Blender rigging nooblette issue

[VonBrauser]

I just completed my first ever human model and now I am rigging it. However I have ran into a wall which i can't get around and I have no idea how that wall got there! I have 3 bones for the arm: Upper, Lower, and the ArmIK. I RMB the ArmIK the shift-RMB to add the lower arm to it then i create inverse kinematics. Set the chain length to two. Everything looks dandy yea? well in pose mode when i select the ArmIK to move the whole arm with IT WONT MOVE! I double checked to see if the parent is set to the ArmIK and it is.My only option is to rotate when i click on it but i can't get it to move! I can move the arm with the UpperArm bone but that isn't what is supposed to happen I did this same process for the leg and it works fine, but the arm for some reason won't work

 

 

Edit: New problem keep reading!

[VonBrauser]

Okay now I notice it is basically behaving backwards. The shoulder and the bicep rotate around the end of the hand, i need this to be the other way around

[VonBrauser]

Using the forums to think out loud has solved my problem disregard this thread

 

Edit! Stuck again Keep reading!

[tournamentdan]

Some times creating a rig from scratch can be a little tricky if you are new to it. For example it is not a good idea to create a bone then place that bone where you need it then duplicate the bone then move the duplicated bone where you need it. If you do it this way there is always a chance that you can miss align the axis of each bone. Which can give you some funny looking animations. Instead, let's say that you are making a spine. You need the axis of each spine bone to be perfect. Create only one bone. Place one end of the bone at the base of the neck. Then place the other end at the bottom of the pelvis. Then use the sub-divide modifier to create how ever many bones you wish. This way the axis are all facing the same way.

 

It is always a good idea to learn how to rig but, I strongly suggest to use the riggify add on in blender to rig a human type model. It will save you a butt load of time.

[VonBrauser]

Thanks i will look into downloading rigify, can i get you with a quick question? I have my armature all set but I can't get the mesh to follow it. I looked in the vertex groups in weight painting and alot of the bones are missing from the list. I accidentally duplicated a bone a bunch of times without know it. I deleted them in object mode but they still show up in the vertex groups. For example: Arm.001.R Arm.002.R Arm.003.R and so on...how do i delete them from the vertex groups and add the correct bones? I've been stuck on this for hours

 

 

Edit: Hold the phone.....I might have figured it out

 

Edit: False alarm, i figured out how to take them out from the vertex groups but now i cant add any to it, even when i ctrl-p-automatic weights...WHATS GOING ON??!

[tournamentdan]

Thanks i will look into downloading rigify, can i get you with a quick question? I have my armature all set but I can't get the mesh to follow it. I looked in the vertex groups in weight painting and alot of the bones are missing from the list. I accidentally duplicated a bone a bunch of times without know it. I deleted them in object mode but they still show up in the vertex groups. For example: Arm.001.R Arm.002.R Arm.003.R and so on...how do i delete them from the vertex groups and add the correct bones? I've been stuck on this for hours

 

You already have riggify downloaded. It comes with blender. You just have to activate it in the user preferences panel.

 

You should not be dealing with vertex groups when it comes to parenting mesh to bones. Only weight painting.

 

It almost sounds like you have bones on different layers or you created empties when you duplicated some things. You have to delete the empties in the outliner. Which is the top right window in blender.

 

If you plan to use your bones you will need to un-weight then re-weight the bones to the mesh. Make sure to have all bones selected when you click weight paint.

 

If I were you I would delete all the bones then search "blender weight paint 2.5" in youtube and watch a quick video on how to use riggify. Then use that. I promise it will be a lot easier.

[VonBrauser]

Yea....I think I am just going to scrap it. I mean in blender(to the inexperienced atleast) when you accidentally hit the wrong key or hit shift R instead of Alt-R it does something crazy. then i spend 15 minutes trying to figure out what it was or what button i pressed THEN i hit ctrl Z too many times and undo something vital without realizing it. Then three hours later i am on the forums scratching my head thinking "What in the hell went wrong?"

 

Thanks for the help Dan

[tournamentdan]

I have found that youtube can be a pretty good tool when I get stuck on something in blender. Many nice people have posted tuts for blender. Try to remember to put "2.5" in the search field. If you don't you may get a lot of videos for the old UI.

 

I would also suggest blender cookie. http://cgcookie.com/blender/

They have many free tuts and also paid tuts. I suggest to anyone first learning blender to buy the 2010 blender training series. You can now get it for only ten bucks. When you are done with it you will feel very confident when using blender. http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-series/2010-blender-training-series-intro-character-modeling/

[Road Kill Kenny]

I find rigging of humans to be one of the more difficult tasks to get right yet one of the most important tasks to do right to get nice realistic animation. To solve this problem I bought myself “Humane Rigging” Blender video training.. it’s pretty awesome as it teaches you all you need to know.

 

Also I can vouch for the 2010 Blender training series that TDan mentioned above.. It basically told me everything I needed to know about Blender when I made the switch from 3Ds Max. Awesome and comprehensive video training which no amount of Youtube tutorials could stand up to.

 

Other than that there is always Youtube as TDan has said already.

[d123s404]

I would say the best place to go for blender advice is blenderartists.org. I'd love to help you but I came from the game engine community there, so I don't know much about IK rigs and their common issues.

[tournamentdan]

Try not to edit your posts because most people will not re-read a post and we will not know if you are still having problems.

 

Vertex groups have nothing to do with parenting a vertex or vertice to a bone for animation purposes. Vertex groups have two uses.(that I can think of). Let me explain these two uses so you will not be confused anymore.

 

A vertex group is made up of a single vertex or multiple vertice. And in that group each vertex has their own assigned name. The first way you could use a vertex group is say you have a model of a gun. You would put a single bone in the gun. Then you could create a vertex group in the palm of the hand of your character. You can now parent the gun bone to the palm vertex group. You could create vertex groups in diferent areas of a mesh like gun holster, ankle holster, back, hands, etc... This is much cleaner than to place bones all over the body mesh to parent to. Also you will have some problems parenting an object bone to a skeleton bone that contains animation data.

 

The second way to use a vertex group is if you want to create in game customizable characters or objects. For example lets say you want people to be able to change the head of your main character in game. You would make the top edge loop of the neck a vertex group. You would do the same for the bottom edge loop of the head. Both edge loops need to have the same amount of vertice or it won't look right. Then with code you could parent the neck edge loop to the head edge loop. You could do this all over the mesh to have a fully customizable character.

 

 

As for your problem parenting mesh to bone. Once you have your bones in place it should only take all of about five seconds to parent. In blender when parenting two or more objects you need to select the child first then the parent last. Also make sure you are in object mode when selecting objects to parent. (Bones, mesh, ect...) You may have multiple layers and it is the easiest bestest way. If you can not see the bones in object mode. You need to turn on xray in the properties panel. So object mode, then select mesh, then select bones, then automatic weights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeClarke]

I just came across this whilst looking through blender tutorials, figured it may help.