Cineversity

Is there a guide to the exact recommended placement of the adjustment circles in the Character plugin?  Not knowing the best placement is preventing my characters from bending properly.  I find that in the tutorials the placement is glossed over.  I am trying to rig the male figure from the R15 Content Browser.  Do you happen to have him already rigged and ready to go? That would be really helpful. Thanks, David

Hi David,

The point/circles (if I understand your question correctly) are representations of the “Joints”. The Joints are rotation points and the placement should follow the idea that one has about the skeleton of the character.

If that is widely free to see, think of the Joints like a camera inside the character, what can be seen directly from this camera is most likely affected by this joint in a clean way.

Keep in mind that each joint is just a tool to set up the information for the Skin Object. Both work together to deform the surface which represents the character. The problem is that there are many joints to define the characters movements. The interactions of joints might not always create a synergy to the advantage of the character. To get these influences in the information flow “balanced”, each joint has an option to “weight” the the power it has over each point of the surface of the character. If something is not working, (you are right) check the position of the joints, then the weighting of such.

Besides that even if they are positioned correctly and weighted in the best way, some areas can show “un-natural” results, like the area of an arm that “folds” more than bends naturally. This can be set up in the joints or with the “Correction deformer”.

A great three part series to get deeper into it is here: (In fact, if you like to dive into character animation, check out all from Bret Bays they are just great ... and from Kai Pedersen of course)
http://www.cineversity.com/vidplaylist/weight_painting/weight_painting_part_1

If you like to share a screen-shot to clear your problem, please go ahead!

All the best

Sassi

Thanks, Dr. Sassi.  I’ll look at everything from Kai Pedersen and Bret Bays.  I know this is one of the more technical challenges, but I want to delve deep into it.  Any other resources that you can recommend?

Thanks David, and sorry for my delay in answering, but I took some days off ;o)

My best advice would be: take a simple object and place some joints in it, Bind it with the Skin Object and then explore it, break it, try to introduce trouble, etc. In other words, keep the object or set up as simple as possible, so you “see” quickly what works and where the problems might come from. There is nothing above your own experience.

Secondly, and I sound perhaps old-school here, but in the past two+ decades, I got most of my personal knowledge from experimenting and reading the manual. I know, I should give you some links for tutorials, but quite honestly, Bret and Kai are certainly the key players here.

Bret and Kai—both—are alumni from the Animation Mentor program. If you like to go far, check them out. Character animation is so much more than what we can do here. The tools are certainly a must have base, but going deep into that field, you need to know more, and to accelerate your career and skills—there is nothing above a “OneOnOne” with pros. Cineversity can give you perhaps a nice start, certainly (AFAIK :o) a good one with the tools, but to launch a complete career, find a mentor. We artists are all different in our needs, something we that we have to address in our search for the “next step”.

My best wishes.

Sassi

Thanks so much, Dr. Sassi. Are you refering to animationmentor.com? Or something at Cineversity?

Yes, David, I do,—this is the one. I can’t tell about the current quality, as human interaction varies ;o), but you might just google what others have to say about, ignore trolls and chronic low-mood people of course: If someone tells positive things, check their website for examples, if that fits to your idea about animation.
All in all, I think always that a teacher can bring you only as far as you let them. We all have to develop our own art, no one likes to be a copy of someone else, but learning from many seasoned artists allows “you” to push farther and certainly much faster.

My best wishes

Sassi