Mechanical Rigging Errors

FrozenCore#6

Hey everybody

I've been working on a steam punk spider for the past 3 weeks or so . and all has been fine till the rigging . first i started with small errors and fixed em but then major errors started appearing which really affects how the model would work

I had A Thread Up in the pimping and previews thing but seems no one is intrested in helping me with finishing this model . anyways Here are all my rigging posts and I'll try upload the rigging parts from my model later on

10-06-2010 12:28 PM

Ok done some edits on the leg to fix up the mechanism and started rigging but i got a wierdo error .

watch this vid , / read the description and tell me woot u think

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwvmjLSpHZI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwvmjLSpHZI[/ame]

10-08-2010 09:44 AM

O,o Well Doesn't Seem That Alot Of People Are into Rigging ... Anyways Here's Another Update Enjoy

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbWFLhRGHOA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbWFLhRGHOA[/ame]

---

And here is my latest error video .
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP849vat21I"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP849vat21I[/ame]

Wooh I Made A New Racord of Rigging Errors :P

Anyways . I bet All Of U Would Tell me To Go Back And Practice bit by bit but I don't want to cuz all I see here seem to be stupid errors for stupid reasons and that with your help I can fix em up and avoid them in the future so please don't post unless u have advice.

wish me luck in my chemistry exam xD

thanks in advance

Xoliul

Ok, I do some rigging, so I can give you some tips. It is hard to give exact pointers though, since it really depends on what the exact settings and options are that you used.

Are you using one main Root bone to attach everything to? I can't see it in your video, but you need to be able to move and rotate (prefereably even scale) everything with one single main controller.

You seen to be using visible geometry as rig components. NEVER DO THAT! Always create point helpers or dummies, don't use visual parts for rigging.

For your leg tips, to prevent them portruding into the ground: you used an IK there, but you set the IK handle somewhere in between the legs, best to set it at the tips, that way you can animate those handles and just place em on the floor.

The legs that move in and out, you probably need an IK target there (strange the other side doesn't do it though). Ik target determineswhat direction the bones twist when the IK folds open and closed.

Good that you are pracising this (rigging is fun & cool), but you seem to miss some basics. I made a video seriies on rigging a car some time ago, you should check it out:
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3ds-max/create-an-advanced-drifting-car-rig-in-3ds-max-day-1/
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3ds-max/create-an-advanced-drifting-car-rig-in-3ds-max-day-2/
You don't need to follow along, but just watch what I do, it's only 1.5hours or so.

Mark Dygert

I watched the first video, if the next two are anything like the first, they aren't very helpful.

"I used this, to make this thing and used the same technique that I just didn't mention and I got this problem I hardly show, halp!"

Got a link to the tutorial that might clue me in better?
It looks familiar but youtube obscures the link. This is one of the reasons I think youtube sets people up to fail. It's possible to say a lot of stuff but not really say anything at all. You're entering a very technical world and all the details need to be provided if you want anyone to help.

If I had to take wild stabs in the dark:
- It might be a look at constraint setting, does it get its up node from the world? which is default, you can turn world off and select an object for it to gets its up node from, this normally fixes those weird rotation bugs.

- You might be using the wrong solver for this joint, maybe a HI Solver would work better but with 8 legs it might get laggy...

It could be that you didn't reset the scale and transform on objects before rigging. This is another reason people tend to link or skin objects to a skeleton. They also do it because modelers and higher ups are notorious for changing the meshes and jacking up the pivots. It's best to keep your animation and your meshes separate. The tutorial probably had you rig the pieces for simplicity but thats a bad habit to get into, especially for games.

What about using a pre-built spider rig? Both CAT and PuppetShop have them and you can add rigging to them as needed.

I can't say for sure whats broken or how to fix it with the info given.
- I could recreate the leg and rig it up but I'm not about to do that.
- You could post yours for people to experiment and fix then explain how they did it.
- Or you could post more info like what constrains and solvers are being used, in what order.

FrozenCore#6

Thanks guys for posting here .

