Question on Poser rigging

[Bjornlo]

Hi guys,

I am about to release my BREN LMG for use by you all. (preview in CS9 Thread).

Now, I thought that this time I would go ahead and include textures, rigging and smart prop it in poser, instead of just a prop to be imported.

The LMG is designed for animation. It has a removable clip, the carry handle rotates from the UP (carry position) to the down (firing position). The optional rear-handle is detachable. The bipod legs swing out and up (as in real life).

I know how to best rig it in Bryce and have done so.
The rear handle elements are grouped together and this group is parented to the gun.
The front handle elements are grouped together and this group is then parented to an animation controller (for the roll left and right) and this controller is then parented to the gun.
The bipod is rigged similarly. The left and right leg are parented to the left and right leg animation controllers (1 controller each, these controll left and right movement). These controllers are then parented to the bipod TOP. The Bipod Top is then parented to the Bipod PIN which functions as the animation controller. This PIN is then parented to the gun.

But when I imported it into Poser and made it a smart prop, I could not find any easy way to reproduce the same control.

I thought of imported the parts of the gun piece by piece. Resizing them within poser and smart proping the parts to each other. (same way as I did in the Bryce rigging). But, I was wondering if I could infact smart prop a smart prop to each other and if this was the best way.
So import the base gun. Size and position it and then mmart prop it to PDM's right hand.
Import the rear handle. Size and position it and smart prop it to the gun.
Import the front handle. Size and position it and smart prop it to the either the gun or an invisible rotation controller. But, if it is the controller (to make sure it rotates on the correct location)... then do I really need to have that imported first before the item to be controlled.... Or ?
And the same for the bipod.... two way movement based on different centers or rotation.

The alternative seems to be to learn out to create a new and custom figure with its own weird skeleton. Without knowing how that is done, that would seem like alot of work to rig a gun.

Suggestions?

 

[Plotinus]

I don't think it's possible to rig a prop. If you rig something, it automatically turns into a figure, and then, yes, you need to construct a skeleton for it. The tutorial I just posted has some stuff on rigging figures, although I only described how to apply a pre-existing skeleton rather than making your own. Although I don't think making your own is very hard.

 

[Bjornlo]

I have not read the tutorial yet. I do not have time to make clothing for just now.

But, I have been trying to make a skeleton for the BREN LMG for the past 3 hours.
Took 5 mins to figure out how to do it. 20mins of trial and error to make it.

I used auto grouping to group it basic. I then used the +/- selection to sort out which polygons go where. What a mindnumbing PITA. 47k polys, most of them seem to be hidden from view... and yet you must find a way to select them invidually since autogroup might as well be called automangle for all the good it did.
So 20-30 mins to get 90% done. 3 hours to get 1% further.
Plus it did stuff like add its own group called NO BONES. This can not be reduced, edited, nor deleted. And yet, it ruins the mesh by grabbing bits and pieces from everything. Even previously selected polys.

Still trying, not amused.

 

[Plotinus]

Don't use the - selection. If you deselect a facet from your current group, it is then in no group at all. And you might miss it later when you should be adding it to the group it should be in. So if there is a facet in your current group which shouldn't be there, you should open the group that it should be in, and add it to that one. That way you won't have any ungrouped facets. The NO BONE group is simply there to show the facets that aren't in any group. It shouldn't be grabbing them from other groups, just showing where you've deselected them from one group and not added them to another. If you avoid the - tool then this group should remain empty.

I agree that it's a hideous business though. The Grouping Tool is very clumsy to use and has been known to crash Poser completely for no apparent reason, at least with me.

 

[Bjornlo]

I gave up and deleted it. I tried 3 times without success.
I only used the DeSelection to fix duplicate selections. Primarily from the Poser create NOBONES group.
The NOBONES groups does most emphatically NOT show what polys are not selected. Since it was the source of most of my problems. It was duplicating most selections.
I might try this with P6, because with P7.1 is just a joke.

Other idiocies. Required to select every poly. Auto does not select every poly. Zoom in so I can see the damn things and the grouping tool stops working. Only way to make it work is to zoom out a bit. Happened close to 100 times (remember at it for hours before the cursing got so bad, I was scaring the kids). At random times the grouping tool abandons the groups and you have to close it and open it anew. Happened 10-20 times.
If you zoom in too much when placing the bones or view it too close to exactly front or side, (90 degree views) it will give you the circle showing that the bone is selected, but will instead move the mesh. Happened many times. Similary, even if you check not to show the bones in the grouping tool (hide other) it will periodically unhide them and have you move them instead of selecting polygons. Once the bones move this way, ctrl Z will not undo it. You have to guess where they were and try and move them back.
Which brings us to the ******ed bone placement system. Who ever thought of building a centeral figure contol system without the stinking ability to precisely place the bones? It is purely drag and pray. You can not type in the co-ordinates. So you can never be precise, nor go exactly back... or even symetrical.
These are but a few of my favorite bugs. What a POS this thing is.

