Hi, I have some questions and problems rgding the title as stated. Quite new to IK and rigging…lol
I have a VRML 1.0 model exported from Solidworks. But it has a lot of probs esp. poly mesh issues, no prob with rendering. But,
Is it possible to rig/IK a VRML model in Blender? If so, how?
I’ve tried a few times, it seemed possible, e.g. adding armatures and parenting., but when i tried moving, the whole object seemed to deform, like a rubber band of some sort, the whole VRML model becomes messy as a result.
Tried using weight paint, but the same prob still occur.
Btw, the model is somewat similar to robotics and machinery, and I can’t afford to deform any joints or parts aft rigging…=(
A quick answer to that would be yes. If you can get the mesh into blender, it can be rigged in blender. Is the object one solid mesh? It won’t affect the outcome, but having all the moving parts as separate mesh objects would make things a bit easier.
There are 2 very important and often over looked steps to rigging that could be causing your problem. First, you need to clear the scale/loc/rot of the mesh. Select the mesh in object mode, open the Transform Properties window/panel and take a look, loc/rot should be 0 for xyz and scale should be 1. If those values are different than what I mentioned, clear them by selecting the mesh in object mode and use CTRL-A -> Apply Scale/Rot data. This kinda depends upon which version of blender you are using…it varies a bit from 2.49 to 2.5…
Second, if the mesh is one solid object, the origin point for the mesh and the armature must be the same. This isn’t as important if your mesh is several different objects, but since you mentioned weight painting, I assume the mesh is one object.
That’s all I can think of off the top of my head right now…
No, it’s (The scrnsht that i’ve attached) not weight-painted. But even so, the same prob occurs. =(
Sorry, the file size is quite big, so i uploaded via mediafire.
It’s a mechanical object - made out of rigid parts that move in relation to each other.
to rig this
separate the object into its moving parts: go into edit mode, select all of one moving part and press P to separate. You may be able to select all of one moving part by selecting a single vertex from it and pressing L (select linked vertices). After this each moving part will be a separate object.
Now make the rig or armature: Each bone should start at the point on which the moving part turns. In your diagram it doesn’t look like the bones followed the object.
And parent the objects to the bones: select each of the objects, select the appropriate bone, and press Ctrl-P to parent.
Wow, where to start. Yes, yogyog is right about parenting the objects to the bones. I see there is 3 different objects, plus there are a couple other objects in there - Cube, which I think is the default cube, and Mesh.001, which appears to be nothing at all - like it was a mesh that was deleted in edit mode. The IK constraints aren’t setup right, as is, you will get the same effect without them.
But yes, as yogyog said, parent the mesh to the bones, making sure the bones roots and tips are where you want things to rotate at. For an example, I have 2 different mechanical rigging tutorials that might help you out some -
Thanks, the tutorial was helpful in some areas that I needed. (Learning the pump jack rigging) =)
But the same prob still occured. (the previous mechanical rigging wasn’t VRML imported model, I just used cylinders and cube meshes and then rigged, there was no deformation or anything as such)
The updated file which I tried parenting again. (I think the IK constraint was wrong.)
If there’s any way that u can rig without affecting the polygon mesh as shown in the attachment, I’ll b tremendously grateful.
(This prob has been going on for a few days already…)
Link to updated file as stated:
Using the latest file you posted, I simple parented each mesh to the bone using the method I described in the video tutorials. Select the mesh in object mode, shift-select the armature, switch to pose mode, select the bone, ctrl-p and choose make parent to:bone. I then made bone.001 a child of bone, and bone.002 a child of bone.001. I grabbed the bones and rotated them in pose mode. See attached screenshot for results.
Randy
Aww…yes ^^! It’s working! Thank you so much Randy =D It worked out really well ^^
I think I missed out some steps in between (shift-select armature and switch to pose mode),
but anyway, thanks for your great help ^^ guess i really owe u one.
