#Bones Pro deform. prob.
11 messages in this thread
Hi, Mike. I attempted to use Bones Pro to animate a Humanoid (Tim Wilson's) a
couple of weeks ago, but after some effort, was forced to abandon it. My
process went something like this: 1. booleaned/Union used on model to reduce to
1 object. 2. Created "bones" in the front view (created 1, then copied for
others). 3. Went to other views and adjusted placement of bones. 4.
Modify/Object/Attributes and selected Bones as external process (after naming
all bones appropriately). 5. Went to KF and set links and pivot points. 6.
Went into IK and used Interactive to rotate Bones (after setting joint
parameters). 7. Went into Bones to preview. 8. Result: Massive unwanted
deformation of hands and feet, and unreal deformation of virtually all of the
remaining rotated body parts.
I don't think the problem had anything to do with the Humanoid model, since I
was able to link individual body parts with their respective bones, and they
animated properly. So, I was able to achieve good results (although, NOT
seamless) without using Bones Pro. I was very careful to place bones in
logical positions, and since the body parts did animate well without Bones Pro
use, I had to conclude that either Bones Pro could not handle such a complex
application, or that the bones were not placed properly in relation to their
respective body parts or each other. I would really appreciate it if you would
address these problems and clarify the use of Bones Pro in complex situations.
Regards, Connie
PS: I believe that I may have saved a Bones Pro distorted animation. If you
would like, I will zip it and upload to you.
Connie, you seemed to have skipped the step where you check each bone's
influence on the surrounding geometry and adjust it using a combination of the
size bone used for a particular part of the object, and the Zone % value of
each bone in the interface. It won't make much sense to try to animate a
complex object using Bones Pro until you are sure your bones are influencing
only the vertices you want them to.
Hope this helps,
-Alan
Thanks, Alan! I did actually check the influence at one point, but it didn't
occur to me that the default influence was as far reaching as it obviously was.
I will check it out. I'm not exactly sure about what you mean by "size"…do
you mean that each box representing a bone should vary in width, or just
length? I was under the impression that bones would only need to vary in
length…I don't think this was covered in the docs, but I will definitely go
back and check. I'll spend some more time. Thanks for your help!:)
Regards, Connie
Connie, I had exactly the same problems trying to animate a Viepoint elephant
with BP. I started like the docs said and booleaned everything together to get
one smooth object. After placing my bones and animating them I realized
something: Bones in the trunk were influencing vertexes in the body. Evern with
"Chest" bones placed to hold it back. I ended up starting over and using bones
on the individual objects. I got _much_ better results as I could turn up the
influence as much as I wanted and not suffer ill affects on the rest of the
mesh. I have also found out that using object attach works just fine (at least
for me) instead of boolean unions. I am working on a toothbrush right now that
has three objects _attached_ to the main mesh object and they all bend and
everything just fine together using BP. Well, hope things go better with
Humanoid.
DM
Thanks a lot for sharing your personal experience, David! I will use
Object/Attach as you suggested. As long as I can still smooth the joints, this
method may get me what I want without having to worry as much about unwanted
influence. It looks as though every single vertex in an object has at least
some influence albeit small, so the 1 object/boolean method will cause at least
some small problems in complex animations unless one has infinite patience and
time. Also, varying the size of each bone so as to better control the vertices
in the immediate area would help. Apparently, Bones Pro isn't as easy to use
as it first appears!
Regards, Connie
Constance,
While I have not worked with BP yet, perhaps this note will complement David
M.'s comments. Using Lightwaves Bone system is similar in some ways. It turns
out that usually MANY small bones works far better than a few LARGE ones.
Lowering the INFLUENCE and adding more bones works will in LW. Also, lots of
ANCHOR bones in places that may not be obvious seems to help. I'm not sure
about BP, but in LW you can place bones OUTSIDE the object to help anchor
things.
Hope this helps.
David.
-David Swoboda
Thanks for the advise, David. I will definitely test out your suggestions
along with Alan's and David M's.
Regards, Connie
The only problem with Attaching objects, David, is that you'll have a much
harder time getting smooth joints where the polygons intersect. It's fine for
parts of objects that are polygon-discrete, though.
-Alan
Have you been using bones pro much? I have been attempting to build a personal
methodology for bones placement, size, influence and zone %, but I am still
fuzzy on parts of it, and don't quite have it perfected yet. Any warnings or
suggestions on settings?
Tim, like many operations, the success of a "Bone" project can depend very much
on the preperation.
Often you'll need to "spread out" your mesh *before* assigning the bones to it,
and bring it together for it's "default state" in Frame 1 of your animation.
This minimizes unwanted bone influence. Also, assigning bones to a part of a
mesh can "lock out" influence from other bones, so keep that in mind, too.
Never animate Frame 0.
If a joint needs to bend alot, assiging bones to it when it's *half way*
between it's bending amount can reduce unwanted deformation (thanks to TimW for
this one). If a "limb" needs to curve and straighten out, it might be prudent
to assign the bones while it's in it's straightened state so you can come back
to it later without distortion.
Since the program is *designed* to distort and deform, you really have to learn
how to get the proper amount, without going too far. This takes practice.
Best of luck,
-Alan
Thanks for the info. I am going to add it to my stack. Overall, though, I have
been really pleased with Bones Pro. It is an excellent IPAS. That and LenZFX
have been keeping me entertained for days.