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Welcome, we will see
a small example of how to rig
it will be quick
let's see how
using Blender 2.66a
as it is in April 2013 and we can do a good rigging
or at least an simple basic one
Let's do a small clothing piece
the very first thing is to get
and open
"Avatar Workbench 2.65.blend"
You can see that opening it there is an avatar
which is a female body
I did in the past a small video showing how to import
a male body to be used
but here you might enable layer 3 and we get it
male body is a small news
of Avatar WorkBench
Avatar Workbench for who doesn't know you can
download from blog.machinimatrix.org => avatar workbench here
we have various versions
the latest is 2 65
containing the "default male" we have seen
now let's do
a quick tutorial on how to make a cloth, let's make a small skirt
let's call it a
skirty
to model a skirty we do "3"
"5"
"5"
build using SHIFT-A
let's build a
cylinder
"s"
shrink it until it is more or less close to the size of our skirty
ok
lift it up
let's suppose these are
the sizes
we are interested in
let's remember
we can keep it this way right now
we can use the known technique of shrink-wrap
let's go in edit mode
NOTE: in previous video
I forgot to click on
the selection of hidden vertices A, B
then we select
we can keep it this way but let's docontrol-R
let's make it bigger
with these vertices
ok
what we want to do is to insert
shrink-wrap
shrink-wrap (go to object mode) we must do it
including the whole avatar
probably it is a good idea to select bottom part and shift select the
upper part
control J so now we have a unique mesh object
this helps us
here
we must enlarge a bit: press s
shift z
let's enlarge it to be sure it is completely external to the avatar
now we go with "3" on the right
let's add a modifier
shrink wrap
we want that
the target be
let's go to the end of this table
use the mouse wheel
go to "upper body mesh"
Blender is changing the cylinder to be
tightened to the mesh
let's do it a bit less tight to have it go out a bit
just a bit, here it is
this way is is quite similar to what we want
go "tab"
and make it
smooth
to be able to see it better add a material
so it is more visible
set the color to
a birght green ok
then to see it press f12
we are not seeing it..
but
go to object mode
we see that it's enough
good enough
if we are satisfied
apply the modifier
to apply the modifier go to
object mode choose the modifier and
apply it
now we have this skirty which is made of 320 vertices
done, we can fix it
we could align it you see there are some imperfections, but it's good enough
what I wanted to show you is how
to "parent" the skirty with
my armature, how we can do it
go in
object mode
select skirty and then shift
right click we have selected
two things at the same time first
the skirty and then the armature
press "control p"
put armature deform with empty groups this can be ok
empty groups means that - we can check this
if we selected only the skirty
now we have the armature if we go on the vertices we see
all the bones
and we can see the the specific weights (weight paint)
selecting single bone we see
it is completely blue
this is correct
for these bones, obviously they are blue since they are higher bones but if we get
hip this is
blu but we should color it
we can exploit the fact that we actually
have a base coloring in the base avatar
so we might simply copy
i.e. take as basis the basic avatar and copy weights on our piece of clothing
to do that with the skirty go in object mode
select base avatar then shirt and as second and last selection
the skirty
go in
weight paint... when being in weight paint "weight tools" appear
here we have some new features in Blender 2.67
you can choose "transfer weights" and this is the outstanding function
not existing before
select "transfer weights" and weights are magically transferred
check that all vertex groups are transferred
use the nearest face method (there are other options) but we are ok with the default
to begin with
and to see how you can do we can start with "hip right" which
is influencing all this area
see that here
it is missing: it should influence also a bit here
we should fix this
so that when
this tigh is raising, it should raise also
here on the right
how we can do it easily? It's simple we just "paint" with a brush
we say
"paint with a brush"
then
I move a bit also
the other part
actually we should do this in such a way that when we raise this
it should move the equivalent part at the left
here again
we should paint to influence also this
let's paint it red so to influence
this part of the skirty
we are seeing just a simple
weight paint on a single leg
to check if this is a good weight painting job we have taken it from the original avatar
there are also other parts
we have this mHipRight but there is also the mHipLeft
we must do the same job we have taken the points from
the other
it took thos from nearest face
when skirty was close, but now that the two parts are a bit separated
weigth transfer was not able to copy them
you can use probably other methods
now the important thing is to go in object mode
select instead the armature since we want to see the pose
modality
given that the armature had been parented we can do "pose mode"
select the bone, this
take
this "rotation" modality
try to rotate to see
and we see..
