putting something inside something else

[Ryder]

I have a large helmet, tipped back, to sit on my character's head.

Of course, tipped back, the inside of the helmet can be seen as well as the outside, surrounding his head.

Now, since my intent is that the helmet should be on a separate layer (so that the character can easily wear and remove it), how can I arrange to have his head go INTO the helmet... (helmet interior masked by the character's head).

Thanks!

Ryder

[Víctor Paredes]

I'm not sure if I understood well your problem. If I did, I think this could help

[Ryder]

I'm not sure if I understood well your problem. If I did, I think this could help

Well, you do have all of the component parts

Now, if I want the helmet to be on a layer (2 components), and the head to be on another layer, you can see the issue, yes?

In that case, I can only get the head to obscure the helmet, or for the helmet to fully obscure the head... but in fact the head needs to somehow visually slip between the helmet components.

Thanks!

[funksmaname]

if you MUST have things on seperate layers, put the back of the helmet in its own layer below the head? so you end up with 3 layers... there's no way to have it showing under the head if it lives on the layer above it. You can manually rig a bone to both front and back of the hat so they move together...

p.s. love the drawing selgin lol

[Ryder]

if you MUST have things on seperate layers, put the back of the helmet in its own layer below the head? so you end up with 3 layers... there's no way to have it showing under the head if it lives on the layer above it. You can manually rig a bone to both front and back of the hat so they move together...

p.s. love the drawing selgin lol

I was hoping that some masking techinque might be applied to the shapes. Can individual shapes be masked?

Also, in case of the need to use two layers for the helmet, how do you connect a single bone between layers? And will it work if you do layer animation, or will the two parts separate?

[Víctor Paredes]

Ok... you want the hard way
You are right, you can use mask to achieve a similar result.
Check this anme file
http://www.mediafire.com/?x8mywtuby4dmdy2
I'm masking the guy layer to make it seem inside the helmet.

Here is the masking order
_all : reveal all
__guy : mask this layer
__mask : subtract from mask
__helmet : mask this layer (or don't, anyway it won't be affected because the mask is not below it)

The magic become when you bind the mask to the same bone you are binding the helmet. So the masks moves with him and masks the guy when it's on him.

[Ryder]

if you MUST have things on seperate layers, put the back of the helmet in its own layer below the head? so you end up with 3 layers... there's no way to have it showing under the head if it lives on the layer above it. You can manually rig a bone to both front and back of the hat so they move together...

p.s. love the drawing selgin lol

The problem is, if I rig a bone to the front and back of the hat, moving that bone also causes the head to move (using bind layer), EVEN IF I have not bound the head layer to the bone... it moves anyway.

[heyvern]

The problem is, if I rig a bone to the front and back of the hat, moving that bone also causes the head to move (using bind layer), EVEN IF I have not bound the head layer to the bone... it moves anyway.

You need to bind the head to another bone or to the head bone if you don't want it moved by the "hat" bone. I would use bone offset to make it easier. Create a bone for the hat and move it away from the head, bind the layers etc and then use bone offset to put the hat where you want it.

-vern

[neeters_guy]

Here's another way you might consider. You can do this all on one layer and use point binding to control the head and helmet. The trick is to use shape ordering as suggested in funksmaname's screencast:
Intermediate shape stacking technique screencast...
Create the paths, then create the shapes in this order:
1. back rim
2. inside
3. head
4. front
Then bind the hat and head points to the appropriate bones (point selection groups would be helpful here).

When animating, be careful the head doesn't poke out from behind the front of the helmet.

[Ryder]

The problem is, if I rig a bone to the front and back of the hat, moving that bone also causes the head to move (using bind layer), EVEN IF I have not bound the head layer to the bone... it moves anyway.

You need to bind the head to another bone or to the head bone if you don't want it moved by the "hat" bone. I would use bone offset to make it easier. Create a bone for the hat and move it away from the head, bind the layers etc and then use bone offset to put the hat where you want it.

-vern

Thanks... that did the trick...

[Ryder]

Here's another way you might consider. You can do this all on one layer and use point binding to control the head and helmet. The trick is to use shape ordering as suggested in funksmaname's screencast:
Intermediate shape stacking technique screencast...
Create the paths, then create the shapes in this order:
1. back rim
2. inside
3. head
4. front
Then bind the hat and head points to the appropriate bones (point selection groups would be helpful here).

When animating, be careful the head doesn't poke out from behind the front of the helmet.

Doing it all on one layer seems workable... thanks for the great example.

The overall issue I am trying to address has more to do with project management... so perhaps that is something that folks could share their insights.

Imagine a character, or even many characters, that all have many objects to hold, hats and clothes to wear, vehicles to drive.

What you quickly see is that it is a case of putting "things inside of things".

From a project management standpoint, having all of these hats, clothes, vehicles saved as separate entities makes a LOT of sense... so they can be loaded and removed easily in a production environment, useable by any character.

In THIS context, I'd love to hear how best to create this object library so that it is both accessable and interactes well/properly with the characters, especially with respect to "things in things".

This intimate intermingling of layers to perform such basic tasks seems unfortunate.

To me, a bucket should behave like a bucket... with some simple means to drop things into it.

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts on this larger issue

All the best,

Ryder

[heyvern]

My thought is that you should decided or plan ahead of time what props and what shots will need a prop or other object interactivity with the character. When you need those shots you use a different rig or technique.

In Hollywood movies with "modest" budgets that require SFX, those scenes only last a few seconds to keep the cost down. If you find the extra work to do the props scenes slow you down then don't use it so much. How many times do you really need a character putting on and taking off a hat? Getting in and out of a car or walking through a door? Plan out those shots so you know exactly how many you need.

If those shots end up being used all the time then keep all the prop layers in the character layer and just turn them off or keep them hidden until needed.

------

I would suggest keeping characters and props on separate layers. You said in the last post "Doing it all on one layer seems workable". I don't know exactly what you mean by that but I wouldn't put props "on" the same layer as the main character. Even if a single prop needs to be on multiple layers to work properly. Now you can turn them on and off.

If multiple characters use the same prop them set them up with that prop leaving the layers turned off before they are needed. "Vehicle" props are another thing that probably won't need to be used in every scene. I would set up a custom rig just for that instance.

Remember, try to determine if a prop is going to be used "all the time" in every shot or scene. If it's only used a few times or only needs to be removed or "masked" in a few shots deal with those as specific shots.

-vern

[Ryder]

Hi Vern,

Thanks for the thoughts... it sounds like you are thinking more in terms of a one-off project.

Instead think South Park. Dozens of characters, thousands of props, thousands of scenes, hundreds of episodes, many years running.

Planning scenes in advance is not going to happen.

The decisions made today need to work years down the road... avioding as much as humanly possible "custom" work and rigging.

All the best,

Ryder

[funksmaname]

i'm sure when south park started there was no library of assets - they just built up over time from necessity! There's no way you're going to plan ahead for every possible situation - i would spend less time making it futureproof and more time animating it to make it good enough to run that long

maybe another option is to have two layers, grouped in a folder so they can be easily accessed, and knock the back helmet layer away from the camera slightly in Z space? that way it should appear behind the rest? I've not tried it but should work...

[slowtiger]

We're not doing 3D here, so we just can't create a bucket and expect it to behave like a bucket.

But we can create a bucket with a front and back layer, put it inside a group, import it into any scene, and just drag those two layers into any other character rig and bind it to the same bone so it acts as one bucket. What's so hard about that?