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Welcome back to the advanced mega rig tutorial in the leg's phase.
In this addendum tutorial I show you 2 other ways to controll the stretching bones shinStr and thighStr through constraints.
The 1st one trough the Transforms Constraint and the 2nd one using the Action Constraint.
In difference to the drivers method, in this case the bones keep their freedom to be manipulated independently...
... and add-up that modification to the one the controller has given to it.
The first thing I do is select the thighstr, to delete the driver in the Y Location.
For that I click the right-mouse button over the Y Location slider, to make appear a floating menu,...
... in which I select delete drivers.
I select kneeStr and shift + select thighStr. I add a Transform Constraint.
With Source in Scale, Y's minimum in 1.000 and maximum in 2.000. And Destination's Y in 0.000 and -1.000.
Both spaces in local space.
Again select kneeStr and attach thighStr to add another Transforms Constraint.
To the 1st one I add the suffix -FR; and to the 2nd one -BK.
For this 2nd we set the source, in Scale, the Y's min is left at 0.0 and the max at 1.0. For the Destination, Y is set in the min to 1.0 and the max in 0.0.
The spaces are changed to local also.
Now I'm set off to add them to shinStr. But it's not necessary to repeat what we have already done. We can copy it.
I select first shinStr and later shift + select thighStr. I go to the Pose menu, which only appears in the Pose mode,...
... and there I look for the Constraints section.
From there I select Copy Constraints to Selected Bones. And that's it! All the constraints are copied now.
I split the window to turn it into a Dopesheet. Change it to Action Editor. And create a new action which I have named Ac_legStr.
I turn on auto-keyframe and also the automatic keying set.
In the menu at the right of these buttons set Location, so it only records the location.
With shift + up arrow go to the frame 11.
With the bones selected, I push i to insert keyframes for location in 0.0.
After with shift + down arrow, I go to the 1st frame in the timeline. Change the pivot to Individual origins.
I move both bones in the Y axis around 4.5 units. Because there is a keyframe already in the action,...
... now the auto-keyframe will record every change made in location.
Now in the 21th frame, I displace the bones around 4.0 units.
To the action activate the F button and get rid of the link to the bone by pressing the X button.
This way with F active it's kept in the file even if it doesn't has an user.
Turn off the eye in the thighStr constraints, to leave them deactivated temporarily.
I select kneeStr and attach thigStr. Add an Action Constraint.
To the constraint I set the action we just made. Change the Target Range to 1.0 in the min and to 1.382 in the max.
In the Action Range, start in 11 and end in 1. For the constraint to know in which frame of the action to start and in which to end.
With this putting them in the inverse direction, we get the bone using the frame 11 as point zero and to 1 as the max. point.
I put in the section From Target, Y Scale and Local Space.
Add to the constraint the suffix -FR.
Select kneeStr and attach thighStr again to add another Action Constraint.
I add the action. In From Target, change to Y Scale and Local Space. The range of the action starts in 11 and ends in 21.
For the Target Range, the min is 1.0 and the max is 0.0.
To the kneeStr bone I re-adjust the limit scale. Because I can not work in negatives, as I would with location,...
...I have to search for a symmetrical point having as zero point 1.000, if that makes any sense.
So in the min. value I write 1-0.382 to let blender do the math.
Ok, the result is 0.618. now with this number I can set it as the max of the 2nd Action Constraint.
Now copy the constraints to shinStr. To the 2nd constraint add the suffix -BK.
In the Dopesheet bring back the action. With all the keyframes selected, push T and change the keyframe's interpolation type to Linear.
Now the only thing left to do is to take out the action again, so it doesn't affect or ends up recording new keyframes. Press down the button X for that.
And like that is that I end this tutorial, see you in the next one.