I am trying to set up simple posing with the default cube and one bone.
I can not get anyting to work.
Does anyone have a very simple posing tutorial that may help?
AIM
Not a good setup for a first try. A better test would be 3 bones inside an extruded cube or cylinder with lots of subdivisions.
Anyhow, for your 1 cube/1 bone setup select the cube in Object mode and add an Armature Modifier. In the Modifier tab unclick VertGroups and leave Envelopes on.
Select the Armature and Ctrl-Tab into Pose mode. Change the Bone Type to Envelopes. Select the Bone and Alt-S to scale the white Area of Influence so it covers all verts and then some. Press G or R and your cube should rotate when you move your mouse, but that’s all you will be able to do hence my first comment.
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O.K.
Thanks for the advice.
AIM
Below is a solution that works.
I used your words in regular case. I added my words in upper case.
Not a good setup for a first try. A better test would be 3 bones inside an extruded cube or cylinder with lots of subdivisions.
Anyhow, for your 1 cube/1 bone [CHOOSE FILE->NEW->ERASE ALL. PRESS RETURN][GET TO WIREFRAME. PRESS Z.][FROM OBJECT MODE, PRESS SPACEBAR->ADD->ARMATURE…->PUTS ME INTO EDIT MODE. TAB TO OBJECT MODE. PRESS A. PRESS AGAIN A. RMB TO SELECT THE CHILD MESH USE RMB] setup select the cube in Object mode and add an Armature Modifier.[THIS MEANS THAT IN THE MODIFIERS PANEL, CHOOSE MODIFIERS, ADD ARMATURE] In the Modifier tab unclick VertGroups and leave Envelopes on.
Select the Armature and Ctrl-Tab into Pose mode. Change the Bone Type to Envelopes. [THIS MEANS IN THE ARMATURE PANEL UNCLICK VERTEX GROUPS] [CLICK DOWN DISPLAY OPTIONS: ENVELOP]Select the Bone[RMB] and Alt-S to scale the white Area of Influence so it covers all verts and then some. [LMB TO FINALIZE THE AREA OF INFLUENCE]
[GO BACK TO OBJECT MODE BY DOING CTRL+TAB. PRESS A, A TO DESELECT EVERYTHING. NOW SELECT THE ‘TO BE’ CHILD MESH (THE CUBE) BY USING THE RMB. ALSO, SELECT THE ‘TO BE’ PARENT BONE BY USING SHIFT+RMB. TO ACTUALLY MAKE THE CHILD-PARENT RELATIONSHIP PRESS CTRL+P. CHOOSE ARMATURE. CHOOSE ARMATURE (PRESS ENTER). CHOOSE DON’T CREATE VERTEX GROUPS. PRESS ENTER. NOW, SELECT ONLY THE BONE BY PRESSING A TO DESELECT EVERYTHING. SELECT THE BONE USING THE RMB.]
Press G or R and your cube should rotate when you move your mouse, but that’s all you will be able to do hence my first comment.
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Note: I am trying to do a simple cube extrusion. That is not working at all.
Ended up getting something to work with three distinct cubes and an armature of a high arm and a low arm.
I used envelopes. The final result is weird. But it does work.
Thanks!
AIM
[GO BACK TO OBJECT MODE BY DOING CTRL+TAB. PRESS A, A TO DESELECT EVERYTHING. NOW SELECT THE ‘TO BE’ CHILD MESH (THE CUBE) BY USING THE RMB. ALSO, SELECT THE ‘TO BE’ PARENT BONE BY USING SHIFT+RMB. TO ACTUALLY MAKE THE CHILD-PARENT RELATIONSHIP PRESS CTRL+P. CHOOSE ARMATURE. CHOOSE ARMATURE (PRESS ENTER). CHOOSE DON’T CREATE VERTEX GROUPS. PRESS ENTER. NOW, SELECT ONLY THE BONE BY PRESSING A TO DESELECT EVERYTHING. SELECT THE BONE USING THE RMB.]
That’s the old way of doing things. With the new way you add an Armature Modifier to the cube.
Anyhow, I didn’t realize that you wanted extrusion. This is rather difficult with Armatures as when you Stretch or Scale a bone the whole vertex group stretches in all three directions. A much better option is to use a Curve Modifier or a Lattice Modifier to stretch a single (6 sided) cube to 3 times it’s size in one direction.
If you want to show the extrusion of one cube that’s been extruder twice (14 sides or 14 faces) then it’s easier to do the extrusion and collapse the two extruded sections back to the cube shape. Add a Shape Key (basis), pull both extrusions out one unit (so you have cube + 1 extrusion), add a second Shape Key, pull the second extrusion out (cube + 2 extrusions) and add the third Shape key.
You can do the same thing with Curve Modifier and Hooks using RVK’s if you make the verts of each new extrusion a seperate Vertex Group and attatch a hook to each, then animate the curve. Doing it this way you can animate the extrusion and then still use the curve to flex the final shape like a tail.
The thing about extrusions is that none of the Modifiers will allow you to actually extrude during the anim. You have to have created all the extrusions first and then animate what happened in the modeling stage.
To see how the new Armature Modifier works and some of the other things I mentioned look here:
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Manual
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Actually,
I was looking to do the simplest way possible just to make it through the tutorial. Thanks for the advice. I will read it carefully. I am always look ing for neat ways to do things.
Actually, I am more interested in just traditional vertex groups and static meshes. The works better for exporting to a format that is importable and usable by a game engine.
I ended up finishing the tutorial with the respower.com tutorial. This was a simple fat man. I just added matched the vertex groups to the bone names. E.g. R.arm with R.arm. Everything seems to work good enough. The rest of the tutorial worked ‘good enough.’
Thanks always.
Your effort is appreciated.