Any help with skeleton creation?

[mykyl1966]

I keep getting told that the bones work exactly the same in Carrara 6 as they did in 5,4 etc.

If this was true then creating a skeleton the same way as I have always done would work but it doesn't. You get bones pointing off at weird angles etc and the manual has not been updated for v6.

Can anyone put together a simple video or something that explains creating a simple skeleton in Carrara 6 please.

Thank you

Mike R

[three3dguy]

I had thought there was a tutorial on this subject from this very site?
http://backroom.renderosity.com/~carrara/tutorials/yellowface/index.html

[bwtr]

http://forums.polyloop.net/carrara-t...nes-setup.html

This not adequate/working for C6?

[CarlLydon]

I have the same problems with the bones sticking in weird directions. Old C5 files openeed in C6 are totally messed up with bones going every which way and scaled huge. This can be partially fixed by changing the mode to "show angle" rather than "auto" in the effects tab for each bone.

When making new bones in C6, I've found that you have to click and drag in one motion rather than just clicking th enext spot as was done is C5.

[mykyl1966]

"When making new bones in C6, I've found that you have to click and drag in one motion rather than just clicking th next spot as was done is C5."

This is the info they don't mention anywhere or explain why. This is where their protestations that nothing has changed are proven wrong. This is a new workflow that is pretty important and explains why all Carrara 5 scenes end up with strange looking skeletons with off angle bones.

Yes the bones work better now. I agree with that but one single paragraph added into the manual could have solved the issues myself and others have been having rather than constant 'nothing has changed' type rubbish that they came out with.

Daz certainly do seem to have a communication issue. That is something they need to work on in the future.

I do want to say that the hair tool they developed is fantastic. SO not all negative. ;)

Cheers

Mike R

[CarlLydon]

Yea, I had a problem with the animation clip feature that wasn't specifically mentioned in the manual, but polyloop came to the rescue. I actually think the Clips are the best new feature.

[Couerl]

Originally Posted by mykyl1966

"When making new bones in C6, I've found that you have to click and drag in one motion rather than just clicking th next spot as was done is C5."

This is the info they don't mention anywhere or explain why. This is where their protestations that nothing has changed are proven wrong. This is a new workflow that is pretty important and explains why all Carrara 5 scenes end up with strange looking skeletons with off angle bones.

Yes the bones work better now. I agree with that but one single paragraph added into the manual could have solved the issues myself and others have been having rather than constant 'nothing has changed' type rubbish that they came out with.

Daz certainly do seem to have a communication issue. That is something they need to work on in the future.

I do want to say that the hair tool they developed is fantastic. SO not all negative. ;)

Cheers

Mike R

They are rewriting the entire manual I think and it's due for a revamp. I thought they planned on some sort of wiki so that it can be updated in real-time to accomodate changes like the bone system, something manuals need nowadays since software changes as fast as the ink dries. I think it should be a lot better than a PDF or book or whatever as new information can be added on the fly, a bit like the Microsoft knowledge base except smaller..

[CarlLydon]

So, in what way do the bones work better? I noticed that it's different but not sure what features I'm not seeing that are better?

It's frustrating when you can't find the information you want but overall I'm just happy that they're making updates. Stability is still an issue, and I can't get my Mac UB installation for the patch to install but I'm happy that work is still being done. I've even started buying Daz content, as seems to be the business plan.

As for the manual, besides putting in the new features, it would be cool if they used better contentt for the examples and chapter illustrations. The chapter illustrations now look really really crude and basic ompared to what can actually be done in the program. Maybe they should ask for people to volunteer work from the galleries here; I think there are much finer examples of work in the polyloop galleries....


-Carl

[Couerl]

I've got better things to do than work for free for Daz or anyone else and I'm sure most others do as well. That said,... they're working on it.

[CarlLydon]

I may give up on C6 for a while, until they fix a few things. The bones are really messed up; it's way harder to make a skeleton in C6. The thing about clicking and dragging that I mentioned; I don't think that works right; it creates lines between the bones and the mesh doesn't ben correctly at the joints. Clicking for a new bone, as it says in the manual creates bones pointing the wrong way, and scales things really weirdly.

