When the puppet walks the legs are detached. Help please!

[Ebenheizer5E08]

I have no clue. Here's how the rig looks:

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

Ebenheizer

[alank99101739]

I think the Left Hip should be a handle on the body, not on the independent leg layer origin.

Also, is the leg attached to the body artwork? The origin looks green so it might be, but its the other thing I would check.

[Ebenheizer5E08]

Hi Alank! Thank you for replying

This is what happens when I move the point to the body:

 

And yes the legs are attached to the body

[alank99101739]

Oops! Sorry, missed this one. Hmmm. This one is a bit tricky. The problem is because it is a photo, you want to to smoothly flow between the body and legs (you can get away with more with cartoon characters). But for the two legs to move independently, you need them "independent". So you never want a gap, but you want it independent....

First, you may need to change the artwork a bit - not sure. In particular, copy the hip area of the legs and include it in the body layer, so body includes the hip bone. Then keep *some* of the hip area at the top of the two legs, so there is a generous overlap - same artwork in both. Then make the legs independent (as they are), attach using "Weld", but then put extra pins on the independent leg along the top of the leg where it overlaps the hips. The idea is the pins on the independent layer *should* attach it to the body layer to stop the white gap appearing. I would also put a horizontal stick across the pins (again on the leg layer) to stop stretching/distortion. 

I tend to think of it like sheets of thin rubber. When you pull the legs around (to walk) you may see distortion if you stick a single pin through here and there. The stick is like a match stick - it stops the rubber bending there (but does not attach to the parent). The pins attach to the parent. If you only join using the origin, its like a dab of glue on that one spot. To really stop the top of the legs warping you want a pin on both sides of the leg (left and right) with the origin in the middle, then a horizontal stick across to stop flexing. I am hoping the combination keeps the artwork at the top of the legs attached to the artwork of the hips.

I hope that makes sense!

[Ebenheizer5E08]

Thanks for your kind reply!

Would you like me to send the puppet for you to investigate privately?

[Ebenheizer5E08]

Any clue Alank?:(