Experiencing problems rigging puppets - Please help!
Hi guys,
I’m experiencing problems trying to rig my puppets, and I’ve not seen anyone mention these particular issues before.
I've mostly been lost in sculpt mode, creating a couple custom character puppets (Judge Dredd and Batman). My characters have been sculpted in separate components, split up in the same way as the default Mm puppet. Many of these components are grouped (Batman’s head, for example, consists of a separate cowl, eyes and mouth section, with all 4 parts grouped together). Other parts, such as the upper arms, consist of a single sculpt.
On trying to assemble a custom character puppet however, I’m encountering a tonne of difficulties! I’ve looked things up as far as I could and tried things you’ve suggested to others, to no avail (well, sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t! I have no idea why and hope you’re able to help!) Apologies in advance for the long post – I’ll try to describe my situation in detail.
For Dredd, I’ve not had any major issues. I’ve been able to take a default puppet, stretch the proportions, delete the head, scope in with the custom head sculpt (face and helmet grouped together), and connect this to the puppet body with a ball joint. Worked like a charm. I’ve also grabbed his shoulder armour, scoped in, and grouped this to the torso, so it’s all attached. Again, worked no issues.
Batman is another story entirely. At first, I attempted to rig him myself, without using a blank puppet. Working on one side first so I could clone and mirror across for the other, I attached the upper arm and lower arm to the torso with ball joints/bolts. These worked perfectly – moving body moves arms too, moving upper arm moves forearm too, moving forearm only moves the forearm – standard animation tensioning, what I was expecting. I proceeded to rig the waist and pelvis, and leg/shin/foot/toe, and everything worked great. I needed to close down, so I saved my creation and came back to it later in the evening.
On starting up again however, things weren’t as I left them. The connections were now different, and broken. By grabbing the toe and moving it around, I could move the entire leg around. Moving the toe upwards would automatically bend the leg at the knee and ankle to accommodate the new position. But most problematic, if I moved the body, the arms stayed put.
Please note that the arms are indeed still connected – undoing the previous move, the body snaps back to default pose, and the arms move with it – now appearing, positioned where they should have been had they moved before. It’s as though the game doesn’t update their position somehow. It knows they are connected and where they should be, but doesn’t want to move them there.
I figured this may be a result of not basing my character on a default puppet, so I placed a blank puppet in my scene and tried again, with a different approach. This time, I positioned and scaled the blank puppet to match the proportions of my Batman character, and proceeded to grab each component part, scope into the puppet as far as possible, and group the parts where they need to be. Selecting each part confirmed they were grouped properly. Scoping out of the puppet, I could pick the entire thing up and move it all around together.
On moving the limbs etc to test the movements however, I encounter the same issues as before. The forearm moves. The upper arm leaves the forearm behind (with X-Ray enabled, you see the actual ball joint stretch between them). Move the body and both arm sections are left behind. But hit undo, and the puppet glitches. The body returns to default pose, and the arms reappear in all sorts of different places. These remain messed up - even undoing to previous stages, they're stuck in odd positions. To get things back to normal, I need to delete the affected parts (usually easier to delete the whole puppet), then undo the deletion, and all of a sudden it appears back where it should be. Hit play mode, and it all falls apart.
I’ve tried doing everything as simply as possible to try and isolate a cause, with no success. I reasoned that perhaps this was some bug affecting groups, so tried with single sculpt components. If I ungroup the head, and only attach Batman’s cowl (no eyes or mouth section), it works as easily as the Dredd head before. But add the eyes and it encounters the issue again. Same thing if you add the mouth section. Now, if you pick up the puppet and move it around, the head stays put, but sort of vibrates as though it’s trying to move but being stopped by something.
As far as groups causing the issue, I found that the single component upper arm still encounters the problem. And Dredd’s head was a group all along, and that worked fine first time!
Lastly, I wondered if I had set some strange physics settings preventing some parts from moving, so took the time to scope into everything and adjust them one by one. All moveable, all collidable, neither or a mix in between, has no effect. Entering play mode, the puppet falls apart completely despite being connected correctly. Well, sometimes only his pelvis stays on! I should note that I have gone into puppet settings each time, and gotten the puppet to recognise each part properly (it knows which bit is the head etc, highlighted green).
I’ve tried over half a dozen times to rig this thing, and not had any luck, and honestly it’s gotten quite frustrating. Why do I only encounter problems with some sculptures, when their physics settings are identical? I’ve even tried saving the parts as separate creations, then re-importing them into a scene to assemble.
Maybe Dreams just hates Batman! I’ve exhausted all the problem solving I can think of. Has anyone else experienced similar issues, with what I can only describe as a selective bug? Is it a bug, or am I missing something obvious?
Any help you can provide would be much appreciated!
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Hmm... not sure how important this is, but did you make sure your joints are always created in an outward order? The first part you click on when creating the joint will be the parent and the second will be the child. The greatest grandparent will be the hips.
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This sounds more like a bug than you don't knowing how to use dreams.
I hope they see this and maybe move this post to the bug section.
Sorry to hear that you have this.
I don't run into this issues myself.
PS: I can think of only one thing that can mess you up.
If you have left all objects collidable in ther tweak menu it can mess your model up.
But that's all I know. -
Thanks guys. To clarify, yes I've checked the parent/child for each part, and it should be correct. Everything about the layout of the rig matches the blank Mm puppet.
As for Collide, yes this has been disabled for every individual sculpt, and I've double checked all the groups to make sure it's not activated there either. So I'm at a loss to explain it!
Perhaps there's a way I can upload a short video clip of the puppet glitching? It might help with the description of the issue. -
Very frustrating.
Btw you can only upload things in new posts.
Just in case you didn't know. ;) -
Ok no worries. I'll try and record a clip to help explain things, and make a new post in the Bugs forum. Sounds like this should probably go there :)
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