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Aaron Sugar
Aaron Sugar
Inspiring
May 24, 2017
Question

Six Arms, Four Eyes, and a Bunch of Questions

  • May 24, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 3854 views

Relative noob here...

I've been working my way through the tutorials and tips and tricks.  I have created a fairly basic alien bug looking puppet with six arms, two eyes, and a nutcracker jaw.  I have keyboard triggers to make the claws pinch, make the hair go from solid to an animated psychedelic looking gradient, and change the eyebrows.  I've rigged the puppet to walk and that seems to work quite well.  I'm almost ready to have it do a scene.  I do however have a few questions.

- I tried adding profile shots for the head (created them as additional groups within the head group).  However, if those layers are present in the puppet, the walk feature will not work (even if I deactivate the layers and the head turner behavior).  Is there a step I missed?

- With the six arms, I can only rig one of the left and one of the right arms to animate during the walk behavior.  Is there a way to rig the other arms to move during walk as well, or will I need to animate them individually?

- Similarly with the second set of eyes (on the antennae stalks).  Is there a way to rig them to be controlled as a second pair of eyes, or should I just group them together and drag them around.

- Finally, is there an index to the subjects covered on the various tips and tricks videos.  While I watch them in my spare time to gain knowledge, when I'm down the rabbit hole rigging a puppet to do something, I tend to find myself wasting time searching through the videos to find the one that talked about what I need?  .

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    1 reply

    oksamurai
    oksamurai
    Legend
    May 25, 2017

    1. The most likely issue is that head turn and walk are both looking for the "left profile" and "right profile" tags, and where you add those tags can create issues. See the Maddie puppet at Character Animator Examples  - she successfully does walk and head turn. Check against that and see where she added her Walk and Headturner tags and behaviors and if they're in the same place as you.

    2. Yes, I'll show this in the next tips video, but check out Aquavella here: http://okaysamurai.com/puppets/ - basically walk is only looking for the first instance of a tag it sees, so if you have 6 right elbows it only cares about the first one. The way around this is to add extra walk behaviors for extra limbs. Note how Aquavella has extra walk behaviors added to his second right and left tentacles - this is for the legs but the same idea applies to the arms.

    3. For multiple eyes to work the best thing to do is add an extra views. Again, like the walk behavior, face is only looking for the first instance of a tag - so you have to trick it into thinking those eyes are in a different view. At the same link as Aquavella check out Shmarlop for an example of how to do three eyes.

    4. There isn't a full index - great idea - but this is a list I've made that I often copy and paste from when helping people out: FAQ: What are some video examples of common issues?

    jonnymackjackson
    jonnymackjackson
    Known Participant
    December 15, 2017

    Trying out the walk-cycle with a zebra (four legs: three walk cycles). I followed the instructions for Mr Blue and Aquavella from June 2017 Tips and Tricks (several times) and still have a few problems. It's probably all something simple, but I've exhausted all the possibilities I could find.

    1. Unless I disable the right and left profile view in Rigging mode, I see all three profiles in Record mode. And if I disable them, the walk cycle doesn't work at all. Tried adding a walk cycle to the Default view (which I want to be stationary), but that just makes the default zebra walk forwards and backwards.

    2. The front legs, for which I created separate walk cycles, are running away from the rest of the body (when all views are enabled in Rigging). The settings for each walk cycle are identical.

    3. The head doesn't bob at all

    How soon until an update so 4+ legged creatures can use walk cycle?

    jonnymackjackson
    jonnymackjackson
    Known Participant
    December 19, 2017

    I attached screenshots of where those buttons are.

    You're welcome to send me a direct message too, but I don't know where the attachment options would be there.

    Dan R.


    Maybe this will work.

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