raising this...
we get
now you should repeat this job to verify
that, at least for normal movements
strange things
are not happening in the final render
when we see
like this where movement is excessive
you can
go in
object mode selecting the skirty
then editing mode
now...
there should be a way to see... here
clicking here you can see skirty moving
now you can do various tasks
fixing the rigging
we can for instance go with editing
select
for instance here I activated
proportional editing
do select a vertix like this
use the arrow because I want
Here you see
moving around
the vertex so to
in this way I study extreme positions
and fix various vertices
we do it as much as possible
here now
we are moving too much
proportional must be modified
the idea is that
I try to work
in order to generate
I have to tweak this thing
to avoid this kind of defects (I'm not very good at this)
I expect that you can be smarter than me and succeed in tweak this object
thing is to test raising something like this
at the end set it back in pose mode
object mode
go back in selection of the armature
here it is
go back in selection
object mode go in in pose mode here you select this
in the pose you can do whatever you want including
well
there should be the possibility to reset it
clear transformation ok resetting it in original position
you see if it is ok
that is the rest position that now had been spoiled
don't go in the details
now the only thing to do is select
when you finish
the weight painting
of the bones. In this case involved bones are these 243 00:13:40,190 --> 00:13:44,690 basically one (this) the left thigh and the right tigh
and something more
if we wanted we could
study how it is moving
compared to this bone
you see that
must study if this rotation is working too
so it seems
there also the rotation of this bone
no, this is actually that which
which is moving the avatar (the back bone)
so basically this bone which can be
rotated on the left or the right
must study the way it is evolving in respect to
these movements
there are other bones: 1
2 3 bones
must study movements of this bones too
like this
here must to do this work
for each bone test all the three possible rotations
(obviously the human possible)
when finished use the clear transform all
ok
and now
go in object mode
select... ( I coudn't select all)
movement modifications
There is a pose mode - pose
to do clear must do
clear pose for each single bone then I do pose
clear pose all (here it is!)
I must do it for all bones I modified
now we go in object mode and reselect the skirty
Press file
export collada
possibly we select apply modifiers and selection only
export with a different name the skirty
call it "skirty" or something
.dae
we can save under c:
it didn't work so we do
export again
under c:\
"skirty"
.dae
normally we can write on c if you are administrators
now you can go in
beta grid for example
if you just wanted to check it
that the skirty has been correctly rigged
let's enter in firestorm
connect to beta grid
(slow as usual)
OK here we are
now we do
build - upload
mesh model
choose c:\ folder
let's upload the skirty
we just
did
now it seems it is not loading :)
here it is
but I did a mistake it loaded
too many things
there is extra stuff I dont want
:(
no
we must redo the export
go back to our blender
being in object mode we have selected the model, but probably
export collada
selection only
apply modifiers
mmm
strange I forgot this selection before
let's save back in c
export it again
do another attempt of uploading it to SL
the skirty
now you see that at this point
it is better
here there is something in the middle
that probably we can get rid of
but
we have more or less the skirty
now you can see that we have "skin weights" if I click skin weights
I can see also "joints" so we are sure that skin weights and joints are present in the model
ok now
let's correct a couple of things
here
I did some changes
removed the faces
on the top and bottom
then I did an extrude
to make it simple I hid the upper body
now during the export phase
export
export collada
now I tried the preset
there is a operator presets
made for rigging object in SL so we are sure the armature is correctly exported
this way
what I get
is really very meaningful when we do upload
mesh model
skirty
now the cloth is appearing
with
no problems
skin weights and join are visible
so it is decent
remember when you load it
to check to have the include skin weights option
and include joint positions
so that the model is "well rigged"
and SL can use it
properly
if now we do
double click on this
it will be worn
and when we walk it is moving around
this has the same defects
we have seen
in weight painting
so the main operation is to be able to do
a correct weight painting
(!))
so now the video has come to an end
we say this is
rigging
as it appears in April 2013
Good Evening and see you next time