rigging trouble

hi everyone.


this is a model of a dragon character i made, and I’ve been trying to rig her for a while now, and certain areas like her wings, chest and ears i just can’t rig and make them look natural. could someone help me fix her please? i am going to use her in my major year 12 project for design and technology so i’d really like her to look nice when i animate her.

no one answered my thread either! terrible crowed!
since im kinder than them ill give it a try
BUT…if i succeed i get to keep the dragon for my own use :slight_smile: agreed?

i messed up with your model/rig and i discovered what might be the problem.
or atleast. A problem.
i was deforming endlessly the wings untill i noticed the one of the bone-chaines was longer than the rest.
try changing the model, scale down the rig at that particular part.
birds also generally does not have wings like that from the same reason that it wouldnt fold back ok with one bonechains standing out longer than the rest in the middle.
currently i think this is the major thing that causes trouble.

red circle is what makes trouble.
instead try scaling the last chain bone (blue circle) after you scaled the red down.


It is nice model but the question is too vague. What do you mean by “normal”. Your model simply have too many polygon for people to look at its rigging / animation. Here is the shot of wing_shoulder.L bone Vertex Groups:

http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/m626/cabby24/Blender%20Pics%202013/dragon_zps97a3e531.png

Look at the number of vertex it is controlling! By the way it is affecting Dragons neck as well on the opposite side, which can affect neck movement. You need to look over every Bone / Vertex Groups first to discover any problems like this.

When you have this many vertexes, it’s going to be lots of work. It’s not that no one is responding. Its just that no one has a several days free to look at this, understand the problem, come up with possible fixes, and guess what you mean by “normal”.

I recommend building simpler geometry with subsurface modifier, and test out your rig there. Do build wing in T pose. It’s simpler to rig, model, and when using Automatic Weighing it gives you less trouble weighing wrong parts of model.

sure, i think that’s fair. but if you could acknowledge that it was made by me if you use it for something, i’d really really appreciate it :slight_smile: (i’m sorry to have to ask that, but as it is for a major school project, if one of the markers happened upon it somewhere else on the internet, they might think i stole it or something, they’re really strict on things like that)

ok, great, thank you

Thank you. is there a way to reduce the number of polygons? i know you can use the decimate modifier, but it dose a very messy job. thanks for pointing that out, i’ll fix it up.
i can understand that, i don’t blame them XD.
ok, thanks, i’ll remember that for next time :). is there anything i can do to save this model and still be able to rig it though? i put a lot of work into it.

You can try selecting edge loops and using X - delete and dissolving edges to remove some of the geometry. Retopo would be a better way, since dissolving edges might leave you with a lot of clean up to do.

green dragon listen up.
what i did before i could even see something is to go to the modifier list and cancel the un-applied subsurf modifier.
it was enough for me to work with. maybe it will satisfy you or others who had seen your model.
if you think something more needs to be done…maybe try remesh modifier…maybe seperate the vetex group of the entire wing (high olygons there) to another object, do remesh, put it back on.

Yeah it’s a too heavy mesh, but that’s the least of this dragon’s problems. Simplify mode (zero subsurf) frees it up enough to pose without too much bother, but the rig has major issues. It is very difficult to pose and simple poses like rearing up is nearly impossible to do at all.

Hey GreenDragon you really need to re-rig this thing. Well, not from scratch. Most of the bones are already well placed except for some roll issues here and there, but it needs a different sort of spine/neck and feet/legs need a better constraint setup too. Better controls for both, and for wings and ears too. There’s some stretching and intersection issues with the wing membrane meshes but good vertex weighting might clean that up. Some topo work probably wouldn’t hurt. Lighter mesh would make it faster in 3D view and probably a bit faster rendering too (a big deal if animating).

Were you planning on an animation? It will be very hard to do any decent animation with this rig as it is now. It wouldn’t be very difficult to lighten up the mesh and fix up the rig. It’s a great looking dragon and you’ve already come far with it.

So the big question is when is your deadline?

Welcome to BA Forums.

-LP

hey again everyone.
i do intend to do an animation with it for a school project, and the deadline for the whole thing is early october next year, but i would like to have the model ready for animation in a few months if its possible.
Larry, you said that that the spine/neck, feet/legs and wings/ears need some work done, could you suggest what i should do, particularly with the spine and wings, i always struggle with getting a nice rig with those areas.
i normally just turn the subsurf on for rendering, i rarely work with it on unless i need to. next time around i’ll remember to keep the mesh a bit lighter.
i’m still kind of a beginner, especially once i get past the modelling stage of a character. what do you all mean by retopo? also, i looked at the remesh modifier, but i’m not sure i understand what it dose. could someone explain please.
thanks for your help and patience everyone :smiley: