Help rigging geometric character (personal)

Support Animation and Rigging
#1

Hey all,
so this is my first attempt with creating a humanoid figure. I wanted to rig him up to put him into a video I need to animate, but my rig had something wrong with it and I don’t know what. I am hoping someone will figure it out. The character is geometric (using as little vertecies to represent something) and the rig is pretty much all I need (nothing advanced)
Can anyone figure out what is wrong and what might go wrong with my figure?
This is the figure before I parented everything
Man1.2 BEFOREPARENT.blend (548 KB)
And this is the wrong one I need correction with
Man1.2.2.blend (649 KB)

Thanks

#2

How did you assign weights to the vertices :eek:? I see things like knee vertices been assigned to the feet, ankles to the thighs, chest to the head… For such simple topology, I’d advise to manually assign vertex weights, just to start.

Second, it’s better to have the bone rotations more or less consistent before creating the IK chains (activate axes visualization on the armature menu to see what I mean). You can do it now, however, editing the armature in Edit mode to set the rotation of all bones to something like Global +Z.

Your leg IKs are somewhat well done, you just have to adjust the Pole angle of its controllers. Arm IKs, on the other hand, have their pole bones on the wrong side of the elbow. Poles must (AFAIK) be on the side that doesn’t bend, like you did for the knees.

Speaking of elbows and knees, you’ll need some extra loops on these zones to make them deform well.

#3

wait…huh??? I did automatic weights and then went in and changed them all because they were insane like you described…so apparently I did a bad job? That can’t be right because I’m very sure the chest, torso and arms are all fine in terms of the weight only on the part that it should affect…I will take a look at it again though.

I see what you mean. Is there a preferred position for the axis to go? (Ex: z pointing up, x pointing forward) Should this be the case for even the bones that are not in the body? How do I edit and change them, since rotating the bones in edit mode is not helpful…is it better to delete the relationship and then re-arrange everything?

Ok, I see what you mean once I tried to squat my character…the knees should have a little more looopcuts…which is the only thing I added so far, since I had too many questions to continue

#4

is it possible to use edit mode and rearrange the bones by rotation at all?

#5

Better delete all vertex groups and reparent with empty weights. Then, you can assign manually without having to deal with the garbage left by the auto-weighting.

Regarding bone rotation, Global+Z tends to be a good default. It’s possible you may have to manually adjust some bones, but most should be OK.

A bone’s Y axis always points in the direction of the bone. That leaves you to adjust the X or Z axis. Whichever you choose, it should make rotating in that local axis the natural rotation of that joint. Shoulders and hips can rotate in almost any direction, so the key here is consistency between that joint and the others in that limb.

Lastly, yes. If I understand you correctly, bone rotation (roll) cannot be edited outside Edit mode.

#6

Ok thanks, got it somewhat decent now :slight_smile: