Have you ever felt like you were beating your head against a wall and realized that maybe you should try a different wall because you weren’t making a dent in the first one? That’s what it has been like for me with the rig for Sticks. And yes, I have decided to try a different wall. Sort of.
I finally got the wrist controls done and thought I was getting close to being done with creating the rig. Then I went to test something with the global control. That’s a control that was created to make it easy to move or scale or rotate the entire character. I was testing the scaling, I don’t remember if I tested the moving, but I tested the scaling and found I had arms that weren’t scaling and bones that were not even pretending to, they were frozen in their spots and not even moving. Ugh.
Before I get too far, here is what the wrist control looked like with me trying to make it do a little wave.
I spent a few days poking around trying to figure out what might be causing this, the lack of scaling and then not moving at all as I scaled the control. I have to have missed something when I re-did the rigs and bones for the arms. I might have locked or frozen something I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t find anything obvious. I did find some tools to help me look. And I downloaded the files for the tutorial I am following and tried to compare the setup using that tool I found.
The tool is under Graph Editors in 3DS Max and is called the Schematic View. You get to it by either selecting a Saved Schematic View or choosing New Schematic View. It gives you a nice flow chart representation of how your different components are linked.
The next cool part of this tool is if you select a component in the view and then right click on it and choose List Views you can look at all the relationships or just the selected relationship as well as instances, occurrences and animated controllers.
I used this to compare the constraints, and such, of the arm bones and chains and controllers to what is in the tutorial file. I found it a little easier than trying to read the information in the modify panel or in the hierarchy IK panel. I could see that there was a constraint, position or orientation, but the way I have the screen setup, I couldn’t get much more than that. So this worked out with it all in one place.
When I returned to working on the rig for Sticks it was with the intention of getting it finished up. At this point, with the particular problem I was running into, and all the frustrations I have so far dealt with, I was just about ready to scream. But I took a deep breath and thought about my options. I could just start over with the arms, which is not a bad choice, I could keep going and hope that the problem would ultimately work itself out, or I could start over completely. No really, that was one of the options. In fact it’s the option I chose.
As I looked at the schematic view of my rig so far, I found at least one extra item that I had created and hadn’t caught. It’s possible that I had other errors that I might have missed. After all, I have been working on the rig off and on for a few months now. Who knows what other mess I made and don’t remember, or haven’t found. So I decided I would copy the file, delete the entire rig and start over from the beginning and I would just get the rig done. It’s my primary focus. Complete the rig for Sticks. Do not pass Go, Do not collect $200. I am also hoping that by doing it this way I will be able to identify, or at least have an idea, of what went wrong in the other file and then I might be able to fix it. So I am using it as an additional learning opportunity. Though, I’m not entirely sure I will figure out what went wrong. Still it’s worth a shot.
So where I am with the new rig for Sticks. I am up to the facial controls. I think I have about an hour or two of facial control rig tutorials to watch. I’m not going to skip them even though I don’t need them right now. I might have missed a step in there that I need to do. Then I will be back to the shoulder bones and then the arms. I’m really not quite as far behind now as I could be. That’s because I have tried very hard to stay focused and on task with getting this rig done. And I’m going to continue with that until it is done. At this rate, with a little luck, I could have everything done in about two weeks, possibly sooner. Here’s hoping.
Once I get the rig for Sticks done, it will be time for me to find some reference tutorials on how to animate him. I think I can animate a walk cycle for him that works a bit like one of those rhythm buttons on a Casio keyboard where you press the button and it keeps playing a Mamba or Foxtrot rhythm until you press the button again. So I would basically turn on the walk cycle and set him to a path constraint and he would just walk, I wouldn’t have to move each foot for every step. I’m pretty sure that’s how it’s done, I’m just not sure how to save it and assign it to my character. That’s something I will be looking into after I get this rig done.
Even before I figure out how to assign a particular movement to Sticks, at least with the rig complete, I should be able to pose him more easily. That will be good. I can start using him in media images then.
So that’s how my week has been. And even though Sticks is my primary focus, I did spend a little bit of time working on Greezbly. The clean up on the meshes for the alien is a lot like playing Solitaire in that I can do it while I do other things like watch TV or talk on the phone. That works out well.
Hang in there while I get this rig done. Once that’s taken care of I hope to have a few more fun things to show. Then I’ll be getting back to some of the other projects like the Robot, Greezbly, and I have another character in mind to create. So much fun to be had. But first, I must finish this rig. It is the first of many I expect I’ll be needing.
As always check back next week to see what kind of mischief I’ve been getting up to.