Cineversity

Hi

Im not a rigger so have no professional training so I want to make sure the ways Im doing things is optimal so have a few questions.

Controllers:

1) I can use any object as a controller why is it preferred to use a spline over say a null, or geometry?

2) The placement and position of a controller how is this best done for good practice.  I have a few ways I can be doing it which is the best if there is a preferred professional way.

a: make a null a child of the target bone, zero out the x,y,z so its aligned and positioned perfectly to joints orientation.  Remove null to top of hierarchy in a root controller null, and apply PSR constrain from joint to controller. (result joint remains in place)

b: Make a controller, drag it close enough to joint position, and in PSR constain offset use (maintain original) (result joint remains in place but controller is not orientated to the joint

c: Make controller, from (Tools/Arrange Objects) use Transfer command to position and orient controller to joint, apply PSR constraint (result joint remains in place)

d: as in (c) but use character commands PSR command for an already positioned controller.

3) I normally freeze all controllers so I can reset the PSR to get back to the original pose, is this a good practice without any consequences down the road?

4) Should I freeze all joint cords, or use the character command (set preferred) and (to preferred) instead of freezing a joints cords, and using reset PSR, why would one be use over the other, are there any consequences in freezing the joints cords?

Floor or ground contact

5: Can a joint be made to auto stop with any surface?  For instance a guy walking up stairs, would be good if I could either use IK/FX and simply push the foot down and it wont go through the stair, or floor, or any surface it comes into contact with?

FK arm with IK hand controller

If I create a IK chain from shoulder to hand, the IK goal will not alow me to rotate the hand.  If I create a fk controller for hand and assign the IK chain from shoulder to FK controller thats psr constrained then it becomes a mess, so how can I have a IK arm and still have FK control over the hands? One solution I can think of is to add a extra bone in between the hand and forarm such as a wrist bone so I would then assign the IK chain between shoulder to wrist, then apply fk controller to hand?

Extra joint?

When I create a joint chain im left with a extra joint at the end, what do I do with this, can I hide it, what do I name it.  Till now iv been naming it “tip” or “end”?

Thanks for any of these answers.

Dan

Hi Dan,

The best advice I can give, get your hand on as many rigs as possible and explore them. Rigging is the technical part of the animation, with the animator as a target. The animator has to get the movements and expressions in a direct and quick way, without getting distracted. Since animation characters have clearly different targets (considering all the animation movies I have seen in my life) the rigging is certainly based on those requirements. The target, again “my view”, is to allow for an animation process that keeps the focus on the expression and not on the tech. Whatever your ideas are about a given project (I would not make a “global” list here), should be written on a paper and sorted by importance. That should be then the guide line.
I would suggest to study the Character Object and its set up. It was done with a lot of input from animators and a key role in its development had certainly Bret Bays, who has already rigged a lot of characters for animation features who received even Oscars. You find a lot of his thoughts in Cineversity Tutorials and Presentations. Which brings up the point of referencing tutorials. With a long list of questions like that, it will be easier your use the search options, as well as the filter options to get a nice collection of results. Sorry, if I don’t list them here, as it might end up only like a copy of such a search anyway. I will do in case I think it is important.

Here are my personal views to your questions. I assume, if you ask five people – you might get six different answers to this.

1) Because they naturally do not render, they are easy to shape and to filter.

2) Each rig might require something different. Lowest amount of parts and simplest hierarchy would be certainly a target.

3) + 4) I do not see a problem here. Freezing is done to have clear HPB values. (yes “pos” as well). Here I like to point to the manual, it is certainly a must read this time.
https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/party_bot_-_posing
https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/siggraph_2013_rewind_gene_magtoto

5) There are certainly ways to do that, but the joint is not really touching anything, the mesh does this typically. No idea if that will lead to great animation results, or if any invested time to get this done will pay off. (I’m aware that some tutorials suggest that, but that is case based), So one would have the need to determine if a foot bend to the side will have a different distance then, as in a character is running a tight curve and before the foot hits the ground, the foot orientation is anything but straight down. There is certainly a place for anything that really needs predefined (limited) motion, but keep it low/simple, as it limits expressions as well.
Anyway:
https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/foot_on_floor

IK, FK: see the Character Object, it works without an extra joint for the hand. But yes, I have seen people put an extra joint for many reasons into the chain, e.g., between should and arm.

Yes, naming conventions are crucial (as well as for files!), check the Character Object, which is for me like a library in rigging. Tip is mostly used with the head for example, but the term End is used for most parts. Again, explore the Character Object, as it is certainly the most advanced rigging system available on Cinema 4D, and it is certainly a good idea to keep things in the same way. The Character Object is to me (again) like a library.
That the last joint is not important, where do you got that from? Here is a file that has not “weighted” the last joint. But take a look if the same set up is weighted without or what is shown in the Weight Manager when this was missing while weighting.
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/a3TJq2C8MiaaxQBNh0rsQDQHYex9yWllheu5LOXkT7l
Make your own tests of course, but keep the parts in the rig, so you know after a while what was going on in the file.

