The general WIP thread for animators.

[Ōkami X Ningen]

12 hours ago, spiralqq said:

Yeah, I used the WickedWhims tutorial but I still wasn't getting the hang of it. I've decided to give up on this endeavour hahaha

Don't be like that Download my standingbitchpound, copy the XML, and see if that works. Just make sure to change everything over to your stuff. I don't mind if you PM me  Maybe we can figure it out

[studcrusher]

On 5/21/2020 at 4:49 AM, Ōkami X Ningen said:

Don't be like that Download my standingbitchpound, copy the XML, and see if that works. Just make sure to change everything over to your stuff. I don't mind if you PM me  Maybe we can figure it out

Thank you, I appreciate it! I'm in the middle of a more serious poses project atm but you may hear from me in the coming months!

[Ōkami X Ningen]

2 hours ago, spiralqq said:

Thank you, I appreciate it! I'm in the middle of a more serious poses project atm but you may hear from me in the coming months!

No worries dude.

[bobahloo]

On 7/1/2019 at 8:46 AM, bearlyAlive said:

Select the item, click on the constraints tab (chain symbol), select child of constraint.

Select the rig as target and a hand bone in that rig as parent point.

Reposition the object in the desired position and you should be good to go.

crazy old post but I finally went to put this into action and had an issue. Worked fine until I went to take the animations out of blender and into s4s. I had 1 actor and 2 props. So when I was finished I made 3 copies of the file, 1 for the sim rig, 1 for prop 1 and and one for prop 2. (like to keep the original in tackt).  So I was able to clear the prop animations/rigs just fine, and have just the actor rig in one file. But I wasn't able to seperate the props because as soon as deleted the sims rig(what I parented the props to) the props just dropped, and no longer followed the keyframes. I tried to figure a fix for this but no luck. I exported and got it all in a package, just to see if It would work in game since the parent bone would be back. But it just plays the sim animation and no props. Any help would be appreciated.

[bearlyAlive]

36 minutes ago, bobahloo said:

crazy old post but I finally went to put this into action and had an issue. Worked fine until I went to take the animations out of blender and into s4s. I had 1 actor and 2 props. So when I was finished I made 3 copies of the file, 1 for the sim rig, 1 for prop 1 and and one for prop 2. (like to keep the original in tackt).  So I was able to clear the prop animations/rigs just fine, and have just the actor rig in one file. But I wasn't able to seperate the props because as soon as deleted the sims rig(what I parented the props to) the props just dropped, and no longer followed the keyframes. I tried to figure a fix for this but no luck. I exported and got it all in a package, just to see if It would work in game since the parent bone would be back. But it just plays the sim animation and no props. Any help would be appreciated.

Did you bake the animations of the actor and props? If you did, could you PM me the .blend file? Diagnosing it at the source would be the easiest.

[bobahloo]

4 hours ago, bearlyAlive said:

Did you bake the animations of the actor and props? If you did, could you PM me the .blend file? Diagnosing it at the source would be the easiest.

i think i did bake one of the props totally by accident while I was mussin' about. Been awhile since I did animations, and wasn't that pro at it back when I knew what I was doing lol. But I don't remember having to bake anything before, and I had animated furniture in some of em'. I think I even screwed up and and moved the root bone or whatever its called that you normally dont want to move on the props, but I will send the blend file, really appreciate the help, been wanting to work with props that spawn in for awhile now.

[bearlyAlive]

5 hours ago, bobahloo said:

i think i did bake one of the props totally by accident while I was mussin' about. Been awhile since I did animations, and wasn't that pro at it back when I knew what I was doing lol. But I don't remember having to bake anything before, and I had animated furniture in some of em'. I think I even screwed up and and moved the root bone or whatever its called that you normally dont want to move on the props, but I will send the blend file, really appreciate the help, been wanting to work with props that spawn in for awhile now.

Ok, I had a short test and you just need to bake the animation of the props. After I did that I could delete the sims rig with the props staying in place and animating the way they're supposed to.

The rig you're using doesn't have any inverse kinematics, so mad props for you animating without them, I wouldn't have the patience. That's the reason you didn't have to bake anything so far.

Now for your props, since they're using constraints, the keyframes you set don't actually contain any data. Unless you manually move them.

You can see that, if you select one of your props, all the keyframes in dopesheet are the same. To give the props proper keyframes you need to bake them.

I've made a short guide on baking in my pet IK-rig file.

[bobahloo]

16 hours ago, bearlyAlive said:

Ok, I had a short test and you just need to bake the animation of the props. After I did that I could delete the sims rig with the props staying in place and animating the way they're supposed to.

