Membrane wing skin armature

[Zelfior]

Hello everyone,

i have been working on the modeling of a pteranodon as showed below, and i have two main question that i can’t solve myself:

The membrane of the wings is made of two different faces, and when i try to move the skin around, it happens that the lower layer goes above the other one. Is there any collision bocker?

My second question is about how to make a proper armature? so far i have done it that way, however, when i move the bones, i do not get the same results as if i move the mesh itself (which gives a quite satisfying result).
How would you do it yourself?

is there a way to force blender not to expand the wing skin while animating it?
Can we make the bones be symmetric?

If you have any suggestion of mesh modification to make it work, i am in!

it makes more than two questions in the end,
Thank you in advance!

[jerzygorskiart (Jerzy Górski)]

@Zelfior

The membrane of the wings is made of two different faces, and when i try to move the skin around, it happens that the lower layer goes above the other one. Is there any collision bocker?

If you are not using cloth simulation then the only thing you can do is to make sure weight is exaclty the same for the upper part and the lower one
but if I were you i’d seperate the membrane from the body, make it flat and add solidify modifier after the armature.

@Zelfior

My second question is about how to make a proper armature? so far i have done it that way, however, when i move the bones, i do not get the same results as if i move the mesh itself (which gives a quite satisfying result).
How would you do it yourself?

there is no easy answer to this. You have to do the proper rig. Explaining it here would like explaining how to model a realistic head. If you can’t do it i recomend watching some rigging tutorials.

@Zelfior

is there a way to force blender not to expand the wing skin while animating it?

yes, however its complicated. same as question above.

@Zelfior

Can we make the bones be symmetric?

yes, you have to have same names for symetrical bones with “.L” or “.R” at the end. For example: “upperleg.R” and “upperleg.L” and then you just have to enable symetry edit in the properties.

[jerzygorskiart (Jerzy Górski)]

also by looking at your screens I noticed that your model is facing the X axis. It may cause you problems with the armature symmetry. You have to rotate everything by 90 degress so he is facing the front. press “1” on your numpad keyboard to see which direction is front.

[Zelfior]

@jerzygorskiart

If you are not using cloth simulation then the only thing you can do is to make sure weight is exaclty the same for the upper part and the lower one
but if I were you i’d seperate the membrane from the body, make it flat and add solidify modifier after the armature.

Thank you for your answer. Using a solidify modifier allows me to have a non uniform thickness? to make it go from something to zero at the end, and not linearly?

@jerzygorskiart

there is no easy answer to this. You have to do the proper rig. Explaining it here would like explaining how to model a realistic head. If you can’t do it i recomend watching some rigging tutorials.

yes, however its complicated. same as question above.

ok thank you, i will have a look then

@jerzygorskiart

yes, you have to have same names for symetrical bones with “.L” or “.R” at the end. For example: “upperleg.R” and “upperleg.L” and then you just have to enable symetry edit in the properties.

You do this from half of the 3D only? And the symetry applied on the mesh does the job? if i apply the mesh afterward, does it double the armature too? Can we choose whether the animation is symetric afterward?

Thank you!