I Fixed Up Some minor Errors And I couldn't proceed with fixing others as they gave me more errors

this Is My First mechanical rig And I Only used A pretty basic Tut:
http://www.3dvalley.com/tutorials/rigging-robotic-joints-in-3d-studio-max

My goal is to reach a fully animated mechanical spider (movie model) And make something cool out of it

I Propably have Pivot And Modelling Errors Cuz I'm Having wierd deformations when I Try Fixing The Look At Constraint ...
as for the conrtollers I really dunno how to make them.

Well i don't have much time to explain everything . so I uploaded the model and sent the link to ur emails and if anyone else is willing to help just tell me .

Thanks alot For ur advice and the will to help.

Mark Dygert

It looks like you solved the rotation problem in first video?

In the second video, it looks like you want to rotate the entire leg from the base? You can do this by adding a parent to your leg bone, a dummy or a point helper should work pretty well. You'll rotate the helper to control the angle of the leg and move the tip of the IK chain to change the position of the tip.

I think you also mentioned that Cylinder36 is distorting as the rig animates? (IF you didn't I noticed it when I was testing it out). This would be due to the object being scaled some point. When scaling meshes you should do it in sub-object mode so the "object" isn't scaled, just the mesh or use a xform modifier or reset the scale after you've scaled.

Scaling the "object" will always fubar rigging and this is why its critical to always reset the scale and transform (hierarchy tab > Pivot > reset scale, transform buttons) of all objects THEN link or skin them to bones or helper objects. Doing this after the fact is going to seriously fubar things.

Checking the scale on a lot of the pieces and they need to be reset, you should probably rig it again from scratch after its been reset. I would go back to a unrigged version because you'll also have to clear off the old controllers which will twist and distort the pieces because of the rotation and scale not being at 100% when rigged.

I noticed the pivots on some of the objects behaving VERY oddly, they would slide all over the place when manipulating just the pivot (hirearchy tab > pivot > affect pivot only) really bazzar. If this was my mesh I had to rig up this already fubar'ed version, I would probably align helpers to the objects (to save their pivot position), create a new box, apply edit poly, attach everything to it so its one mesh, then detach each piece. Then go about moving the pivots for each object back into alignment using the align tool.

This is a tough lesson everyone learns when starting to rig... always, always always reset the scale and transform of your objects before rigging. Once the meshes are "clean" and the the rigging is re-done you'll be in a better place to trouble shoot problems.

FrozenCore#6

Thank you so much vig

resetting the scale and transform fixed all the wierdo scaling problems I Re rigged the leg from scratch and linked everything but now i have this wierdo tiny error .

"the objects With *look At Constraints* dont rotate with the the rest of the leg as I move the Hi Solver forwards and backwards"

Mark Dygert

Ahh good, glad that helped.

In the "lookat constraint" "Select Up Node" uncheck world and set it to target the object its looking at.

I don't think that was included in the tutorial because the "world" option was added in max2009 or 2010 and checked on by default. So you have to go in and set it like it would normally default to in the older versions. Which is probably why it isn't mentioned in the tutorial.

FrozenCore#6

Thank you vig it Worked

U Propably Thought I'm Dead But Nah Been busy here . xD
I Finished A Short Animation . 760 Frames . But I'll Speed it Up A bit On vegas :P
Currently Rendering 720p Using Mental Ray And Damn This Is taking Some Time xD
..
I Have Some reflection Errors In The materials or So ... Ex: Got Some Faceted Objects Although They Have 3 iterations Of Smooth .
But Whatever That For Now . I'll Work On better Animations Later Cuz My Comp. is Rendering pretty Slow xD

I'll Update here Once Video is Up Cya Then xD
Thanks Again Vig

FrozenCore#6

Hey Guys Wassup ,,, Been A While Eh?

Well I haven't had any inspiration in a big while , but I had Another sci fi spider project in mind , modelling it was easy and It's idea is too simple but I like it

But Now i'm Stuck With Rigging Again . This time I need some sort of bones which can be scalled Up to a certain measure when moving it's HI solver

Or any other way which u think is better . :P

so firstly here's The Model



and here is a video render which shows the switch from sphere to normal stance ...
No rigging used , I just moved the objects through out the time line.

http://www.mediafire.com/?abj5fykpvybralq

So any ideas people???

"btw sorry for not uploading the steam punk spider thingy . I just got bored from the rendering process and I'm gonna make a pro animation (some time) Before i render it again :P