[CarlLydon]

Originally Posted by bwtr

http://forums.polyloop.net/carrara-t...nes-setup.html

This not adequate/working for C6?

No, it isn't. It was written for C5. tghe bones don't even look th esame as the C6 bones don't seem to have the sphere-joint thingy, and for another thing the creation of the bones is completely wacked out if you do it the same way that you would in C5.

[CarlLydon]

Originally Posted by three3dguy

I had thought there was a tutorial on this subject from this very site?
http://backroom.renderosity.com/~carrara/tutorials/yellowface/index.html

Those are morph targets! Not bones. thanks for trying, though.

[CarlLydon]

Here is an image that illustrates just one of the bone problems; maybe that will make things more clear.

[three3dguy]

Nice model Carl but shouldn't the neck base area be near the shoulder L/R bones not midway up?

[CarlLydon]

Yes, that's the point of the post

The big bone isn't a neck bone, it's a thorasic bone that resized itself (without my wanting it to)when I tried to create the right arm bone coming off it. The point of this post is not the model, but rather that I'm trying to illustrate a point about C6 bone creation being messed up.

[Couerl]

Carl did you try rigging in C5 and then importing it to C6? You can do that if you are more comfortable, you just need to change the display of the last bone on any given tree. The Devs insist nothing has changed escept the display and when you change the bones in C6 you'll see they're right, but I do agree that building the skeletons in C6 is less erm... Less betta. ;)

Are you click and dragging too? That's a new feature, but it's also kind of sticky to me.

[CarlLydon]

Hey Couerl,

You're right; and they're right; it's only the display that's messed up, the bones function the same. However, I'm not sure if you've seen some of the screen grabs I've posted, but the C5 figures imported can look so messed up that it's hard to even see what you're doing, with truly giant bones going off in odd directions.

A weird thing is, I just opened another C5 file into C6, and everything looks perfect, even the last bones in the chain! Weird! Usually the last bones are messed up. I think the "scene scale" feature is what's causing allot of these issues.

I was one of the first to discover and post that clicking and dragging was the way to go in skeleton creation for C6, but then after having problems with weight maps I started to wonder if that's really the correct way to do it, and the manual is no help. The new bones have no "joint" symbol, and often you end up with bones not really connected to one another, there is just a line from the tip of one to the beginning of another.

Maybe when the manual is updated all this will become more clear.

What's clear to me, though, is that creating a new bone should not in any way affect its parent bone, as it currently does as shown in the sceengrab I posted in this thread.

Thanks!

-Carl

[Couerl]

Well there is a way to "disconnect" the bones so that you can scale, manipulate them down the chain so to speak, but I'll say for the record i'm not terribly thrilled with how it all works. I've done 4 or 5 charecters in C6, from a relatively simple snake like thing, pokeymon dude to a semi-complex crab and by the time it's all done I found myself wondering why I had bothered.

[jawra]

Hi Carl
I don't have C6 but last time I had few hours for playing with it and I think there is no big difference between bones in C5 and C6.
C6 uses auto orientation for bones while you create your skeleton - C5 doesn't -and you should use Skinning>Orient Joints to orient bones in C5 (it causes that X-axis of bone is pointing at child bone and you can see it in C5 with universal manipulator).If you open C5 file with not oriented bones in C6, bones look strange but work fine.
When you press Shift-key and drag mouse while creating bone you can scale it on the fly.
When your skeleton is finished you can scale single bone with "Lock Child Objects" icon selected but only before you apply constrains to bones.
I didn't notice any influences for rest of bones while creating new one but I tried it on PC.
Anyway the bone system is the same for me.
Last question Carl - why did you start second arm from different bone

[DaveH]

> Last question Carl - why did you start second arm from different bone

Can't tell if you're joking on this; the question was asked in a slightly different way in post #14 and answered in #15 - he *did* start it from the same bone. You can see the connecting line from the tip of the newly enlarged bone to the base of the bone he added.