Perhaps Bugs?

[ebenheizerm28787053]

I'm still kinda guessing about layer structures, orders, and the dependent/independent status.

In this example here, I already marked the Bottom parent layer (which inside is the pants and shoes) as independent, yet it moves when recording with face behavior. FYI, there are 2 face behaviors to this puppet: One is the default one, for the head. And an additional face behavior applied to the torso layer, which also tagged as head and NOT marked as independent (meaning it is part of the NJNS puppet).

Therefore, all things not marked independent, like the arm, should be part of the NJNS puppet, and thus moves together with the torso layer. Right? Makes sense. And vice versa, the layers marked as independent in a same level as the torso layer should not be affected by that face behavior applied to the torso layer. Right? Well, not so fast. In this puppet the bottom layer is moving with the torso EVEN THOUGH it is marked as independent.

Bottom (Pants and Shoes) is marked as independent in rig mode.However it still moves with other layers when I use face behavior

I tried another part to be independent and see if it will also move like the bottom layer does, in this case, the arms layers.

Arm Layers Rig (marked as independent)Record Mode (Arm Layers marked as independent)

And, yes, the arm layers do not move at all (as supposed). Maybe you can't really see it, but it's not moving. Take a ruler and see the hand is leveled evenly and not rotated like the body and bottom (in this case the bottom is NOT marked as independent).

I don't know what's wrong with this rig, but if you would like to explore more, I will send you the puppet privately.

One more thing. Take a look at the shirt line of the puppet:

Shirt line is off from where it is supposed to be.In the original AI file, the line is closing to the collar.

The shirt is off from where it is supposed to be like in the original AI file. I tried to make the AI file as a new puppet and added it to a new scene and the problem is fixed. But I really want to know what caused this so it won't be happening again in the future.

Thank you for reading this post. Any help will be very much appreciated.

[alank99101739]

There is a "Head Position Strength" setting which controls how far the head can move from the body. I often set it to zero. I was trying to see if that was the reason for the collar gap you pointed out. What can happen sometimes is inside CH you can drag a layer. Its usually a bad idea to do this, but you can do it. I am wondering if that is what happened. In which case you can either try to work out what moved and drag it back, or start a new puppet and be careful not to drag layers (but have to re-rig it all).

In terms of the legs, the legs are independent meaning warping the parent (the torso) will not warp the body. But you made the legs a child of the torso, so the legs will move around with the torso. You could try "free" instead of "weld" for the joint type... (never done that myself!), but I think what you are logically trying to do is to say the legs are the stable part of the body, the torso is attached to the legs, and then the head will attach to the torso. That means the legs will control the puppet position, the torso and head then move relative to the legs.

To do it that way, you will need to change the nesting a bit. The simples approach is to group everything except the legs in a new group, then make that new group independent and remove independence from the legs. The head would stay independent in the torso.

Why are the arms stuck? Hmm, hard to see without expanding the hierarchy. In the scene window, if you turn the yellow mesh of triangles on and move the puppet around, sometimes that makes it clear which part is not moving - e.g. there might be a handle or something in there causing problems because it has an unexpected tag on it. If a layer gets two things trying to control it, often one wins and one loses, which can make things "stick".

[ebenheizerm28787053]

Thank you very much for your answer. I do appreciate it, really.

It turned out it is just a bug I believe. Because I delete the old puppet, redrag it back to CH (and have to rerig everything from the beginning, just like you said), then, the shirt line returned to its correct position. I don't think it was dragged, because if it was dragged, then we would see the line crossing the pants (down). And also the independent remains as it supposed to be, which is not moving together with the torso.

Thank you again Alank!

Hey, have you checked my latest animation? I credited your name in the special thanks section:D