Battle Droid Rigging Help

Hey guys,

I've been having alot of trouble in rigging the battle droid model that I updated for my short film School Duel II.

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v60/Jedi_Kyeju/battledroid_retex_test.jpg]

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v60/Jedi_Kyeju/fedupbiped2.jpg]

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v60/Jedi_Kyeju/fedupbiped.jpg]

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v60/Jedi_Kyeju/fedupbiped3.jpg]

I think I did a pretty good job of resizing and setting up the biped, and through reading this 3D Max animation book I understand that some vertices go astray due to the arms being so close to the sides and situations like that. So it told me to go into the physique modifier and select the vertices as rigid and then assign them to the link.

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v60/Jedi_Kyeju/fedupbiped4.jpg]

For whatever reason the links dont seem to be showing up or I have done something wrong in this process. Can anyone throw a little advice my way? Thanks alot.

 

You need to change the envelopes. When you are modifying the physique modifier, just click it again to make it yellow and then it will show the envelopes (or just go to the envelope sub-level) there will be a kind of yellow bone structure that shows up in the body, each section pertains to one of the Biped bones, just click one and it will show how big the envelope (range of influence over the vertices) is and you can change it's range and how far it goes towards it's parent or child. If there are some vertices that you can't get to not be attached to a bone (like if the upper arm is still influencing vertices on the side of the droid) then I believe you can select those vertices and turn off the influence for that Biped object. I can't remember the exact method, but I know that's what you do.


As far as the Biped Object goes (the Bip object used to represent the gun) I would just turn that part off and then Link the gun to the biped hand object, it doesn't need to be skinned or physiqued.

 

DUDE! Awesome model, do you think once its rigged you could give me a copy?!?!?

 

As far as the Biped Object goes (the Bip object used to represent the gun) I would just turn that part off and then Link the gun to the biped hand object, it doesn't need to be skinned or physiqued.

Yea, after I figured that out after I resized the biped and everything. How would I delete/turn off that part? Also do you know of a way that I can delete the spine section and just make the body the pelvis, since the battle droid really has one section for his torso?

 

You can change the options of the Biped by selecting a piece of the Biped and going into Figure Mode, at the bottom of the Biped options from the Motion tab there will be a section that will show the structure of the Biped, you can set if there is an object or how many spine objects there are.

 

Only problem with adjusting envelopes is that there is a falloff, and with something like a droid you cant have ANY stretching anywhere, so I think what I'm looking for is a way of selecting the specific vertices that will be affected by each part of the biped.

 

I wouldn't suggest using biped/physique on a droid at all, instead creating your own IK system with the model itself. But if that's out of your league, it would be helpful to you to get rid of physique and apply a skin modifier where you can set 100% weight to specific bones.

 

Or you could just link the bones to the part that it should move with, just make sure the pivots of the joints are in the same place as your model so it doesn't rotate wrong.

 

a skin modifier where you can set 100% weight to specific bones.

This appears to be working! Although I may have to go back and detach each part of the arms. I'll give you guys an update later tonight.

 

First Animation Test

And after alittle retweaking -

Droid Animation Test 2

The only places I'm having problems is the lower part of the hands, and the shoulders coming out of place. If you look at the images I posted before you'll see that there are two seperate fingers, well I cant seem to get the two lower finger sections to function as one. I tried parenting the one lower section to the other but that only made them move independently from the upper sections. Any ideas?

 

Did u try to have the biped 2 fingers(one finger, one thumb)? the droid finger pair assigned to one biped finger and the other droid single finger to other biped finger(thumb).

have droid finger pair as one object.




Lookfilms

 

It looks like I got the hands to work well enough. They still need alittle tweaking, and I'll show you guys some tests with HDRI and the whole bit tomorrow, but here are some more animation tests to hold you over.

BD Animation Test 3

BD Animation Test 4

 

just kind of curious rigging wise...If the droid is made up of solid components, you really shouldn't have to use skinning. You could just link the parts to the biped and if linked appropriately and in the right spots it should work properly. Less of a pain to do and not as time consuming.

Just a thought...

 

That's basically what I did. I just thought I needed the skin modifier on, so I don't?

 

That is correct, you shouldn't have to skin something like this. Linking should work fine.

 

So I'm about to start animating the bipeds, but I don't know how to set a limit (Y=0) so that nothing can go through the ground plane.

Also I'm using some mocap files I've gathered, and I would like to know how to add multiple mo cap animations, which I will then smooth out. Anyone?

HDRI Test 1
[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v60/Jedi_Kyeju/hdri_lobbytest_2.jpg]

(After alittle tweaking)
[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v60/Jedi_Kyeju/hdri_lobbytest_3.jpg]

 

Yeah, looks like you got it. Linking it up was good, which is why I suggested IK. My point was more along the lines of never, ever use Physique. If you get into organic characters, Skin is much more powerful.

 

I'll keep that in mind for the digital doubles I'm putting together.