I’m trying to create a simple bone system. I searched the Wiki and have found the “Character Tools” and “Bone COMP” documentation, but no examples models or tutorial on how to make sense of all the technical details.
Can anyone refer me to example toe/tox files that use these tools, or some sort of getting-started documentation?
We suggest using a more purpose built tool like Maya or MotionBuilder to make your skeleton’s and skinned models, then import them using FBX format. Those tools are far more developed for doing that kind of task.
What I need to create is very simple:
Connect two or at most three elongated objects at joints such that I can control the relative angles of orientation and lengths of the objects. Is there some way to do this without having to use external software?
I could possible even adapt some existing model if someone could refer me to one or upload one.
Maybe there’s some other way in Touch to create objects connected at a couple of but character tools but that seemed like the right way to do it. Any other alternatives to do this?
Ah sorry, it sounds like you are just trying to do some hierarchical transforms, so you don’t need to use bones in this case. Here’s an example. Notice you can now rotate either tube’s transform (inside geo1) and they will pivot as if they are connected. You can also transform the top tube and the bottom will move with it.
The key to this is setting the pivot parameter correctly depending on where the geometry is ‘joined’ relative to the center of the geometry.
PivotExample.toe (4.48 KB)
which reminds me, it would be great to be able to have a ‘show pivot’ button in the geometry viewer display options. this would take the guesswork out of this kind of set-up which can get gnarly if the shapes or alignments are not straight.
should I bump this to RFE section? Or is there such a button someplace else?
Rod.
Thanks, that’s what I was looking for.
Hi Rodney.
Off hand, I cant think of a ‘display pivot’ flag,
but you could build a component simply by doing the following:
Attach a Null component after each segment whos pivot you want to display.
Set its tx, ty tz parameters to:
tx: par(opinput(“.”,0)+“/px”)
ty: par(opinput(“.”,0)+“/py”)
tz: par(opinput(“.”,0)+“/pz”)
(This basically sets its translate to its parents pivot channels)
ie: opinput(“.”,0) returns the name of its first input
par() returns the value of a specified parameter.
Optionally crank up the scale parameter to 3 to make it more visible.
Set the render parameter to 0, unless you want it rendered.
Cheers,
Rob