Well speaking from experience at getting a feature even over Tons head. He likes to see productive cleanly written proposal documents or web sites. Very detailed and to the point. Other wise he just avoids it like the plague. I guess that it is the control Manager still in him.
Well then my proposal here is to gather the community together to help cooperatively build a well written document of features and benefits to better the blender IK Armature issue features.
A known problem that has gone on is the speed of just one single rig that will bring the zippy Blender to a sluggish halt . The next is simple. It takes to long to set up. And does not work as expected. Plus there is no axis twist rotate !
So what I ask for here is everybody to post links to your favorite dream rig software that has been built or has not been built yet.
Mock-ups
Animations
And work flow
Then somebody (or me) can mash it all into a nice final but always changing document.
I will do the same in the coming week. But I can not influence Ton and other coders alone. I need your help.
Augggggggggg !
Deny the idea if you want to Theeth. But Blender needs something more. I have dealt with the chains of armatures FAR to many times. You know that I am not full of chit . I read . And what I read is that there is a problem with them . While you can make a bunch of complicated chains to make it work nicely. It still just does’t do justice.
And the speed issue is real. It has been posted several times before from others. Not just me. And even Ton has commented on it.
The twist thing. What I mean by that is say you have an empty as the Ik solver . It will do nothing when rotated or sized. Only located-moved-translated-grabed.
And when you have a chain the parnet bones will not twist correctly anymore when rotated. I am sure there is a work around for that . But it seams blender is full of “work-arounds” And not enough concrete features for the armatures.
Remember IKa . HA HA HA HA AHA HA AH HA That was a major mess of “work around” chains.
I never denied that there was a speed problem.
My points are:
1- You overreact when saying that armature in their current state are unusable
2- Point 1 highlights the hypothesis that either you never worked with armature, or you don’t know how to work with them.
I have dealt with the chains of armatures FAR to many times.
not nearly enough times if you want my opinion…
The twist thing. What I mean by that is say you have an empty as the Ik solver . It will do nothing when rotated or sized. Only located-moved-translated-grabed.
This highlights exactly what I said earlier. If you’re still using empties as IK Solver, than you REALLY never worked correctly with armatures.
Another thing: Do you know what IK stands for? How it works?
And when you have a chain the parnet bones will not twist correctly anymore when rotated.
Like I said in my first reply, the armature system is VERY predictable when you know what it’s suppose to do and how it works. Saying that it doesn’t twist correctly is BS. What is correctly? How you think it should work?!
not enough concrete features for the armatures.
as in?
you always leave shady points like this without precising them.
Armatures are useful. Untill I greate a rig annd parent it to a mesh. After that it slows down into a slug.
I use to animate it without emptys to save time and more lines of mess. But I had to keep editing tings and selected things. The colors are afuly hard to tell the difference. And the Emptys are faster to work with.
But even still it slows down into a mess.
the lines get me soooo confused all of the parnet conecting lines. The armature lines the mesh lines the grid awwwwwwww To much !
I just wanted to get everyone to help make a proposal to think of the perfect system for blender. And not to copy from just one program.
This is EXACTLY what I’m talking about. It does NOT slow down to a slug, unless you have a very crappy computer or you mesh has a lot of details for nothing or you didn’t create any vertex group like you should have.
I use to animate it without emptys to save time and more lines of mess. But I had to keep editing tings and selected things.
Is english your primary language? If it isn’t, then it’s understandable, but if it is, then I must say you really need to widen your vocabulary and start using appropriate words and wordings.
And the Emptys are faster to work with.
How?
You still have to select them and move them, just like you would do for a bone as IK solver.
And moreover, when using bones as IK solver: You have all the IPOs controlable in an Action block and you can use the NLA.
But even still it slows down into a mess.
Ok, lets try something. Create a rig that slows your computer “down to a mess”, upload it online somewhere and send me the URL. Unless your rig is overly complicated, it shouldn’t slow down too much (it doesn’t here, why should it elsewhere).
the lines get me soooo confused all of the parent conecting lines. The armature lines the mesh lines the grid awwwwwwww To much !
