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neilw95078664
Participating Frequently
July 10, 2018
Answered

Puppet distorting on walk cycle

  • July 10, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 2379 views

Hi everyone, I am fairly new to Character Animator and have started building my first puppet with a walk cycle. The problems I'm getting is the arms legs and mid rift get stretched and warped oddly when walking/running and do not bend correctly.

here is a link to the PSD and puppet to see if anyone can help,

http://https://wetransfer.com/downloads/8dcfa0b90922b26c95c890b8d5be19cd20180710202745/2797cd28909b878fee45bfc09b34356b20180710202745/759c28

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer alank99101739

I don't understand why, but I got better behavior. Looking at the mesh etc, it seems the front near the belt around the waist seems to not move at the front with the rest of the body. That was strange. So I moved the "left profile" origin down towards the hips (away from the belt) and things started looking better. However, I made lots of other tweaks as well (moving handles and origins), so not sure which it is. But moving the origins away from the belt made things better for me.

3 replies

SharonfromMD
SharonfromMD
Inspiring
July 11, 2018

This is the post that alank is referring to.  The answer comes from Adobe.

So I had the exact same problem, although mine actually looked worse. ( I had 9 characters looking fine and the 10th not working)  I contacted my person at Adobe and he diagnosed it. It was one tiny little check. Ramon in this e-mail is the one with the issues. Tiffany doesn't have those issues. That completely changed everything.

"Oh, geez. It's even easier than I originally thought: the top level node where the Walk behavior is attached (called Poses for the Ramon puppets) is not warp independent, but Tiffany's top level group is warp independent. If you toggle the crown column on for Ramon's Poses group, the shrinking behavior stops.

The centering of the scaling is just due to Tiffany's top level origin handle being placed at her feet instead of its default (more centered) location. The fixed pins on the profile views don't matter for Walk, because it also pins the feet, but you might need them if you trigger the profile views for standing looking left or right.

Anyway, hopefully that helps!"

N
neilw95078664Author
Participating Frequently
July 12, 2018

Thank you for finding that Sharon,  I did come across this before posting and unfortunately this does not apply to my puppet as he does has the warp crown ticked.  Thank you both for your help though.

Currently my puppet has a little downwards stretch after all the tweaking so its not stopped entirely and the left arm still does not quite bend naturally on the run cycle.  If this is the best I can get it is not a problem as the style of cartoon looks fine with these qwerks.  It is more now just a case of wanted to know the cause exactly so as to avoid it on future puppets.

here is the latest puppet after tweaks:

WeTransfer

alank99101739
alank99101739
Legend
July 11, 2018

Can you export the puppet? Go to the File menu and pick “Export” / “Puppet”. Then make that *.puppet file available. It includes the artwork *and* the rigging, which is important. It is most likely the rigging that is the problem, so using the PSD file alone is hard to debug the problem. Thanks!

N
neilw95078664Author
Participating Frequently
July 11, 2018

I have been working on the ninja today and managed to improve some elements to it.  It still has warping of the arms, waist and legs pulling towards the floor. 

Here is the puppet link:   WeTransfer

thanks

alank99101739
alank99101739Correct answer
Legend
July 11, 2018

I don't understand why, but I got better behavior. Looking at the mesh etc, it seems the front near the belt around the waist seems to not move at the front with the rest of the body. That was strange. So I moved the "left profile" origin down towards the hips (away from the belt) and things started looking better. However, I made lots of other tweaks as well (moving handles and origins), so not sure which it is. But moving the origins away from the belt made things better for me.

    alank99101739
    alank99101739
    Legend
    July 11, 2018

    I don’t have a computer with me just now, but you can try turning on the “mesh” icon at the bottom of the scene and rig windows. If the yellow mesh of triangles does not follow the outline of the character, warping will be strange.

    Next I would check for independence. If you watch the walk with the mesh on, you may notice parts of the puppet that look “connected” in unexpected ways. That can help locate the source of problems.

    alank99101739
    alank99101739
    Legend
    July 11, 2018

    Hmm. There was a post in the last week or so talking about “why is my character looking squashed” with the walk behavior. That had some useful info on fixing the head moving lower than expected when walking. I don’t recall the details sorry, but that thread may also be worth reading.

    (Sorry, I am on my ipad, and it does not easily let me browse back further so I could not find the post - but it was in the last week.)

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