Finishing off Biped Model Fixes

Within this lesson we finished off fixing our model joints by tweaking it's envelopes radius.

 (Example of fixing the armpit)

Armpit stretched out big time and looked very weird this involved selecting each point the spiked out of the arm pit. Clicking excluded verts allowed us to remove weights and anything else effecting the point on the models mess, this stops the mess deforming. including selective verts adds allows us to add weight to the selected points. An easy way of fixing deformed or weight problems model parts, is by selecting the points that have the problems and then going into the weight table, there you can turn the weights back to 0 by clicking on the correct points. (Note that you can deform the parts first e.g. the armpit raised up and deformed, then select the points that having problem and reset them in weight table)

 (Example of Weight table)

(Example of weight properties settings, this is where exclude and include verts are located)

 (Example of fixing the head and hair)

Had a problem with the head and hair spiking out of her back and shoulders like crazy. Fixing this involved a lot of time and work to get the hair to move/feel natural and moving her head around and controlling the weight on her shoulders to stop spiking up when movements are made.

 (Example of Scarf fix)

The most common problem was the scarf, whenever moving the legs or arms the scarf moved along with it. So by adding a lot weight to the scarf and attaching it to the model hip the scarf and move about correcting without being effected by it's surroundings.

Outcome: Finding out how to add weights and select individual points to fix them, was a big help in understanding how to fully fix and get a model up and running. Knowing how to fix these problems in more detail can really help me in the future when it comes to rigging and understanding the process in which to take can help me improve my knowledge and skills when it comes to rigging a model in the future.

Applying biped to model

Today we are going to apply our biped to an actual model. Opening a given female model, I open it up within Max to see what the model looked like.


Going into system and adding a biped skeleton ruffly the same height as the female model would allow the following process to be made easier, it's important to get the biped at the right height as I will need to fit the biped into my model. Once they're the same height I then changed my skeleton to a female biped making it a suitable skeleton to work on with the correct gender for the character model.

(Example Of Female model on the left, and female biped on the right)

Going into motion the clicking on figure mode, we can then edit the skeleton structure.
We then edited the toes and turned them into what looks like shoes, then we moved the biped skeleton inside the female model. Making sure the hipes are lined up. We then added in fingers to the biped so that there can be joints for my model fingers later on in the process.

(Example of making toe joints into shoes, and skeleton controls on the right)

We now need make the biped bones match up with the female model, this involves working and resizing parts of the biped bones so they can fit and match up to the models existing arms and legs. Once done we then move onto the hips, hands and feet, the hands were the hardest with it's annoying finger positions.

(Example of Lining up the biped skeleton with the model)

(Example of moving the arms and hands in the correct place)

Selecting an arm and hands that's already done correctly, meant that we didn't have to waste time by going onto the other arm and hands to work on them, I could just copy the completed arm and hands i've just done and paste them onto the other side.
we can do this by going into copy and paste section, and clicking postures, then create collection and the clicking on copy posture, and then followed by paste posture opposite will complete the process. This is a differently a faster way to copy and paste biped bone parts to save time when working with a model joints.

(Example of finished model)

We then made layers once all the positioning on the biped within the model was completed. We created a layer by clicking manage layers on the top bar, then right clicking and clicking create new layer. Now I have two layers, one the model and the other my biped skeleton.

(Example of Layers)

Going into the modifier list and clicking skin we are presented with the option to add bones, which brings up a list of all the bones from the biped, Ctrl A highlights them and allows me to add every bone in my biped.

Now the bones are part of the models, however there are many problems with the bones that are causing deformed parts to her legs and arms etc. So we then go into edit envelopes which is located in the side bar within the modify section.

Clicking on the envelopes we can shrink their raydus to be suitable for animation and movement, as some of the envelopes are over lapping each other and causing the model to deform.

 (Example of all Envelopes)

(Example of control the envelopes radius)

(Example of colours, Red for strong solid, Yellow for medium, and blue for weak)

We will contuiue working on this model and fixing all it's bones and envelopes so that the model can be used fully for any from animation to in game models. 

Outcome: Having always wanted to know how to rig with a model, I found today totaling inspiring and fascinating, I only knew the very basics about rigging but after today lesson, I feel as if I understand it fully. I imagined the task to be easy, adding in bones and then getting the models to move, I didn't know about how the bones would effect parts of the model and cause conflicts with other bone parts. Learning how to deal with these problems, to overcome the task really made me feel more confident about rigging, and I look forward to my next lesson when we can finally sort out the last problems with the model joints.

Biped

Going into systems on the sidebar, we can find biped, from here we can import a Skeleton. Within the biped settings we are able to add tails extra spine parts, arms etc, whatever I liked.

 Example of Skeleton with a tail and extra ribs/spines and leg links

There are four types of biped, skeleton, male, female, and classic.

Resetting the skeleton back to normal so it's ready to be properly animated, we moved onto highlighting a part of a skeleton, we then in the sidebar went into motion settings and then under the biped section, we clicked figure mode allow use to edit parts of the skeleton such as it's toes so they look like shoes.

 Example of toes expanded to make shoes

Turning off figure mode, allows me to now use my skeleton to animate again. We then went into copy and paste in the side bar, and clicked pose, then create a collection, which I named walk cycle.
We then set up our skeleton in a walk pose. Going back to the side menu, we then clicked copy pose just under where the copy collection is. There we can name the copied pose, for this pose where my skeleton is starting his walk with his left leg so I named it L-foot-forward.

Example of pose and setting in sidebar.

Now we needed to make the next part of the walk which is the mid walk, where the knee is bending and getting ready to come up into a walk.

 Example of knee bending

Going back into the side bar and clicking again copy pose, which I then named passing_1, I could now by selecting from the drop list where I save my poses, selected my saved L-foot-forward and then click paste pose opposite. Paste pose opposite allows you get the same pose but reversed, allowing the left leg forward to flip to the right leg forward. I did the same process for my saved mid walk called passing_1, this again like the Left leg mirrored to right leg, allowing me to have a mirrored pose for the mid walk from left to right. I now have four poses made from just two poses, which means I can now create a walk!

 Example of leg reversed and complete timeline of animation.

Rendered out video of my walking animation.

Now knowing the process in which to take, I then decided to make my own animation using biped and poses. My animation would be a Russian dance.

Outcome: From today's lesson I've learned how to import a biped, manipulate the biped skeleton structure to my own usage, move and control my biped, and create a working animation from copying and pasting poses, all of which will prove very useful in time saving and creating my very own animation.