Ruby Idea: Bones for animating characters

[Bep]

Hi,

Ma bey the sketchy physics joints could help in buildingg a skeleton?

Bep

[Simon B]

Check out this rigging work-around from Justin Chin via You Tube:

His website can be found here: http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?page_id=182

He is using sketchup to develop a comic book illustration project.

I'm very impressed and have been following his blog for months.

[solo]

I believe he uses Maya for rigging, after that I am not sure how he takes the Maya rigged model and uses the bones in SU for posing. Looks very complicated from the video but it sure works for him as he has great control over that model.

[Simon B]

ooops! I should have realized you were a member Justin!

[monsterzero]

Somehow I missed this thread and I should answer Solo's post.

For soft body meshes, I use Maya to rig and pose, some examples here:
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=185
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=404

For ridged body meshes like cars and robots, I do it all in SketchUp. That's my preference, because the export/import/export/import process, given I render only in SU, is a pain. It's just more feasible to do it all in SU, and I LOVE IT.

Here's how I build a rig and set up the hierarchy in SU (the video Simon posted above shows how I pose) -

Instructions using a car as an example (you can even download the model used in the post):
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=110

Examples:
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=101
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=115
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=364

My SU Posing video:
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=425

I'll also include a fully "rigged" skeleton model that I finished yesterday. I needed a quick skeleton model for my comic, and I grabbed one off of the 3D Warehouse as a test and created a posing rig for it. To understand how to use is and how it's set up you'll want to read the instructions I posted above. If you can grasp that concept you'll get this. You'll be able to pose the model very very quickly.

skeleton3.1_RIG.zip

Here's one of the shots I made yesterday.
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=462

[monsterzero]

NOTE: If you downloaded the file in my previous post you might want to check to see if you have the skeleton3_RIG.zip version and update it for the skeleton3.1_RIG.zip version. I fixed some bugs in the rig and updated the zip file in the original post.

[gata]

The script SelectionMemory2.rb http://www.smustard.com/script/SelectionMemory2 begins to address the rigging issue. But the script is a bit limited.

The script allows you to save only 20 selection sets. And the selection sets are not save between SU sessions.

Improvements:

• Save selection sets between SU sessions
• Be able to name the sets
• Add some editable, nested organization: be able to create Hand category and make separate articulated selection sets for the hand.
• a base, component model should be able to have these selection set attributes, so when the component is made unique, the adjustable selection sets are already set up for a new poseable figure.
• be able to select several sets at one time, a finger has at least 3 sets.
• the selection sets need to be editable. Right now if some geometry changes, ie an edge is flipped, it no longer is included in the selection set. If a joint radically changes position, some geometry will be eliminated, added and smooshed about.

If a poseable model is a collection of groups or components, then a separate plugin is almost superfluous. As it's so easy to select and Rotate Along an Axis. But when a poseable model is composed only of connected geometry, it may be useful to refine SelectionMemory2 some more.

Right now I don't really need to do this much myself. I pose as I go along and extrude a figure. But going back into a model to reuse and re-pose is a bit more work than it should be.

---

[solo]

Nice rigging on the Skeleton!

How would you go about rigging a model with skin? I understand a skeleton or a robot with exposed joints, but a skin would need to move with joints without breaking.

[monsterzero]

I haven't tried this script yet, but there might be something you could do with this:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=6029&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

I'd imagine that you could make the deformation nodes a part of a hierarchy group and thus deform the mesh when you move the rig. I bet it would work quite well. For now I'm still using Maya which works quite well for me.

But if you're still interested in how to use the skeleton model I enclosed in this thread,
I posted a video of how I pose using the rigging hack.

[RickW]

gata,

I hear you A couple of things you mentioned were already on my list, but it's good to hear from script users to verify/validate/change my ideas on what a script needs.