Finger rigging- any tips for curled fingers?
polycounter lvl 6
One problem I've consistently come across when trying to rig fingers is that when the fingers are curled (such as when making a fist) they self-intersect at the knuckles. Obviously this is desirable behavior to some degree- fingers in real life press against themselves when curling, too. But allowing a finger to self-intersect still feels uncomfortable to me.
The only thing I can think of to avoid this is to make morphs / blend shapes for the fingers in a curled position, but this seems very tedious and difficult to get right (so I don't want to have to do it if there's a better approach) and the fact that I can find virtually no tutorials on the subject of finger morphs makes me think that there's not a huge amount of precedent for this being done, at least on the amateur level.
Obviously this is dependent on the particular needs of the rig etc etc etc, but broadly, what have been people's experience with rigging a hand to make a fist? Have you needed to make morphs? For something like a third-person game, I suppose it's possible that the intersection would be unnoticed- in such a case, are the intersections often left as they are?
The only thing I can think of to avoid this is to make morphs / blend shapes for the fingers in a curled position, but this seems very tedious and difficult to get right (so I don't want to have to do it if there's a better approach) and the fact that I can find virtually no tutorials on the subject of finger morphs makes me think that there's not a huge amount of precedent for this being done, at least on the amateur level.
Obviously this is dependent on the particular needs of the rig etc etc etc, but broadly, what have been people's experience with rigging a hand to make a fist? Have you needed to make morphs? For something like a third-person game, I suppose it's possible that the intersection would be unnoticed- in such a case, are the intersections often left as they are?
Replies
Some examples on our wiki
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Limb_Topology
How close are you to the hand? It all depends on context. In games and in film, different rigs are used for close-ups. When you're close to a higher detail rig, you see less of everything else, so you can spend more time/money/performance on a more complicated rig. But for the majority of in-game use you don't need nor want that complexity.