers as first level child of your bone layer. Like you have done in your first screenshot. The second screenshot organization is a non working one.
Then follow slowtiger advice and also the 4.1 built in tutorial (The Hula girl).
Good luck.
-G

[Heriberto]

Now I see where I was wrong. Thanks a lot Slowtiger and Genete, You're great people and helped me very quickly with this.

Something else. Is there an option to change hands and face expressions? I would love to switch them should the need arise to create more convincing animations.

[jahnocli]

Yes. They are called switch layers. Refer to the tutorials, they will help you.

[Heriberto]

found out about switch layers! Thanks a lot.

You know if there's a way of letting the skirt stretch so it always covers the leg objects?

[heyvern]

It seems to me that you need more control than what you can get from image based "puppet" animatiion.

Flowing hair and clothes just aren't going to happen unless you use multiple bones and flexible binding. (no layer binding).

If you want smooth joint bending you should use vectors and region binding otherwise the joints are just "hard" bends.

Hair won't "flow" smoothly using layer or point binding. You could use region binding on the images to create some smooth motion but using vectors will produce better results. Distorting an image layer too far will only cause it to "tear" and "stretch" oddly.

I did a dress flowing type animation using multiple bones on the ends of the dress and some dynamic bones. This might work with an image layer. You need to use flexible binding only with images if you want them to bend smoothly.

To make the dress "stretch" you have to use flexible binding. You would need to add more bones in the areas to stretch or move and also in areas that don't move so there isn't too much motion.

Puppet type animation works well when a certain look or style is needed. However, it doesn't work well to produce smooth flowing type animation.

I would go so far as to say that redrawing or tracing the image in AS as vector layers might seem like a lot of work... but you would end up with a much more versatile character with more options.

-vern

[Heriberto]

Oh, actually I don't want flowing hair. more like Bouncing hair. and this actually has been working perfectly! How can I do flexible binding on the skirt only? I only find the option in the overall bone structure.

By the way, thanks to all so far for helping me out so, you've been all very kind.

If anyone's interested on how this is going so far (thanks to you all) check out this itsy-bitsy quicktime file: http://www.mediafire.com/?8py26zjdb11 Here it is.

[heyvern]

How can I do flexible binding on the skirt only?

I don't know for sure how your file is set up but I am guessing you are using direct bone/point or bone/layer binding. This means that the whole "shape" is bound like a "solid" object to a bone.

The bone binding type (flexible or region) doesn't make any difference in with that type of set up.

To do a dress or even hair you can let some of the points of a vector shape use "flexible binding" instead of "point binding" or layer binding. In my case I had most of the dress bound to the same bones as the body so the dress tha conformed to the body the same as the body, but the section of the dress at the bottom was flexible bound and controlled by a series of hanging bone chains so I could make it sway and move like cloth.

If you are using an image layer for the dress the same thing applies but may need more bones. Imagine for example that the skirt or dress in the above character is bound to one bone. It can't "bend" or "wave" because the whole shape is bound to one bone. If however the layer was NOT bound to any specific bone it would bend and move based on ANY bone over it.

You could place bones in certain areas that would be children of the main bone that moves the skirt or hips of the character. The extra bones would influence the movement of that image separately from the main bone. This way you might say, have the edges of the skirt flip or wave as the character walked. Or you could translate a bone to "stretch" the skirt to cover parts of the body.

This is a simplistic explanation but it gets the idea across.

-vern

[Heriberto]

Now I get it! Sounds logical also. I'm trying to get it to work, but I can't seem to bind the skirt layer to several bones. I made one bone to every side but it seems the layer binding option allows only for one bone. I also fidgeted around with the layer's proprieties and found out there's a "Warp using bones" options. Used it to no avail.

Thanks in advance.

[heyvern]

You can only bind a layer to one bone. You want to UNBIND the layer to use multiple bones and you do want warp using bones for the image layer.

Select the "bind layer tool". The bone that layer is bound to should high light. Just click somewhere to deselect that bone. Now the layer is not bound to any bone.

Did you do the tutorials? they might help get the hang of it. Read in the help about bone binding.

-vern