as mentioned in the blender char animatimation limitations thread i came up with a rig as seen in XSI.
brief description
1 - armature:
armature is not laid out for a particular mesh but simply for testing the control rig. if you want, however, to use it to deform a mesh, you can use the armature on layer two as reference and build or adapt your own creatures. make sure you hit CTRL+AKEY before skinnig to prevent weird deformation problems
2 - control objects:
foot_L and foot_R (elongated rings) are the ik targets for - guess what - the left and right foot. at the same time they control rotation for the first foot bone
the cubes named knie_L knie_R are tracking targets for the upper leg bones and thus let you control the direction the knees point at.
the big ring called hips actually moves the whole armature and some more controllers parented to it. use it to rotate the whole body, but consider the effect is strongest for the upper body.
the second big ring called shoulders controls the rotation of the shoulders independently from the hips, thus enabling to “twist” the upper body. move it around and rotate it to see how it works.
the other two small elongated rings control hand position and hand rotation and work exactly the same way as foot_L&R.
the same applies to the last two cubes, elle_L&R, they work the same way as knieL&R and make the elbows point in the desired direction.
3 - known bugs and limitations:
try it and find out i didn’t have the time to test it and prove it’s functionality in a production environment, but it seems pretty handy for most animation tasks. the only major thing missing is a controller for the toe bones, but you should be able to integrate it quite easily - grab some empties and make them targets for “copy rotation” constraints.
4 - credits:
XSI’s ready-to-use rigs, which work pretty perfect and are outperformed only by kaydaras motionbuilder, made me think and try to rebuild them using blender. of course this here is not the same, uses different controlling mechanisms and different techniques, but the result is quite useful and feels pretty much the same.
if you have suggestions mail me or share them with the communitiy
That’s a pretty cool rig. My own has similar functionality, with the exception of rotating the hips as one and the shoulders as one. In fact, I’ve just cracked into my long-standing character rig and added those two functions. Thanks.
My only criticism is one of Blender philosophy. Although the visual feedback isn’t as nice, I’ve put my control points (Ik solvers, elbow/knee targets, etc.) within the rig, as bones. When you do it your way, you lose the ability to keyframe as actions, and to reuse those actions as NLA strips.
The only other thing I’d add, which my rig features, is an extra bone at the elbows and knees, as well as “scapula” bones. It helps with the mesh deformation of these joints.
Anyway, thanks for sharing. (If you’re interested, my updated rig can be found in this thread.)
what about the NLA editor for object animation? can’t prove it right now (mac os9 in office) but as far as i remember action editor is available for all objects since… 226 or something. i just like the visual representation of control objects other then bones and i don’t like switching to pose mode all the time. but this is a matter of taste of course.
you can swith any window to the NLA editor (back on my XP machine), enabling you to animate any object like an armature. the only thing that doesn’t work, i think, is making action strips. please correct me if i’m wrong.
You’re not wrong, and that is the power of the NLA system. It’s true that you can see any individual key set in NLA editor, but to really crank it up and utilize the built-in modularity, you need to put your character anims into Strips.
But you’re right, solmax - it’s a matter of style. If you don’t use the full functionality of NLA, then there’s no reason to constrain yourself to having your control objects be bones. Personally, I wish that you COULD make action strips for everything. Maybe in 2.3.3!
Little late but the [ctrl+a] combo doesn’t take prisonners http://www.zoo-logique.org/3D.Blender/animations/kompilend.avi
Here is an animation of some early tests done with your rig.
Works perfectly as you can see. It screams for a few more controls and a way to strengthen the spine.
You could add a control for the head and one in the middle of the spine to help bend more realistically the upper body.
I skinned the mesh the hard way by using the “closest bone” function and since I had built the model against the rig in neutral pose it went like a breeze.
I’m going to test now a complexe mesh with vertex groups and weighting and the rest.
rig doesn’t move!
i opened the styla rig in tuhopuu3 and blender 2.36 and when i select the hip ring the whole model moves! i try selecting the other constraints and they move and leave the rig/mesh behind. am i doing something wrong? do i need to select something or disable something before moving the controllers? i remember opening this a while ago and it moved fine but any time i open it now it won’t move. it’s the updated styla rig, by the way.
i didn’t have the time to test it and prove it’s functionality in a production environment, but it seems pretty handy for most animation tasks. the only major thing missing is a controller for the toe bones, but you should be able to integrate it quite easily - grab some empties and make them targets for “copy rotation” constraints.
i’ll post an update when i come up with a good solution.