I was trying to generate the rig from Pitchipoy in stages.
I appended my biped model and positioned all the Pitchi bones EXCEPT the face bones. I wanted to generate a partial rig, so I hid the Face bones. But the generate tag failed to appear. Instead, below the RIGIFY BUTTONS, a list appears starting with basic.copy, followed by some bone names.
Does it mean one has to fit all the bones (including Face) before the Generate tag appears?
Another request please:
to align or orientate the bones in a chain (for example the arms or fingers), Ctrl+N is handy but what option does one select? There are options such as
Local+x tangent or Local - x tangent or Local+z tangent or Local - z tangent.
Is just one of these the correct choice?
The armature (metarig) must be in Object Mode or Pose mode to generate a rig. Hiding the bones in edit mode should not stop the facial rig from generating.
I’m not sure why you want to generate in stages. If you do not want to use the facial rig, delete those bones in Edit mode from the metarig. You can always add it to the metarig later by adding the sample pitchipoy_super_face sample type. (Don’t forget to parent the face bone to the head bone.) I don’t see the advantage of leaving it out if you want to use it.
I’m not sure what you are asking in your second question. It’s usually a good idea to have all of the bones in a chain aligned (rolled) the same. You can roll a bone with CTRL R. I usually select the last bone in a chain, roll it to align it how I want, then select the other bones in the chain, select the last bone (the correctly rolled and aligned bone, this makes it the active bone) CTLR N, Active Bone. This will align the rolls of all the selected bones in the chain with the active bone (last bone selected). The other (many) options can be useful in certain situations, but Active Bone is used the most of the time.
I’m sure I cover most of this in my Rigify Tutorials.
Thank you, DanPro, for your response. I have watched 3 of your tutorials and you are clearly the rigging expert. The info l you supply is amazing. I started with the mesh prep for rigging and learned a lot about improving the model with Ctrl+R & loops. I am also saddled with a busty model from BlendSwap and I hope to use your tips to improve her.
Coming to your next tutorial, I watched in awe at your attention to detail in appending and adjusting the metarig. I noted how you went about aligning the bones using Crtl+R (and not Ctrl+N), so that in Front mode, the x-axes point down and z-axes horizontal.
I was trying to generate the rig in edit mode. In Object mode, the generate tab does appear. But in my case, I had a set back, the arm bones that fitted nicely with the mesh in Edit mode but stuck out in the air unexpectedly in Object mode. Kindly explain why this happened and how to align the arm bones properly in both edit & object modes.
Did you do any scaling of the metarig in object mode? (The transforms should read 0,0,0 for location rotation and and 1,1,1 for scale) If you have, you will want to apply any transforms to the metarig (in Object Mode, CTRL A , Apply loc rot scale) before generating the rig. It’s a common mistake to make.
Could you post a screenshot of the problem or a blend? If you cannot upload the file here, you can upload the file to pasteall.org and post the link to the file here.
The transform values are as you say they should be.
I am enclosing image in Front Ortho [don’t mind the nude pic- it’s from BlendSwap].
I intended to send the Blend file and uploaded the file using pasteall.org. The ‘link’ I got is .blend~1.06mb…ish. Is the link identifying the file?
Click on the blend tab, choose the file to upload, upload the file, then copy and paste the URL here. (The url will show up where pasteall.org is in your browser, after uploading.)
The armature issue is an easy one to fix. You have just moved some of the bones in pose mode. Enter pose mode with the armature selected, select all bones (Hotkey A) and then Alt G, Alt R, and Alt S to clear locations, rotations and scale on all of the bones.
The mesh has a number of issues. First, the mesh is not centered. The central loop that runs through the center of the mesh is not aligned on the X axis. Second, the mesh has unapplied transforms. Third, there are a number of weird mesh errors. I have fixed a few. The fingers and toes still have some odd topology.
Because the mesh was not centered, some of the bones in the spine were off center as well. I made sure the head and tails of the spine bones had a location of X, 0 after centering the mesh, and applying the transforms on the mesh.
Thank you, Dan, for taking the trouble to check on my metarig and mesh and so promptly. You have pointed out fundamental errors, including the off-centered location of the mesh and unapplied transforms. And thanks for the correction of errors.
You are clearly a perfectionist - I noted that after going through your Rigify Tutorial 2 (preparing the mesh for rigging).
I am relieved that I waited for your comments before proceeding with my rig in its unsatisfactory state.
The expert help is much appreciated.
