Alonzo von Threet
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ReadyRigs charts
 

Charts
Alonzo Von Threet (AVTPro) has put together some Ready Rigs Charts, each explaining different sections of his Ready Rigs program. Real nice and helpful quick reference cards for beginners and advanced people.

There are four charts available in pdf format for downloading here at Electro303. Be ware that some of these charts are over 2mb, but it is really downloading worth.

ReadyRig Instructions
A quick reference card explaining why all professional studios use icon controls on rigs. >>>Download (2,1 mb)

Selection Sets
A quick reference card telling why a layered interface will make your animation pleasant. >>> Download (0,9 mb)

Colorcodes
A quick reference card about colors which help to remember XYZ axes. >>> Download (2,1 mb)

Walkcycle
A quick reference card containing a diagram of pictures explaining how a walkcycle is working. >>> Download (3,7 mb)

Poser Booklet2
A short tale about ReadyRigs. "Rigs without riggers of rigging, fully rigged, corporate pose model." >>> Download (2,1 mb)

Fun Color Editor
It is about breaking down the curves themselves to make smooth motion and helps animations appear organic.
>>> Download (1.3 mb)


The Rigors od Rigging
by Alonzo Von Threet

Salesman rig is available

http://www.cafeshops.com/avtpro.11058647

Beyond all, learning EIU nuances and nuisances with bones, and constraints, though sometimes enigmatic and frustrating, is now very rewarding during my animation pursuits. Here is something extremely important to know about undertaking any rig set up in EI. Bones, in EI, no matter what, has a negative “Z” orientation. I should have a free subscription for Hair Club For Men after I finally figured this one out. You can’t control the constraints of bones until you fully understand this inherent behavior of bones. You will only be able to constrain bones to other bones instead of iconic objects or effectors for iconic rig controls. So this paper is to help you understand how to do it or what problems you will incur and insight how to resolve them.

When constraining a bone to a parked object or zeroed out effectors, the bone will always flip back to it’s own negative zero rotation. Look in the top window with the ruler visible to see the negative Z of EI space. It’s sometimes referred to as Left hand world axis. A bone’s Z direction is drawn from the top of the screen to the bottom with two clicks in the top view window. Regardless how your draw a bone or oriented a bone, it remembers this position from top to bottom. In other words, bone’s are oriented down a negative Z axis. Now draw a bone perpendicular to the grid (use the side view). The apex will be pointed up. Then constrain it’s rotation to a zeroed or parked object, the bone will snap back flat parallel rotation on the grid pointing toward you/camera or negative Z.

Here’s what happened. For the bone 0,0,0 rotation means something different than 0,0,0 of the object. Zero for the bone mean the Z down default when constrained. Sometimes you can turn your bone in the Link Window, but it’s difficult because the Link Window and the World Window axises don’t match either. It’s the difference between world and object space, but with no cues to how they are aligned because they are in two separate windows and coordinates spaces. Future EI upgrade may correspond the two windows or use an option to display the axis in the world view but for now, to use the Link Window you will have to try and err at the risk of large patches of hair clumps falling of your head. (Edit: Link Window widgets may be improved in 5.0).
Once you swept the clumps off the floor, try this.

Create a bone pointing up from the side view (perpendicular to the grid in the camera window). Create a cone with Northern Lights Standard Shape Plug-in. Click Z+ and the cone will lay parallel to the grid as in a ReadyRig@ control. Now when you constrain the bone it will adjust itself wherever it’s most comfortable…it’s own zero axis. It will orient wrong. It would be nicer if the bone remained in the position it was when it was constrained but it does not. The bone is picking up it’s own inherent rotation which is Z down or negative. Open the bones info window. The rotations are zero but you saw it move because this is what it knows as Zero. Open the bone in the Link Window. Go to the side view of the bone in the Link Window and turn it 90 or input 90 degrees in the X rotation. Now it’s stands in the correct relationship to be a controller (perpendicular) with zeroes remaining in it’s info box. Because it’s still think it’s zero, any bones constrained to it will not move again because bones understand bones. That’s why it’s easy to use bones are controllers, but not as visual. But can you see how understanding this will help you when you can’t use a bone or when you don’t want to?

