Blender Underground

Try Shift-i instead of Ctrl-i.

Alternatively, you can add constraints through the constraints tab, which ought to show up under the editing button.

penix,
great tutorial - but one question: Why did you decide to locate the jaw joint in a very unusual place, behind the ear? This makes the jaw movement looking rather, well, strange. Most people have this joint just in front of the earhole - you can feel it when you put a finger there and move the jaw. Actually, the original joint allows two motion components, independantly on each side: a rotation and a translation, forwards and backwards. The latter allows for a limited lateral rotation.

Cheers,
U.

Because I wasn't going for realistic but exaggerated simply to open the mouth.

You are correct though if you want realistic, then there is no better model than a mirror...

Maybe some people often visible on TV have had some corrective surgery - so we can at least acknowledge that they can't keep their mouths shut

Thanks for the reply. For those who are after a bit more of anatomical accuracy - get hold of an anatomical atlas of the skeleton! (no criticism of your wonderful work, penix!)

Cheers,
U.

Huh....That would be me....

The real reason is it was easier to do it from the neck for illustrative reasons for this tutorial. I really didn't want to get into snapping to 3D cursor and disjointed bones as well as the whole constraint system. This was just something to get them started and generate interest for future experimentation on the pupil's part. Besides, by the time I made it this far, I was fairly worn out. It ain't easy writing these things....

I'm having a little trouble as I'm getting two unwanted things happening when in pose mode. One is the face as when I move the head part of the front of the face doesn't move for some reason. Another is the right leg as a small part of the bottom foot doesn't move plus the toung stretches out of the head and not sure as to how that happened. I don't know a site where I can upload the images and my.blend file but can email it.

Edit: I was able to fix it but for some reason the eyebrows don't move with the body even though they are joined with the body mesh.

The eyebrows need weight painted to the head bone. And easier way to do this is to assign the eyebrows to the head vertex group. I suspect you joined them after you associated the mesh to the armature.

I had joined them with the body mesh before parenting with the armature but will see if weight painting them will fix it. Should I paint them with a weight of 1 to the head bone or 1/2?

Hihi, I must've done something wrong with the fingers..

This happens when I move the Index_Finger.L


This happens when I rotate the Index_Finger.L


And this happens when I scale the Index_Finger.L


Any idea what I did wrong?

Yes. Your start off bend to the joints was level and you haven't limited rotation on the bones. Not surprising since I leave that up to the student to do. To fix it quickly, simply curve the finger bones slightly and the IK solver will figure out which way to bend. To truly fix it you must apply a constraint limiting the rotation of the finger bones.

BTW, measuring the maximal deflection of the various joints (and comparing it to the other side, or to standard value tables), is a usual orthopedic diagnostic method. Please observe, that some anatomical joints allow not only rotation, but also a translation, the knee is a good example for this. And, to make things not simpler than necessary, the DOF is also limited or controlled by ligaments connecting the bones that meet in the joint, and even muscles, limiting some motions dynamically. A simple introduction to musculo-skeletal anatomy might give you some fruitful reading.
Cheers,
U.

Can someone who has done this tutorial successfully please help Sir_Deagle? I am up to my neck in disaster and won't be able to help him for quite some time.

hello again, i finnally reached part 3 and weight painting is kicking my @$$ is there anyway you could send me a .blend file to use as a source for real size comparison so that i dont screw it up, also so that i can see all of the way you fixed the armature bones, and all im trying to go into making high polygonal characters, and bringing them to life, both male and female figures (mainly working on male). also always get a crease on my skin overlay on the mid back and color seems off from head to body, so is there anyway you could mock up a male figure so that i have a accurate base to work off of for my own?

the biggest tip I ever found for wt painting is to hide all the verts you DON't want to paint.

Tip number 2 - the color ramp for wt painting is aweful, you can't find small errors so make the color from a wt of 0.010 up to 0.100 a bright ugly pink since you , well I, never ever want verts painted to anything less than 1/8.

You can hide verts as Lyle says or you can use the painting mask (F KEY) as I outline in my tutorial to limit your painting. It really is easy. I don't suffer from the problems lyle has with the color band. That is a matter of taste.