Ever heard of layers?
Don’t get me wrong, I want the armature system to get better (heck, what do you think I’m working on constraints for?).
simple rig. http://www.aprilcolo.com/oh/appd.zip
If you remove the finger bones it still does the same speed. Then duplicate the whole thing and wala ! No blender . Instant slug.
No problem AT ALL here.
I copied it 4 times, then the slow down started to bother a bit.
Then again, that’s with the 4 rigs on screen at once, something you will rarely do unless the 4 rigs need to interact very closely together.
Hmm… It sure kills my Blender, every version. I guess it is an OSX thing. As I have tested it on high class machines, but other users of different systems have also reported it. Just go look at Blender.org There are messages everywhere about it .
Capish… Means that’s it you understand because I will not say it again. It is just old Newyork slag from old movies.
I already said that we are well aware of the speed issue. The part responsible of the slowdown has even been pinpointed. So, other than repeating this, is there any new point you want to talk about? Maybe you can go back through your other posts and look at all the points I asked you to precise…
Unless you bring fresh info to the discussion, I don’t think this is going anywhere useful.
Martin
PS: I am fully aware of what “capish” means, in all it’s mispelled italian glory.
Oops … I did search google for the spelling, but it brought up plenty of “capish” results. So I just went with it.
Ok lets just let my message stand at this.
Lets all make a new proposal about new features. And a new system. That is all. As there will be a day that it i is needed and an upgrade will be seen. So this time lets all hope that things are created right, and clean. With plenty of comments inside of the code that makes haeds and tails of what every single bit does. Instead of hacking it .
I read the message boards and mailing lists. I know what is going on. I just had not seen much if any bits about the armatures. Only that for a bit Green or Hos was working on Auto IK , but it has yet to be finished or even the first part to be droped into BF.
I have no problem with the rig here, either. I even tried it on my G4. No problem. I really think there is just something cluttering your memory bandwidth. Do you frequently experience the same problem when browsing the internet? Really, I think that armatures are a fine solution for what Blender is capable of right now. If you want something more complex (I think you want more complex, not simpler, because what you have said does not lead to a very simple kinematics system) shell out the money for a profesional program. If not, don’t complain. Blender has taken huge steps in the past year. I’m sure if you give it time the weaker points will be smoothed out. If not, learn C++ and code it yourself. Mkayy?
Huh … Well huh… I am on the G4 now and it is faster. But ! it is still a slow file. Even MaYa Is faster. But when you delete the rig it becomes zippy quick again.
Money_yay/. Sure ! I would like some Money_YaY! ^v^
When this question came up last year, armatures slowing down blender, it was found that if you had any veritices unassigned to a bone, then the system slows down. I found that if I corrected this fault my system regained speed and stopped crashing as well.
Haven’t downloaded your files to see if this is part of your problem, but it couldn’t hurt to check. This small fact saved a $600 animation job that I was working on at the time.
I downloaded your file and it is indeed slow. I made sure that your verts are all in groups and it was still slow. I then deleted all of your empties and added ik using bones and the whole thing was fast. There might be some kind of problem linking outside of the armature. You’ll have good results if you just use bones. To make things easier to see just hide the bones you don’t animate (which should be a lot if your rig is setup right). Hope this helps.
Eh. I like Emptys. They are cleaner. And faster to set up. And eaiser to see. As the color between selected and unselected is far to unclear for the armatures. No biggies.
But thankyou for trying.
Just curious- did any of you ever seen any good and REALISTIC character animation done with Blender armatures? Me not. There are good rigs of Hos, but they are cartoonish, not realistic.
I am being develop Ron Loo game in Blender, which is sprite based and really would like to animate characters directly in Blender but after several weeks of trying to rig them and animate well, I decided not to waste time anymore and switched to Poser, which is low-priced and more efficient when it comes to animate character. So now I modell character´s clothes in Blender, then export it and rig and animate in Poser. I is quick, but have many disadvantages too
So I would like to see some really good and realistic character animation (full body) done in Blender, if there is one, just to know that it is even possible. If you know any, please let me know
:-? 
