need a little from my friends LOL LOl

HI new to blender so forgive my ignorance.

I have tried Blender before but turned to 2D animation and learnt a lot. SO with my new knowledge I thought i would give Blender another shot. I have created a cartoon figure of myself which is pretty basic but I still need some help. I created the model in seperate pieces…head, shirt arms, trousers, shoes, a hat and glasses etc and was wondering if I have to do something to it to add all the items together so i can rig it. The lessons i have been learning from created a creature in one mesh accept for the eyes but mine is several separate pieces and was wondering if it would still work or would I have to put all the items as one mesh (literally start again). I think I have explained it right. all the meshes are on one layer, if that makes any difference but in the properties panel the meshes are all separate.

If anyone can help me I would really appreciate it.

Many thanks

Moved from “General Forums > Blender and CG Discussions” to “Support > Animation and Rigging”

A single mesh is not necessary. Box select all separate meshes then add bones. Adjust bones as usual.

I think i must have done something wrong somewher cos i have hit the preverbial brick wall. I have created the model, created the bones but has i said i created the model in separate meshes and didnt do what you said before i created the bones. Is there any way around it without recreating the armature again.

Attachments

WoodyCharacter.blend (1.39 MB)

I seem to have upset someone by putting LOL in my description. Must admit i apologise if i have offended anyone but thoughjt this was a community to help each other, especially newbies like myself. This person as advised that no one helps me now so how am i to learn. First time I have been upset by a forum post but am thinking seriously about just jackin it.

I’m learning rigging too. Search for Blender tutorial easy rigging with Rigify add on.

A single unified mesh is good for gaming but I think you are doing something else. Leave your meshes separated. They are only a reference for placing the bone locations. However when you are ready to generate the rig, you must hold shift and select each individual mesh until your whole character is selected then add the bones last. (one selected bone should make the whole set active.) This will tell the bones what individual meshes are assigned to them. (object mode) This will matter when you weight them.
While you are learning this make a folder to hold each saved stage of your work. ie 1. Textured model 2. Boned model 3. Rigged model 4. Weighted model etc. If you mess up a stage you can go back the previous stage w/o starting from scratch. Best of luck.

All of your separate items (meshes) need to have an Armature Modifier on them. The modifier needs to point to your rig. As long as that is done, your model can have as many mesh objects as you wish.

Hi Thank you so much for your help guys, really really appreciate it. If i could explain how far I have got then you may be able to tell me if im at the right stage to continue.

I have left all meshes seperate as suggested.
I have used the meta rig to create the rig in the right position.
have tried to parent the mesh and rig but as expected its all over the place.

I figured out I need to weight it but do i weight say the shirt first then the head then the trousers etc etc with the whole rig selected or just portions of it? I think i will hunt down a really good tutorial vid to attempt this, unless you know of one i can use.

As i say I am still learning but am enjoying the experience. Blender is brilliant and most of the community is really helpful and supportive. Luckily im not doing my character for a game as you may have guessed, I am trying to create an animated educational cartoon for my grandkids (something to leave em after i have gone) I have created a couple in 2D but wanted to advance to 3D and so here i am. Hopefully when complete ill post it somewhere so you guys can see the fruits of your lessons and advice.

Many thanks again.

Thanks for alll your help. I have got a little further with my deformation but was wondering if i could get a little more info. I have now used rigify and created my rig and have also watched several tutorial videos and read through the manual, but am a little confused. My character is quite chubby and so I added extra bones on the rig around the waste and chest. That part seems to be deforming better. The problem I have is the legs and feet dont deform as expected. The automatic weights were completely blue in the first place and was wondering if I put extra bones on the knees or somewhere abouts like i did with the chest would it solve the problem. Also do I have to redo the weights process again if I do this or can I just add the extra bones and follow some other process to continue on as I have been doing. I can post a file of what I have so far if it would help if i can figure out how to post it properly.

Many thanks in advance

Chubby characters will always be harder to get proper deformations. I’m not trying to scare you, it’s just how it is. Automatic weights do not work well with heavy characters either. It’s harder for blender to figure out what mesh should move with each bone because the mesh is usually far from the bone it is supposed to deform.

Adding bones can help, but it may not be necessary. You may want to use shapekeys instead. You would make a shapekey to fix the deformation and add a driver to it to automatically apply that shape when you move the rig. I would suggest looking up shapekeys and drivers as your next step.

To fix you weight problems, I would manually set the weights. This can be tedious, but it will give you the best results. Select each deformation bone and manually apply a weight of 1.0 to the vertices that you want that bone to control. When all bones have been weighted to 1.0, you can then go back and weight paint them to smooth the values between each bone. Keep in mind your deformations will look horrible when you have then weighted all to 1.0. The important part is that you get you mesh moving in the right direction for each bone.

I like to make copies of my mesh object (or multiple objects) and work on them in stages. This way, if I make a huge mistake, I can go back to an earlier version of the mesh. I place them on different layers of the scene for safe keeping.

After getting your weight painting to a stage that you feel it’s the best it will get, move on to the shapekey and driver method. Your new shapekeys will then be based on your best weight painting.

Good luck!

Thanks DanPro.
What do you mean by drivers? I am new to blender remember but must admit i have had a play with shape keys for the facial expressions. I will look in the manual to see if i can find it but if you could give me an idea of where they are, what they do etc that would be great.

Here is the manual for them : http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Animation/Basics/Drivers

A driver is a way of automating something or having one object control another. The most basic case would be to add a facial rig bone to drive a shapekey that would make your character smile. The shapekey has a value 0.0 to 1.0 (You can increase or decrease this value in the shapekey panel, fyi.) To make your facial bone animate the shapekey, you add a driver to the shapekey’s value and link it to the bone with the driver panel. (The driver panel is a special panel in the F-Curve editor.)

You could also use a driver to automatically apply the shapekey when you do certain rotations or other transforms on a bone. Another example would be to add folds to the belly of your chubby character when it bends forward. Weight painting will only get you so far. Adding a shapekey to fix the bending at the extremes is a better way to tackle the problem. You would then add a driver to the belly bend shapekey to increase in value with the rotation of the spine or hips.

Google corrective shapekeys and driver. That should get you stared. Some tuts on youtube are suspect, or are from older versions of blender so be careful with what you use for info. I’d recommend going through David Ward’s tutorials on his Tim Burton character. You’ll get a lot from that series, I would bet.

I am going through some tutorials and the manual you advised to download. I think this will really help. I am looking for a manual now for 2.72 has the subtle differences between this version and the 2.6 version means i cant follow the instructions in the tutorials. a simple thing like x-axis mirror for the armature seems to elude me LOL. any ideas would be really appreciated.

Oh by the way. thanks so much for your help and advise and have a very merry christmas.

2.7 added tabs in the tool bar. Most things should be the same general location, you just have to look for them in the tabs. X-axis mirror for armatures is only available in edit mode. It should be in the tool bar/options tab.

Good luck!