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Arm issues. Major arm issues.

Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2005 10:28 pm
by Senor-Nb3
Apologies for the lengthy post, but I do this to put as much details as I possibly can.

I have run into some problems with my animation. The major issue is, I have a character whose arms, chest, and other body parts are on three seperate layers, respectively, marked "Arms," "Chest" and "Person." They are all inside one bone layer.

I had bound the points in the character's arms to their respective bones; for example, the upper armbone had the points in the upper arm and armpit bound to it.

Then, began the movement. Now here began the problem. When the order of the layers was "Person," "Chest" and "Arms," or "Chest," "Person," and "Arms," the arms dissapeared behind the chest when they moved, say, to pick up some snack chips.

Now, switching the layers around, and making some adjustments to "Person," "Arms," and "Chest," the upper part of the chest is hidden. And, when I move the arms, they don't lose color on the lower part of the chest as they make the motion to take the snack chips to the character's mouth, but when they move onto the upper part now obscured by the "Arms" layer, they not only lose their color, but also now reveal the background, showing what was hidden before.

All in all, this is a very disturbing development. Is there anyway that I can fix this?

Here is the file for getting a better understanding of what was happening. Due to some interesting Tripod and Geocities hangups, I have to present the appropriate Moho files in a Zip file.

I had a picture of the snack chips I was using for my cartoon, so this explains the blank image used. If you need it, I can send it to you.

http://www.geocities.com/sonnylew@sbcgl ... roject.zip

Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 1:39 am
by Nolan Scott
I presume first you have to partition the colour on your arms and body
and then raise the arms shape to the front in that layer.

Please have a look at Tutorial 3.4 for the basic set-up.

Here is your File you can download from my iDisk:
(I haven’t adjusted the points yet)

--- File has been taken off ---

Cheers
Nolan

Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:07 am
by Senor-Nb3
Thanks a million. I downloaded the file, and the problem is most definetly fixed.

Am I to understand you partitioned the different parts of the arm into seperate shapes? That is what it looks like.

Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 6:49 am
by Nolan Scott
That's right -
If one breaks the arms (or any other shapes)
into separate pieces it's possible that the arm
can cross itself without creating a gap in the fill.

Cheers
Nolan

Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 11:25 pm
by Senor-Nb3
Nolan Scott wrote:That's right -
If one breaks the arms (or any other shapes)
into separate pieces it's possible that the arm
can cross itself without creating a gap in the fill.

Cheers
Nolan
Wow. Thanks a million man, your coolness just went up 20% in my book.

When this thing gets done, I'm putting you in the credits. Seriously.

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 10:47 am
by Max Power
this specific problem seems to come up a lot in the forum. Maybe an explination should be put into the next versions tutorial, or something like that, to prevent all the frustration.



just an idea,
Max Power