Bone locking still doesn't work in 5.3.1

[Toontoonz]

ulrik - That seems to work, but now boning takes on a new way of doing things - your placement of the "grandparent bone" away from the leg and foot and at a 90 degree angle from the leg bones.
Without your very important "grandparent" bone the locked bone function takes on a different, very restrictive movement.
Thanks for showing how you did it!
I guess I missed the post where it was explained how this new bone set up must be done. I have to go read the LM announcement and tutorial about how the new locked bone works.

ulrik - What would be your skeleton/bones setup on how to make a whole body with all feet and hands locked?

[ulrik]

I would do like this.

[Toontoonz]

Okay.

Have you noticed that when you move the body from side to side that the arm bones sometimes bend one way then quickly switch the other way. What deterimines which way the bones bend in this situation?

New example:
Now say the the hands were unlocked. Feet still locked.

How would you get the character to squat down with the feet locked? i.e. waist and upper part of body move down, knees bend out.

I must be doing something wrong or one has to use another method.

Thanks for your assistance!

[ulrik]

Yes I've noticed that the arms and the legs sometimes flip over to the other side and if I have the the bone angel setup so they can't bend in the other direction, the locked hand/leg will move instead.
I don't know how to make this work in a proper way, it would be nice if the legs, when kneeing down, keep bending in the same direction as they started, because if they would, then it would be an easy task to accomplish the kneedown movement.
Maybe someone else knows how to do this, I would relly like to know.

Toontoonz wrote. How would you get the character to squat down with the feet locked? i.e. waist and upper part of body move down, knees bend out.

Well it's the same problem, it's possible to do it with a steady hand, but you can't move it the slightest to left or right, then the bone flip over to the other side.

[Toontoonz]

Thanks for your help!

I experienced the same thing as you described. With bone lock on one has to be real careful about movements or things can get strange fast. I had arms and legs sticking out for one frame only, elbows going from up to down within 2 frames. It is tough to predict when it will happen, because it really depends on the positions of the other bones in the chain.
Wonder if where the placement of the bones next to each other is has an effect on what happens in the locked bone IK chain; e.g. Two bones touching has a different effect than far away from each other, smaller bone next to a large bone, different angles, different alignments, etc.

I tried locking and unlocking the bones during the animation. Unlock the bone , move it a bit then put in the new location. But that does not seem to work too good. There is no smooth transition from the locked position to the new postion - it just snaps over from one frame to the next. Maybe there is a trick to doing it properly.

[Lost Marble]

To prevent things like knees and elbows bending in the wrong direction, use angle constraints.

[Lost Marble]

I think there's some confusion here. There is no "new" bone locking system. It works exactly the same way as it always has. The only difference is that now, bones with dynamics turned on are ignored in the IK chain. That way you can have skin or clothing flopping around on a locked leg or arm. In general, though, bone locking works just like it always has in Moho.

Take a look at the following example file:

http://www.lostmarble.com/misc/locked_bones.moho

In this file, the main parent bone is the one at the top-center of the picture. Then, the hierarchy works downward. (Use the Reparent Bone tool to see which bone is the parent of which other bone.)

The locked bones are the two feet, and the bones in the clothing are using bone dynamics.

[Toontoonz]

Yes, I believe there was some confusion on my part - now I see where I was confused.

After analyzing your example (thanks) in Moho and then going back to the Moho Tutorials (thanks), then playing around with Moho a bit, I realized that no where in the Tutorials does it ever mention to use or how to or when to use these boning tools during an animation:

Translate bone, Scale bone, Rotate bone

Everything about moving bones during an animation in the Tutorials refers to use the MANIPULATE BONES tool to move bones - never does it mention the use of the Translate bone, Scale bone, Rotate bone during an animation.
(The Translate Bone is only mentioned during the set up of the character´s bones, Tutorial 3.2, not the animation of the bones).
Or I missed where it is mentioned, which is very possible.

I couldn´t find these three bone tools mentioned in the User Interface or Reference sections of the Tutorials either.

Now I see that it is probably better in a lot of situations to use the three bone tools (Translate bone, Scale bone, Rotate bone) during an animation instead of the MANIPULATE BONES tool.

LM - I must have missed it, but where in the Tutorials does it discuss the usage of those three bone tools (Translate bone, Scale bone, Rotate bone) in an animation?
This is where my confusion with the "new" bones dynamics settings - the Tutorials only mention the use the MANIPULATE BONES tool (Tutorial 3.4) - but instead, one should be using the other bones tools as well....which I must say I have never used until today. Every animation was done as it says in the book - use the MANIPULATE BONES tool.

