About pinning feet on the floor- This subject again... Sorry.

[JohannaAAA]

Hello there,

I am really sorry to bring this same thing up again, but I just cannot figure out how to make this thing work. I have been trying to pin this character's feet on the ground but I just cannot do it. First of all, when I choose a layer I get a yellow line around the character instead of only that blue frame I see in tutorials. I don't know why this happens? I wonder if this is related to the problem? So how to choose the "body" without the yellow line appearing?

I've also been reading tutorials and watching tutorials, but I am not sure what they mean or if I am missing something. I found this answer from the forum:

"Pinning (i.e. Fixed handles) pins the handle relative to the origin handle of its group (the one with the dashed circle around it). If that origin handle itself is being moved (e.g. with a Draggable or Head handle, or a containing group's origin), it will bring the Fixed handles along with it. The fix is usually to untag the origin, and instead tag a regular handle. Or, place the fixed handles in a parent group instead (but still on the same mesh)." 

... but unfortunately I am too newbie with this kind of a thing to understand the answer well enough to actually DO anything. I also found talk about the " handle fixer " but I didn't find anything else but options to "remove, rename and hide " there. So this option that was mentioned somewhere didn't help either. Unless I missed something?

This puppet is indeed made from the beginning by myself so according to a reply I found I should have to " re-apply it to the root of your puppet if you have any Fixed handles" which is something I don't understand either..

So basically... could somebody please be so kind and patient and walk me through this pinning problem with some incredibly clear way?

I have also another problem with the character's eyes. They seem " soft " but I would like them to be more solid instead.  How could I control the "hardness" of the eyes?

Thank you SO much for your time!

Johanna

[alank99101739]

First thing to try - click the refresh button on the scene (there two arrorws in a circle in bottom left corner). That flushes some caches. It has solved a few wacky problems.

I think you need to click on the root object in the independence group. That is, in your case, don’t put the pins on “body” (it is not independent - the crown is not clicked). Select the “Character” layer at the root and put the pins there. I think that will fix it. That pins it to the root (the scene) rather than the parent layer of Body (which is Character).

I would suggest putting all the facial stuff under a “Head” layer (sibling of “Body”). Do you want the head to move Independent to body? It is fine to NOT turn on the crown for the Head layer, but all the eyes etc can then attach themselves to the head properly.

In newer versions of CH there are now two buttons in puppet view - one shows the mesh (lots of yellow triangles), the other shows the outline only (yellow outline) but you always now get the blue “bounding box” - a rectangle around everything in the layer.

[JohannaAAA]

Hello there!

You are very kind to help me! Unfortunately I had not success pinning the feet on the floor this way either.  I tried to make those changes..  The refresh-button didn't do anything either.

Could you see if there is still something wrong here?

Thank you SO much!

Johanna

[alank99101739]

If you like, you can do an “export puppet” (from file menu) and upload to google drive etc. I don’t mind fiddling to see if something easy.

[JohannaAAA]

You are SO kind! Thank you. I exported, so I should just send this file in the middle to you? Do you have an emailing address I could use for sending it? And thank you SO much.

Johanna

[alank99101739 · Accepted solution]

Hi. This is what I did to your puppet:

• I clicked on the root "Character" layer and added "Fixed" pins to the feet. It still moved around a lot.
• I removed the "Right Eyebrow" tag from the root character origin. I think that was causing problems. Eye movements would move the body causing issues. (Use the "Tags" panel to remove it. I like clicking on the "A" button (top right) to show text names for tags - makes them easier to click for me).

• I then removed the independence crown from "Face background". The helped join the head to the body.
• In the "Face" behavior section on the side, I changed the puppet's "Head Position Strength" from 100% to 400% - the head is so small compared to the body it would not move much

Things started working a lot better then. I think it was the stray "Right Eyebrow" on the character origin causing you most of the problem.

[JohannaAAA]

Thank you SO much! This was very helpful and now this pigeon is much better! 🙂 Thank you for saving me and teaching me a couple of very important points. Have a great weekend!

Johanna

[alank99101739]

One thing you might like to experiment with is changing the wings to be independent. If you do so, you can attach the arms to the parent body layer by dragging the origin point of the wing so it overlaps the body and the wing. The wing will then pivot at that point. Sometimes independence is the right thing, other times not. E.g. if the head is independent to the body, I think the webcam movements will stop moving the body - the indpendence setting stops the movements propergaging up to the parent (which includes the body).

I like to think of it as layering multiple pieces of cutout paper. Each layer in the hierarchy is a new cutout bit of paper. If the independence crown is not selected, then its like you glue the new layer to the previous layer. They are attached much more solidly. If you click the crown, then its like the bits of paper are just one on top of the other and can move separately. When you attach a child independence layer to a parent (by dragging the origin marker over), its like putting a pin or a staple to join the bits of paper at that point. If they don’t overlap, then there is no where to connect them.

For your wings, it will behave differently if the wings are independent. They wings will flap without distorting the body as much. When they are glued together, the “paper” is more like rubber - it will stretch, but it distorts everything it is glued to as well. Making the wings independent woudl result in them moving not distorting the body shape.

There is no right and wrong here - both are fine. Just if you are learning its good to play with the individual features to learn how they work. Independence is a key concept, and the wings looked like a great chance to experiment.

[marym388]

Hi Lengend! I can't get the feet to pin either, and can't get my "neutral" mouth to show after changing it in PhotoShop. Could I send the file and see if you can figure out what is the conflict? This is my first character, so I'm a newbie. Thanks!

[TheOriginalGC]

Alan doesn't check in that often any more. Perhaps the rest of us can be of assistance?

[marym388]

Thanks Alan for responding.  I managed to figure it out afterall and fixed another problem as well. My character is now working great with the help of some YouTube videos. I would love to find a rigging expert to work with as I have a tone of characters to do. Do you, by chance, know someone good for hire? I'm an artist / script writer / vocalist that gets bogged down with the animation mechanics. Thanks again. Yours, Mary