Character: Trinny

[Draise]

Why change order???? Why change polycount???
Just move the vertices...and use that as a morph target!!!!
Keep the bones inside and move them.passiv!
It should work!!!!!

Because I need the rig to adapt to new characters with completely different topologies. Build once, use multiple times.

[Draise]

# The Update
I have finally got the lattice system working. After some thought, I realized the null points of the rig don't need the ribs to work on weighting - so I will remove all the ribs. They were fun to build, but the normal focused bone null control is more than enough. WOO! Less work, less setting up, same flexibility.

# The Progress

- Eyes now have correct offset
- Eyes deform and areas around deform with head squash/stretch
- All weird offsets are fixed. *Just don't use CHild Of constraints, they are really a big pain in the butt*
- Eyeball proxy now offsets and displaces correctly for eye mesh
- General head shape is now minimalized to not need the internodal deformer ribs - full rib system is working fine.

[Draise]

Cool, you CAN embed gifs!?


I'm shimmying my fast progress on the body now. Head is done.

[Dragneye]

Ahh, art at work.
Love it!

[Draise]

Here is a little update on the arm.



Arm Functions:
- Squash and Stretch
- Volume Lengthenening
- Bend
- Elbow offset
- IK shoulder
- IK/FK wrist
- FK toggle for forearm/upperarm

Hand Functions
- IK/FK fingers
- Individual finger curl control + offset
- All finger curl control + offset

I also have the viewport IK/FK toggles very much working nicely.

I'm still not sure what other feature I should add to the hand, the constraints in Blender are very easy with offset control. Rig still is working at 30+ FPS, so.. so far so good.

[Draise]

"When you see the soul of a rig"
Only you will be the one that knows how controllers really do their magic. If only Animators knew!

[Draise]

I have finally finished up my rig enough to start weighting. I have found and squashed a number of bugs, but in concept it is working. My only concern now is the 8 influences per vertex limit, or for fur, the full on 4 limit..

[Draise]

What have I done!?
Have I created a monster!? I don't know, but this monster of a robot creature excites me. In a good - innocent - happy way.

[Draise]

I was stuck quite a bit trying to get a good wrist and forearm twist. IK upvectors weren't cutting it. I couldn't offset (without drivers) the IK pole. Nore could I have proper rotation constraints.. it seems Euler is just.. a concept and all bone rotaiton is ultimately in Quaternian. Local also isn't really a thing, as rotations still work globally - meaning on elbow bend and shoulder bend, I was getting terrible gimbal lock and weird offsets on rotation.

This is one thing in the Blender core that I am nooo fan of. Softimage defines and reads out and controls Global and Local matrices as they are, as they should be, fully controllable, seperate, agnostic, and as they are, local according to bone/object axis origin, global to world center. In Blender there is no clear definition of one or the other. You can't control Global then Local with unique transform modes, and you can't drive one or the other properly. Things inherit Global/Local matrice control without any UI feedback nor definitive values whatsoever. You think you move in local, rotate a bone origin in local, then discover that the rotation gimbal is set to a global quaternian or euler that causes a gimbal lock.

So.. I had to work around.. and I found that nature has the solutions, and then proceeded to make a double forearm bone to create the twist. It worked. I should have done it this way since forever. So happy to now know! It also could work in other software.

[Dragneye]

That's an interesting thought. Two bones instead of one.