If there isn´t a tutorial how about creating a Tutorial on using those three bones buttons in an animation? I am sure it would be a big help to all of us who thought that, following the Moho tutorials, that MANIPULATE BONES was the way to move bones in an animation.

[ulrik]

Yes you're right LM, of course I should use these tools, it was with me as with toontoonz, I've always used the manipulate bone tools when animating.
I don't remember exactly about the tutorials but I think I used the manipulate tool when working with them.
Anyway, thanks for letting me know.

[Rasheed]

Soon after I had finished doing the Moho tutorials I discovered that only using rotate, move and scale bone gives you enough precission, because these are the animation channels that you use to manipulate bones.

So, nowadays I never use manipulate bones, ever.

And after discovering how to prevent Moho flow, things only got better.

[Toontoonz]

So, nowadays I never use manipulate bones, ever.

Did you find a reference in the Moho Tutorials about the use of Translate bone, Scale bone, Rotate bone during animation? Because I sure can´t find it.

So what do you think the purpose of MANIPULATE BONES is during animation in Moho? Why would one use it in the animation of bones?

After learning of the use of the other bones in animation (I can´t ever remember LM ever mentioning or inferring to them before this thread), the MANIPULATE BONES seems to be perhaps falsely named. It gives the impression that is the bone one Manipulates bones with - as all the tutorials state....but now there I see there are others that are even better to Manipulate bones with and one shouldn´t even use really use it.
Too bad LM never mentions the bones in its Tutorials and only talks about the MANIPULATE BONES tool.

Wonder what other tools I am not knowing about??? Perhaps that secret tool that brings in .ai files correctly that I would like to see

[Toontoonz]

Rasheed - Speaking of your Moho flow tutorial, maybe you could write a tutorial on the use of the Translate bone, Scale bone, Rotate bone in creating an animation in Moho!

[rylleman]

>Toontoonz.
How have you been able to animate anything using only the manipulate bone tool?, I mean then you only get characters stuck in one place since manipulate bones can't translate the bones.
Haven't you ever been curious what all the buttons in the tools menu does and tried them?
Manipulate bones affects many bones at the same time, very useful for animating limbs and other parts sometimes. Rotate and Translate tools give much more accuracy since they only affect one bone at a time. Vary between the tools to the one best suited for the situation.

[Toontoonz]

Rylleman: "How have you been able to animate anything using only the manipulate bone tool?"
Answer: Amazing skill.
Please do point it out to me the sections in the Moho Manual/tutorials that discuss these three animation bones, I guess I missed that chapter.
Now I know about these three bones - now I won´t use the worthless Manipultate Bone tool - why can one even select it if it is worthless and shouldn´t be used???


Rylleman: Haven't you ever been curious what all the buttons in the tools menu does and tried them?
Answer: No.
There are lots of things I don´t touch in Moho - 3D objects, scripting for example. A few things I don´t really care for in Moho (drawing tools) and try to avoid them.

Rylleman: Manipulate bones affects many bones at the same time, very useful for animating limbs and other parts sometimes. Rotate and Translate tools give much more accuracy since they only affect one bone at a time. Vary between the tools to the one best suited for the situation.
Reply: Sounds like you could write the missing tutorial for Moho!

Now just think how amazing all my Moho animation is going to be!

----------

And if I was LM I would be thinking "Gulp....how many other people don´t know about using those three bones in bone animation. That people are only finding out about those tools by accident by being curious about the tool buttons. How many people have given up on Moho because they didn´t like the animation they were getting because we forgot to tell them not to use Manipulate bones tool, but instead use the other three above it???"

As another poster noted earlier, he was not aware of them either.

But now I know.

[jorgy]

Please do point it out to me the sections in the Moho Manual/tutorials that discuss these three animation bones, I guess I missed that chapter.
Now I know about these three bones - now I won´t use the worthless Manipultate Bone tool - why can one even select it if it is worthless and shouldn´t be used???

Hi,

I found the manipulate bone button useful mostly only in frame zero when making sure that the bone structure is set up the way I want it. In the moho manual under "Using Moho" -> "Tool Groups" -> "Bone Tools" it talks about the rotate, translate, etc. tools. A couple of screens down it also talks about the manipulate bone tool. Interestingly enough, it mentions:

The Manipulate Bones tool will move a whole chain of bones, which is definitely not what you want if you plan to rotate a single bone.


Looking at it now, this is coming across a bit pointed. I didn't mean it to, but you had asked where this was documented.

But I am glad that you are becoming a bone convert!

jorgy