Head and body warping, dangle objects not moving, etc...

[Rayne Blanc]

I've spent all day working on this puppet and if I wasn't already bald I'd be ripping my hair out over the bizarre issues I've had throughout. It's my first time working with Character Animator, so I directly based my layer hierarchy and rigging on the stock puppet "Rin" initially, but found that my puppet did not behave the same way when rigged like Rin. After several tutorials and adjustments to both the PSD and the rig, I've managed to get the body to stay anchored to the bottom of the frame, and the facial features (including the tufts of hair up top I kinda improvised on) mostly move as desired, but the head itself moves way too far no matter what I do to the head position and tilt sensitivities, and if that layer is independent, it floats away and the body doesn't lean with it, but if it's dependent, it warps the top half of the head and pulls on a single point in the torso as well. On a less important note, but no less frustrating, I tried to give the hoodie drawstrings dangle physics, the same way I did the hair, but they remain glued to the body (and for some reason they get moved to the left a bit?)

I've attached a few screenshots -- the resting position looks perfect (aside from the drawstrings being off to the left), but head position and tilt cause ridiculous distortions. If anyone can make sense of what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it, I'd really appreciate it. I stream art commissions with a shuffling pile of GIFs of my avatar and I'm really itching to have a proper puppet instead.

Puppet file:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/608815790883602463/767597283159048212/Rayne.puppet

[alank99101739]

If the head is independent, then head movements will not affect the body (that is part of the purpose of "independence" - to stop one children from affecting their parent). So if you want the head to move the body, normally you would not put independence on the head.

With independence on, the head flying away from the body is normally because the default Head Position Strength of the Face behavior is 100% - which I have rarely found useful. I set it to 0% or 5%. It keeps the head closer to the body.

There is a trick you can do however. You can put a handle on the Body layer (e.g. mid chest), tag it as Head, then put a Face behavior on the Body layer with reduced strength. The idea is the Face behavior via the web cam moves both the head and the chest that way. Its a bit hacky, but it can work.

For your drawstrings, they were not independent (so will not move without the rest of he body). I made them indpendent. But they have a "2" next to them, indicating there are two handles on them. One would be the dangle, the second I don't think you want. So I deleted the handles at the top of the draw strings. Once I did that they started dangling properly (nice!).

Looking at you behaviours panel, you have a lot of behaviors!!! 

First, the puppet was too big for the scene, so in the Scene I clicked on the Puppet then changed the Transform behavior Scale setting smaller (38% on the screenshot).  But see at the top you have a Face and Eye Gaze behavior? Usually that is all you need. You have lots of extra ones added it appears. I am going to delete them all and see how it goes from there...  

(I am going to post now so this does not time out and lose what I typed so far.)

[alank99101739]

There are also Head handles added all over the place - I am removing them all. Only the Head layer should have them.

The two bangs somehow had "Attach To" set to Head". I changed this to "Auto", which is what I am more used to. 

Finally I changed the Physics "Gravity" from 10% to 2. This was to stop the bangs drooping down so much. You might need to fiddle some more.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yp5f0p_ouxoqOnj2_O865mjtdn2W2uB7/view?usp=sharing

(I love the ears being attached to eyebrows! Cute!)

[Rayne Blanc]

Thank you so much! Assigning nearly everything to be a "head" was one of the many wonky fixes offered in the various tutorials and other users' solutions I found trying to sort it out myself. This still looks a little off (the head is warping a little at the bottom and the hair flops way too far in either direction) but it's so much better than anything I managed. A little more tweaking and trial & error and I think it'll be ready to go! Thank you so much for your help! ❤️

[alank99101739]

One trick to reduce head warping (without going to independence) is to put sticks along the edge of the face (eg along jaw line). Don't put a stick down the middle of the neck then - you want the neck to flex rather than the head. But a horizontal stick across the shoulders maybe. It boils down to personal taste.

In the Physics behavior there are dangle settings like springiness in addition to gravity. It's just a matter of fiddling and trying until it works like you want.