RE: DanPro- Blender Rigging Advanced Tentacle - Problem with FK/IK & mesh deform

Support Animation and Rigging
1

Hi Dan Pro,
this is the link to the file I am having trouble with:
http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=47112

After finishing your great tutorial. I duplicated the arm (carefully) 7 x.I made an 8 arm octopus, made sure all the correct bones are deform and all drivers are correct… I already had an eye rig and a bendy bones armature for the body. I cleared out the previous armature modifier, then I joined the armature of 8 arms to the body / eye rig I had already made. I also deleted all the previous Deformation vertex groupsThen I parented the REVISED armature to my mesh - the deform bones (work alone)The weight paint looks good for each deform bone - but the FK, IK, and tweak controls do not work at all - those controls will not move the mesh. It would be great if I could show you my file.will appreciate any help you can provide.

1st- I deleted all the drivers on the Body/eye rig (except head and tail - Stretch Too constraints) . Then I deleted all the modifiers from the octo Mesh and made sure all the old Deformation Bone vertex groups were deleted

2nd - I checked all drivers were correct on the New Arm Rig (as per your Tutorial), then I Parented the body/eye rig to the New Arm rig (from your tutorial),

3rd - I then parented the Mesh to rig with auto weights. The deform bones work alone but none of the FK / IK tweak controls work/don’t move the Mesh. The only other thing that works is my eye/body riga. I checked and All the arm drivers are still correct - they read the correct armature name and bone #s

4th
then I tried - parenting the New Arm rig to the 8 arm Octo Mesh . The Deformation bones work alone but FK/IK and Tweaks still do not move the mesh

I don’t know what to do ?

Appreciate all your help

Jean Roman

2

The DEF_ARM.XXX bones are all missing the Copy Transforms Constraints. That is why the def bones are not following the IK or FK chains. They should be copying the transforms of the intermediate bones. So the issue is in the rig before you have tried to combine them, not after.

You must have missed this step before duplicating the arms. (Part 3, first few minutes.)

Hopefully you have a backup file so you can revert back to redo that step.

Another thing I noticed is the legs are very straight and that will cause a bit of jumpiness when using the IK controls. It’s always best to have a slight bend on the mesh so the IK chains can have a slight bend in the direction they will most often bend. Perfectly straight bone chains can cause the IK solver to flip out if it cannot easily determine which way to bend the bone chain.

Once you get the deformation bones fixed, let me know if you have any additional issues.

Good luck!

3

thanks for looking at it. I will go back and redo part 3 and let you know how it goes

4

Dan,

Thanks again for your help - I don’t know how I overlooked that - but I did, felt like an idiot.

All fixed now and working GREAT
your rig is SUPER
xoxo