Pin bones for Pupils

[Gibble]

Hey again gang!
I am rigging eyes and I ran into a problem with the pin bones. They don't move. Ugh!

Pupils: to control the pupil position, I am using Pin Bones.
I created a pin bone and then bound the pupil mesh to it [Bind Layer > Pin Bone]

The problem is that I cannot transform the pin bones- only rotate them.
Did I do something incorrectly?
In the image below, I am using the Manipulate Bones tool to move the pin bones - but they will not move- just rotate.
This seems a really simple thing to do yet I am doing something incorrectly.

[Greenlaw]

Manipulate Bones is for controlling IK, so it only rotates. Normally, you use this to pose the skeleton and work Smart Bone Dials. (Tip: you can switch this tool to FK mode by holding Alt, which is useful for posing arms.)

To move a bone, you want to use Transform Bone. The shortcut is to tap T.

To switch back to Manipulate Bones, tap Z.

[Gibble]

Thanks so much for the explanation, Greenlaw! And thanks for the shortcuts too! Very much appreciated.

This leads to a second question though. When I use the Manipulate Bones [Z] tool, it just offsets the bone from the geometry and leaves the geometry [pupil] behind even though it is bound to that bone. The pupil doesn't follow.

Alternative eye rig?: if you have a better way to control the pupils, I am open to that too. I just thought this method would offer the most flexibility- but I am not 100% married to this idea.

.

[SuperSGL]

Your probably moving it on frame 0 moving to any other frame will get the results your looking for

[Greenlaw]

This leads to a second question though. When I use the Manipulate Bones [Z] tool, it just offsets the bone from the geometry and leaves the geometry [pupil] behind even though it is bound to that bone. The pupil doesn't follow.

Alternative eye rig?: if you have a better way to control the pupils, I am open to that too. I just thought this method would offer the most flexibility- but I am not 100% married to this idea.

This sounds like a binding issue, and any number of things could be wrong here.

First, check if the bone has any Strength. If it's set to zero, it will not move anything. Try increasing the strength for that bone.

If that doesn't solve the problem, rather than figuring out what's wrong, it's probably easier to reset the binding and bind it correctly.

To do that, first, select the artwork layers you wish to bind. in this case, that would be the pupil layer. Now select Bone > Reset Bone Rigging. This command might sound scary, but it only affects the selected layers, and not the entire rig. (Note: if you select nothing, Moho will assume you mean everything, so be careful.) What this command does is it removes the current binding from the selected layers and applies the default Flexi-binding.

Now, select the layers that make up the pupil, select the Bind Layer tool, and click on the 'pupil' bone. This will rigidly bind the layer to the bone. You don't even need bone strength for this binding method. (As a matter of fact, bone strength does nothing for Bind Layer.) If there are multiple layers making up the pupil and they're inside a group layer, you can use Bind Layer to the group layer instead.

(Another important note: using Bind Layer on a group is ideal if you don't intend to deform the items inside the group using bones. This method is for rigidly binding an item to a single bone, and this includes the child objects of the group. If you want to use different binding methods for items inside the group, you should leave the group unbound and bind each child layer individually.)

[Greenlaw]

Your probably moving it on frame 0 moving to any other frame will get the results your looking for

Or this.

[SuperSGL]

You might want to set up smart bones to move the pupils outside the character so you don't have to zoom in to grab the bone. You can leave the pin bones and have the smart bones control those left right and another for up / down. There are some tutorials on youtube to set this up. There are also a couple of neat technically advanced systems to set up as well. If it works there is no wrong way to animate.

[SuperSGL]

Or this.

While I was posting you were typing and while I was typing you were posting

[Greenlaw]

Alternative eye rig?: if you have a better way to control the pupils, I am open to that too.

Regarding this, I usually just have a regular bone for each pupil. Since I'm using Bind Layer, the shape of the bone doesn't matter, and regular bones are easier to grab than point bones. (Note to devs: I often find the Pin Bones widget is either too big or too small for my needs. If the Pin bone display size were individually adjustable, I would probably use it more.) Also, if you have a spec hit on the eye, using a regular bone makes it easier to rotate the highlight position.

Sometimes, the face can get too crowded with bones, so I'll use remote 'mover' bones outside of the head and then 'shy' the eye bones in the face. You can see an example of this setup in the gorilla rig from the Moho Library content.

Note: Some users will set up Smart Bones to move the pupils. I do not suggest this because (IMO) it complicates the rig unnecessarily, and limits how you can animate the eyes. It's no big deal to just move the pupil bone to exactly where you want it in on the eye. To me, animation is hard enough already, so why make it harder?

[SuperSGL]

Alternative eye rig?: if you have a better way to control the pupils, I am open to that too.

Sometimes, the face can get too crowded with bones, so I'll use remote 'mover' bones outside of the head and then 'shy' the eye bones in the face. You can see an example of this setup in the gorilla rig from the Moho Library content.

I know I've used that technique in the past and now I find I don't remember how to set this up

[SuperSGL]

Oops Control Bones got it now

[Gibble]

Frame 0 for the win!!
Ugh!!! My apologies guys, that was a pretty dumb mistake. Thanks for your great suggestions as well as your patience

Alternatives: And thank so much for your alternative suggestions too! There is some great ideas there that I'm going to take time to explore. THANKS!!!

[SuperSGL]

Just an added note the manipulate bone tool will move the pupil on frame 0 whether you have point or layer binding just make sure the bone strength is at 0

[Greenlaw]

Manipulate Bones is for controlling IK, so it only rotates. Normally, you use this to pose the skeleton and work Smart Bone Dials.

Oh, shoot, I meant to add that there is one exception with Manipulate Bones: if the bone is a root bone, then Manipulate bones will move it instead of rotating it.

This bone is typically the 'hip' bone of the character, where the spine and legs branch from, or it could be a 'master' bone on the ground that the 'hip' bone is parented. (When I'm rigging in Moho, the character's 'hip' bone is usually my root bone.)

Here's something to think about: when you rig a character, the 'hip' root normally has multiple bones parented to it, which automatically disables IK for the root. This prevents IK from unintentionally rotating the hip, which is a good thing.

But I have made characters that do not have leg bones (like for waste-up-only performances,) and there is only a spine bone parented to the root. In this case, to prevent the root from being affected by IK, I enable Ignored By IK in the root's Constraints panel. To rotate the root bone, I press the Alt key with Manipulate Bones, which temporarily switches the tool to FK mode.

Hope this helps.

[Gibble]

Thank you very much for the clarification, DR! That is a big help!