Bah, going to get my camera and go for a long drive.

 

[utahjazz7]

What you want to do is definitely possible in Poser—without skeletons.

I've done essentially the same thing with my wagon prop. If you click the link, you can read a description of the prop and how to use it; that should give you an idea of what you'll need to do.

The wagon "prop" is actually a group of eight seperate props connected to to each other in a family tree of parent-child relationships. Just as the paperdoll's body rotation is controlled by parenting the figure to an invisible sphere, some of the wagon parts appear to move because they're parented to other props which conrol how they rotate.

For example, the basket part of the wagon appears to rotate on the axel. This is because it is parented to an invisible sphere. The sphere is aligned with the axel. When the sphere is rotated on its x-axis, the basket rotates as well—creating a believable motion for the basket.

You can do the same with your gun. Import the main part of your gun. Then create parent-child relationships for the other various parts. Caution. Because of using the x-, y-, and z-rotations of the invisible spheres, this will only really work well if the gun and it's parts are modelled aligned with the cardinal axes: z, x, and y.

For this desription, I'm assuming that the length of the gun when viewed from the top is parallel to the z-axis. When viewed from the left, the length of the gun should be perpendicular to the y-axis

The clip.
The clip prop can be imported and then parented directly to the gun. During animating, then, the clip's parent can be changed to the PDM's hand when necessary. Or if the clip should fall to the floor, it can be parented to the rotate ball.


The biped.
1. Open your gun model in your modeling program. Create a small sphere and position it exactly where you want the biped to rotate. (You could also import a sphere primitive in Poser and align it, but this way is more exact.)

2. Save the sphere model.

3. Import the sphere in Poser.

4. Parent the sphere to the gun model.

5. Name the sphere "biped_rotate" or something signifying it's purpose.

6. Import the biped prop.

7. Parent the biped prop to the "biped_rotate" sphere.

8. Rotating the sphere's x-axis will rotate the biped.


Rear handle.
Similar to the clip, import the rear handle and parent it directly to the gun prop. It can be removed by changing the handle's parent to the PDM's hand during animating.


Carry handle.
This will be done similarly to the biped. Create a sphere exactly on the axis you want the handle to rotate. Parent the sphere to the gun. Parent the handle to the sphere. Rotate the sphere to rotate the handle.


Adding it all to the Poser Library
Once you get all of the prop parts parented and working properly, you'll want to add the whole thing to the props section of the Poser library.

1. Open the props section of the Poser library.

2. Click the + to add the prop.

3. When the set name window appears, enter a name for the prop.

4. Click the "select subset" button. This opens up a view of the scene's hierarchy.

5. Check all the items you want included: gun, two spheres for rotating, biped, carrying handle, clip, and rear handle.

6. Click "OK" to close the hierarchy view.

7. Click "OK" to add the whole gun with all the child props to the library.

 

[utahjazz7]

It seems I misunderstood your biped plan. I didn't read far enough to see that you wanted two centers of rotation. My description only included what to do about forward and backward movement. Sorry.

Also, I think you are confusing two terms: "parenting" and "smart props." They are two different things. Smart props are props in the Poser library that include parent-child information that helps when adding them to a scene. "Parenting" is actually creating the relationship.

I would also recommend doing all of the resizing and positioning in your modelling program rather than in Poser. That's just my personal preference.

 

[Bjornlo]

Thanks Utahjazz7.
Sounds pretty much like how I rigged it for Bryce.

I know what parenting vs smart proping is. I was just not thinking about it correctly. For some reason I just assumed I would have to smart prop it to get it to jump to the right location.

Re-sizing in the modeler makes sense, the only reason I do not is that Poser scale is so microscopic that most modelers I use balk at it. Due to some loss of precision, I have preferred to resize in either Poser or Bryce (depending on the type of prop). If I make everything 5% of the size, then I give up 2 decimal place locations worth of precision. Most modelers allow for only 3 or 4 such depths. So I model at 10 times the desired size and instead gain an extra order of precision. Not that my modeling is so good that it matters...
I got up 4 hours early (sick kid), so I won't have the chance to try out this alternate method until tomorrow.



Sorry Plotinus, I appreciate your help and advice. I was a bit tired and mighty grumpy.