Maybe it’s not good to use the stretch IK here but I guess (I’m very new to rigging) it should work the best.
Just tell me if I should post more pictures of this.
EDIT: It is also very hard to move the head around as I like, it lags which makes it even harder but then it also goes wrong direction and sometimes doesn’t stop moving and so on.
You want the head rigged, not to deform? Thats not so easy…got it. I vertex parented the head to the neck. that way the rigged head follows the top of the neck.the head1.blend (582 KB)
Usually when rigging I try to think first of how I’d like to manipulate the character, where the controllers should be and what they should do exactly. Then, when all this is clear and planned out, I build the rig towards this goal. I think you ought to think more about the way you want to animate it in the end.
First, I don’t know why the head bone is looking like it’s stretched & skewed, I don’t think it should look like that. I think there is a problem here, but I can’t just guess as to what it is without seeing the file.
This I know is a problem:
99% sure you have a cyclic dependency problem here. To check, start blender with a console window, switch from pose mode to edit mode, then switch back to pose mode, error messages will appear in the console window. Probably because the head bone is a child of the neck bone, and also a target for the stretch to constraint.
I’m thinking you want the neck to stretch and be able to position the head freely, with the neck just stretching to the head bone. It can be done, but a good simple beginner-friendly way to do so I can’t think of at the moment…
I assume you want stretchy neck. Then the basic bone chain setup is back, neck, and head bone with head IK target. Head IK target sits in same space as head bone but remember to uncheck all Inheritance form other bones. It is just a target.
You are using curved bone for the neck I assume. Build the bone chain up from back to head in one orthographic view. If those bones are twisted from each other when you build it, the curved bone will twist on you like you show. Rebuild that.
Remember to uncheck “Inherit Scale” on the head bone under Relations. Otherwise when you stretch the neck, head will inherit neck scaling and stretch with it!
To make the neck stretchable, you add Stretch To constraint on the neck bone. It is targeted to head IK target. Neck bone has IK constraint targeted to head bone also.
Now for the head bone control, add Copy Location and Rotation constraint targeted to head IK target bone. Head bone will follow where you place head IK bone. To operate this head rig, all you do is to rotate / position the head IK target bone.
Whoa! To begin with, thanks for all the help guys! Sorry for the late reply, have had a lot in school lately and I didn’t wanna reply before I had tested what you have suggested.
Looks like one way to go, you can also get much control with it because you control different parts of the neck with different bones, anyways great to know that you can do it like this!
Oh yeah, you hit me right on spot! Smart idea! I didn’t know it was that important to plan a rig just like how important it is to plan how to model something, I guess rigging can be very different, easy to advanced depending on what you are going to rig and what you want to achieve with it.
99% sure you have a cyclic dependency problem here. To check, start blender with a console window, switch from pose mode to edit mode, then switch back to pose mode, error messages will appear in the console window. Probably because the head bone is a child of the neck bone, and also a target for the stretch to constraint.
Had no idea what the problem was, thanks! I checked console the way you told me to and there was some cyclic dependency problems like that the head was a child of the neck bone and also a target of the stretch to constraint as you said. At start it looked like there were like 1 or 2 other of these problems but I might just had misunderstood it or they just got solved some way (don’t quite remember and in the beginning I didn’t get what the console meant). Now it’s all cleaned and fixed from this!
I assume you want stretchy neck. Then the basic bone chain setup is back, neck, and head bone with head IK target. Head IK target sits in same space as head bone but remember to uncheck all Inheritance form other bones. It is just a target.
Check.
You are using curved bone for the neck I assume. Build the bone chain up from back to head in one orthographic view. If those bones are twisted from each other when you build it, the curved bone will twist on you like you show. Rebuild that.
Check.
Remember to uncheck “Inherit Scale” on the head bone under Relations. Otherwise when you stretch the neck, head will inherit neck scaling and stretch with it!
Check.
To make the neck stretchable, you add Stretch To constraint on the neck bone. It is targeted to head IK target. Neck bone has IK constraint targeted to head bone also.
You did mean that the neck’s IK constraint is gonna be targeted to the head IK target just like the stretch to constraint is? Then check.
Now for the head bone control, add Copy Location and Rotation constraint targeted to head IK target bone. Head bone will follow where you place head IK bone. To operate this head rig, all you do is to rotate / position the head IK target bone.
and CHECK! Now everything works as it should! Thanks man! I think I pretty much understand how this rig setup works too, but the reason that you have a separate bone as the target for the neck’s two constraints is to not get cyclic dependancy problems right? If that’s not the reason, then I don’t completely understand why you have a separate IK target bone but I have seen this when other people rig.
Thanks everyone for spending time and effort to help me, my problems are solved!