Another or better solution is to turn your icon manually after the bone is constrained. In other words, reverse engineer the relationship of the control from the respective angle of the bone, then turn the rig to it’s proper position and lastly park the controls. It will be positioned correctly and have zero digits. So Here goes. Draw the bone from top to bottom in the top view, the way it likes to be, then make a cone with Y+. It’s apex is upward, perpendicular to the grid. Now when you constraint the bone it will remain in place because it’s think it’s turned 90 degrees or perpendicular. It is the cone that is actually turned incorrectly so rotate it one 90 degree in the right angle so the bone is perpendicular again as it would be in a rig. Now park the controller. Unfortunately, with this method, the Yaw, and Roll will no longer be consistent with the world. I know I sound like a whiner, but it would be nice if local rotation can be adjusted directly. You can try the link window but I just always use this one because it don’t hurt my animation process…much.

(Just a note, one turn of 90 degree can create gimbal lock or cause you to lose an axis of rotation but this turn is OK.)

Similarly, It would be the just as easy to draw the bone perpendicular then, create the cone Y+, then turn the cone 90 degrees and finally constrain and park the setup. That’s how I do it most of the time. The bone and controller need only be at a “L” formation to work properly in the rig. Again these are just nuances and good to know. There are lots of ways to rig but this of significant niceties when animating and I have found worth the initial setup consideration.

One last solution is to reverse engineer the angle or to pass on the angle from the icon object to the constrained bone when modeling it the icon. It sounds complex but it’s usually only one predictable angle for icons. The hard part is knowing what angle or axis your modeler will give your model when you import it. It depends on your modeler’s output, so I can’t help much. You have to “trial and err” by rotating your icon model in your modeler. Check the rotation and an re-import them. That would be important when an object needs specific pitch, yaw and roll on the controller. For instance, when you want the hand and the foot, to both pitch down. If you had to fly by flapping your hands and feet only on one angle it would be pitch, not yaw. It’s a nuance that is very help when animating a hand in the F-curve editor. Of course you can just use the controllers in this ReadyRig project which already have the correct rotations.

My point to this area of interest is this secret of bones orientations eludes users when trying to constrain bones to iconic representations. Because of this complexity some users just use bones as controllers, or never rotation constrain effectors which are also great visual aids (or more so than bones. With bones, there’s no translation of rotations needed but they are very straight forward to rig which is the upside. The trade off is less instinctively communiticative controls for other animators. Understanding constraints can make your rig more effective with rigging. When you link instead of constraint it some times pulls your geometry. I prefer controls that don’t distort geometry and I prefer icons while animating. If EIM was intergrated, icons would be even easier to create for rigs. Until then ReadyRigs® are reusable controls.

Effectors are a little more predictable than geometry because you can adjust the rotation in the EI interface. It only gets quirky when the null object needs to look more rectangular than square so it’s orientation is visible and distinct. So again, draw it so that it is aligned to the bone. When you constraint the bone will take it’s own zero postion. Don’t scale the effector if it has a rotation constraint assigned to it. The rotation will be off. The icon may have only be rotated 90 degrees and the bone will be some arbitrary angle when it should be 90 it may warp to111 degrees. Another technical note, positional constraining IK to effectors only locks to the center point of the effector, no matter where you put the centeriod of the effector in the link window. I’m mentioning these things because they are not corrected in Universe v.5 and they may not be if there’s a v.6 or if it should be changed. You will have to build place holder or use other effectors if you want a to change the position of the constrained IK.

Lastly, a problem with constraints that most have happened across in EIU concerning multiple constraints.
It’s prevalent in the spine tutorial and a lot of rigs that users have created. It’s a programming or more so a math problem, therefore not much can be don’t by the user to resolve it. The problem has to do with Euler and Quaterion equation that simply can’t resolve the angles and pop. Usually, the rig will naturally be created where the pop angle is not a pose that will likely be used. So if you get the pop you can’t fix it so don’t waste your time trying to completely take it out but you can adjust your animation or avoiding the angle. Just make your rig or animation where it’s not a problem. You can smooth it sometimes in the f-curve editor. Universe v.5 is noted to have better use of where the pop occurs so my suggestion is to upgrade if you do CA. I haven’t had a problem with it during an animation but it’s is annoying knowing it’s there.

After you learn to make these problems work for you, you can do the rig you want in EIU. The nuances and nuisances are what I call the rigors of rigging. It’s not totally an EIU problem, Bone orientation issues and Eulers also exist in Maya, though it is common knowledge how to fix it and it also not as severe. Hopefully, this essay will bring the problems and solutions to the foreground in Universe. So the body of EIU users will excel in character rigging and animation with ease and with all their hair.
I have duplicated this rig on several different characters now and can achieve almost any expressive pose. I would also like to publish a tutorial directly addressing how to resolve these issues when I have completed distributing this READY RIGS® project. Look for other material to come on the topics walk cycles and talking characters.

http://www.cafeshops.com/avtpro.11058647