http://download.blender.org/documentation/htmlI/ch16s09.html#section_rigging_hand
i was using this for rigging a hand, but ive run into a problem.
scroll down to image 16.36. You have to parent the fingers to the hand itslef, and after that, the null bones. But the null bones are already children of the bones of the finger. I hope you understand me. What exaclty do they want me to do with the nullbone? THanks in advance
Thanks for pointing out this tutorial ! I hadn’t seen it before now !
I don’t see that mentioned. I think you just assumed it?
Only the “root bones” of each finger “chain” are set to “child of” the hand.
The rest of the bones in each finger(including the "null bone) should automatically be children of the preceeding bone in each finger. And the IK bones for each finger are children of the hand bone.
A big time saver that I just now discovered in 2.41, while trying this tutorial is that when adding the IK contraints, RMB-select the IK solver bone, then SH-RMB select the “null” bone, press CTR-I and click/press enter to accept “To Active Bone”. The name of the armature and the IK-bone is then automatically filled in on the constraint panel for you !
You then want to RMB-select the “null” bone, and in the constraint panel change the ChainLen to 3, so that the IK only affects the 3 bones in the finger.
Mike
An even better improvement in 2.4+ is that you don’t even need null bones for IK solvers any more. Just use the last real bone (like the finger tip bone) and when you apply the IK constraint, select “Use Tip” from the options. This is all the null bones were for any way.
I haven’t looked at the tutorial but I assume it was the target bones that had to be parented, not the nulls, and even this can cause circular problems if you don’t properly set “Chainlen” on the finger IK solvers.
YOu have to parent the “Parent Bone” and the “IK solvers.”
IK Solver is not parented to anybone, at this point.
YOu are using an outdated tutorial…
Figure 16.39
thanks for the help. Now i can continue again. Does someone happen to know a new tutorial for rigging a hand/IK stuff??
Ive run into a new problem, i hope someone is willing to help me.
This is my current situation. I applied a IK solver constraint to ‘hand left’, and a line goes from that bone to the center of the armature. Then the turorial tells me to type Armature in Target, and then I have to type ‘IK arm left’ in the BO field. But then my arm goes all weird. What do i do now?
Set ChainLen to 3 so it only affects the hand and the two arm bones. “Chainlen=0” tells Blender to use every bone in the Parent chain as part of the IK.
You don’t have to type in any bone names when you add an IK solver !
I guess you either didn’t read my post, or possibly understand it, when I wrote :
“A big time saver that I just now discovered in 2.41, while trying this tutorial is that when adding the IK contraints, RMB-select the IK solver bone, then SH-RMB select the “null” bone, press CTR-I and click/press enter to accept “To Active Bone”. The name of the armature and the IK-bone is then automatically filled in on the constraint panel for you !”
Mike
the chainlen thing helped! thanks.
You don’t have to type in any bone names when you add an IK solver !
I guess you either didn’t read my post, or possibly understand it, when I wrote :
“A big time saver that I just now discovered in 2.41, while trying this tutorial is that when adding the IK contraints, RMB-select the IK solver bone, then SH-RMB select the “null” bone, press CTR-I and click/press enter to accept “To Active Bone”. The name of the armature and the IK-bone is then automatically filled in on the constraint panel for you !”
now, if its not too much trouble to tell, how can i limit the movement of the fingers? so that when i move it, it will only move like fingers are supposed to move.
EDIT:the tutorial states the following:
So let's do the skinning now. It's the part when you tell the mesh how to deform. You'll add vertex groups to the mesh. Each vertex group should be named after the bone that will deform it. If you don't assign vertex groups, the deformation process will need much more CPU power, the animation process will be dramatically slowed down and you'll get weird results. It's highly recommended (almost mandatory) that you use subdivision surfaces meshes for your characters with low vertex count. Otherwise if you use meshes with lots of vertices, the skinning will be much more difficult. Don't sacrifice detail, but model economically, use as few vertices as possible and always use SubSurf.
Parent the Mesh to the Armature, in the Pop-Up select Armature and in the following select Name Groups. Your Mesh will be enriched by empty Vertex Groups.
is this still the best way to do it, or has there been developed an easier way to do it?
Since your fingers are IK, you can either use the IK limiters (Limit X, Limit Y, etc) to give full limit control as to which direction they can rotate and also how far in that direction (degree) they can go.
With FK fingers you can select a bone then NKEY and in the Num Panel you can lock all the things you don’t want that bone to do. For most finger bones, you’ll just have one rotation channel unlocked. This controls the direction of rotation and makes animating much, much, much, much easier - but it does not limit the degree of rotation.
(BTW: The bit you quoted doesn’t appear to relate to limits at all, it’s about skinning - ie: attaching the mesh to the bones - which is a whole different story)