I would love to suggest a good book about, but so far I wasn’t excited about any, they are either overpriced or too flat in content, but I have yet to go throught more of them of course.

All the best

Thanks for your time to reply.  Iv spent over 9 hours today on it, driving me nuts to say the least.  Iv looked at the character object, its not helping at all as its just too complex, links to links within line to expressions, just too much to break down.

Im trying to just simply get a arm made from shoulder, elbow, hand with a spline for each joint as a psr constraint, not problem, easy to do.  Then comes Ik.  Set a chain from shoulder to hand, it wont function as the joints are controlled by spline controllers.  I look at the character tool rig and was expecting to see some expresso or even the ik applied to the controllers but nope, neither.  Both are allowed to control the joints?

I then went down the route of diving the ik/fk blend slider strength to turn off the fk spline controllers, that worked, but then the ik goal wont rotate the hand, so I set a psr constraint from hand to ik goal, but now I have two psr constraints on the hand.  Now I set up more expresso to cancle out one psr constraint for fk when in full IK chain blend, and reverse order for second psr contraints when in full FK to cancel out the IK as the hand controller.  Just when I set it up I try to rotate the bicep in with fk and all joints after the shoulder rotate but not the shoulder as it seems if the ik was started from the shoulder even when in fk blend it will not rotate.  I was so close but the character rig was not set up this way, and I am at a loss now.

Dan

Dan,

I might answer now a little bit more for a forum, than specifically only and exclusively to your questions, as I assume it is as well of general interest.

Character animation is a job in its own rights. Rigging, as in technical director, is as well a full time job. People in the studios who do this for a living have spend a long time getting to this level of professionalism. To expect to gain this level in a short time would be very unfair to the artists and engineers in this profession. But then again, these pros do a lot to share what they can to make it easier, e.g., as the Character Object shows. As an example, I tried my hands on “Bones” in the mid ‘90s the first time, and it was a painful slow process back then. (No tutorials nor books were available back then). I share your idea that there must be a faster way, but honestly, the Character Rig has certainly not anything that is not needed, given the target of an easy to use system here. So, I follow your impatience partly, but having followed this subject over two decades by now, I can only say, the ease of use, the options given and the way to set things up have never been more comfortable. Todays complexity has certainly grown, more often than not on artist request of course.

The two instructors who have created the majority of the tutorials on Cineversity since its introduction have both spend years at the Animation Mentor offers, which were certainly not cheap, in terms of time and money investment. Hence why I would put always Bret’s option and knowledge over mine in regard of Character Animation, which is easy to do, given Bret’s wonderful reputation.

The Character Object has some option to show only certain parts. This makes it easier to follow. While the full hierarchy can be filtered in the Object Manager, as in Joints only. Here one can read along the joint set up and get a good feeling about the naming convention. Yes, naming convention is often not taken seriously, and it separates the beginner from the pro, so I appreciated your question here. I have no better answer than to point to that system as mentioned.
Screenshot.
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/Z7i98CzGE3ppXf03JsQ8wqsiuLgAoYs7JgX84ictA3Z

Please have a look to the Character Object way of allowing it. Can you spot the Joint aligned in the joint?
One minute clip
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/68nTeuW802K0gnEh2KFwKi1YQHTi442TACLPBz6rNXC

If you want to do it from scratch, perhaps one way would be this discussion:
https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaylist/ik_fk_arm/ikfk_arm_part_1a

My tip would be to just set up a new scene for developing an understanding of the parts in question. Typically (my observation over the last 14 years answering forums questions), people tend to start out too complex and ambitiously and with that create what others call a writer’s block, i.e., they stop and searching for something else to do. Again, Character Animation is the Top level skill of animation and as it utilizes every single other animation option.  Each of these options might feel basic, but the more fluent one gets in the basic, the faster this main animation area is masters, not the other way around. Some tutorials push too fast to far and leave the user of that content with the impression that the basics are not longer the issue. I call that nonsense. It is pretty much all about the basic, then the combination thereof. But everyone is of course free to chose a learning path of his/her own liking.

The Character Object is overwhelming when you look at the complete hierarchy. The magic (besides knowing the basics) is to understand the concept behind it. This is well document in this series:
https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/creating_a_custom_template_part_01

The core of this series is certainly about the “Components”. Those Components are explained very well, and as a side effect the “inner workings” of the character rigging by itself are explained as a nice “side-effect”. Even if your target is not to create those templates, the delivered knowledge is beyond anything I have gotten so far.
https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/creating_a_custom_template_part_01

(To go first thought this series
https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaylist/biped_rigging/biped_rigging_1a
might be advised)

Yes, there is a learning curve, and it is not a weekend seminar and know it all area. The problems to teach this is different than to teach a “new to the app” class. The knowledge already gained is different to everyone.
However, it is something that needs some time to master, and the less basic steps are jumped over, the faster one gets to the desired level of expertise. In other words there is no “one size fits all” and there is the problem. I can’t replace this with some answers here in the forum either.

However, please feel free to request tutorials that you feel are missing in the collection. Thanks for your efforts.

My best wishes