The rig you're using doesn't have any inverse kinematics, so mad props for you animating without them, I wouldn't have the patience. That's the reason you didn't have to bake anything so far.

Now for your props, since they're using constraints, the keyframes you set don't actually contain any data. Unless you manually move them.

You can see that, if you select one of your props, all the keyframes in dopesheet are the same. To give the props proper keyframes you need to bake them.

I've made a short guide on baking in my pet IK-rig file.

thanks for all your help, checked out your page you linked and theres alot of good info there, will see if I can fix that animation with the props following your instructions. Also think I will give those inverse kinematic rigs a try, looks like a great time saver over using the ones I have been using. Any recommendations for a IK rig? I saw in post #940 you suggested some Here are IK rigs for sims.  Still a good choice?

 

[bearlyAlive]

I think most are using Dagger's rig with boob physics for females and, and BCP with testicle physics for males.

[Alonely]

On 6/3/2020 at 10:33 PM, bobahloo said:

thanks for all your help, checked out your page you linked and theres alot of good info there, will see if I can fix that animation with the props following your instructions. Also think I will give those inverse kinematic rigs a try, looks like a great time saver over using the ones I have been using. Any recommendations for a IK rig? I saw in post #940 you suggested some Here are IK rigs for sims.  Still a good choice?

 

Correct, still a good choice!

 

On 6/4/2020 at 6:21 AM, bearlyAlive said:

I think most are using Dagger's rig with boob physics for females and, and BCP with testicle physics for males.

Yep! I use those ones myself. They're the best ones I've found thus far (and yours for Pets, of course :)).

 

 

 

Question for any other animator who might know: In Maya, there's a "move parent" option (I believe you hold down shift+V or something) so moving that vertex doesn't also move its children. Is there a similar shortcut in Blender? That would save me so much time.

[Ecohex]

so i tried my hand at setting everything up to create animations, but i'm quite confused... i've tried to follow TURBODRIVERs tutorial, and managed to import daggers female rig, but there is nothing that looks remotely the same as in the examples. which options should i change in order so it looks a bit more familiar? 

Also, this is the maximum zoom in level apparently as i can't get closer by scrolling... how do i override this? 

Spoiler

 

 

[Ōkami X Ningen]

3 hours ago, Ecohex said:

so i tried my hand at setting everything up to create animations, but i'm quite confused... i've tried to follow TURBODRIVERs tutorial, and managed to import daggers female rig, but there is nothing that looks remotely the same as in the examples. which options should i change in order so it looks a bit more familiar? 

Also, this is the maximum zoom in level apparently as i can't get closer by scrolling... how do i override this? 

  Hide contents

 

 

Before we go on, what version of Blender are you using? Trust me...this will save you a whole lot of headache.

[bearlyAlive]

Seconded about the blender version. That's clearly 2.8 which is incompatible with Sims 4 Studio and more importantly, incompatible with earlier versions of blender.

I use blender 2.79b for animating, which is still compatible with the blender version requested by S4S.

[modella]

Hi guys !

This isn't really WW related, but I'm currently working on how to convert MMD animations to our beloved TS4. At first I wasn't really thinking I could do it, but now I'm too close to give up, haha. 

It's no secret that it can be done but the few modders that have done it haven't disclosed how they're able to do so. After watching a few tutorials on converting animation in general (like from TS4 to TS2, motion captioning with TS4, etc), I decided to try my hand at it.

The fruits of my labor:

Spoiler

 

Original Animation

Haha, this video is so bad, but I quickly wanted to see how it would look in the game. The main issue I have is with the rig being flipped, but I think I know what caused it or at least how to fix it. If I can manage to get it looking right, and also be able to convert more without an issue following my current method, a tutorial will soon follow ❤️ 

[Ecohex]

9 hours ago, Ōkami X Ningen said:

Before we go on, what version of Blender are you using? Trust me...this will save you a whole lot of headache.

2.81+

6 hours ago, bearlyAlive said:

Seconded about the blender version. That's clearly 2.8 which is incompatible with Sims 4 Studio and more importantly, incompatible with earlier versions of blender.

I use blender 2.79b for animating, which is still compatible with the blender version requested by S4S.

okay, didn't occur to me you needed a specific version of blender. regardless, i'll try to download 2.79 somehow. both thanks for the quick replies!

[Ōkami X Ningen]

1 hour ago, Ecohex said:

2.81+

okay, didn't occur to me you needed a specific version of blender. regardless, i'll try to download 2.79 somehow. both thanks for the quick replies!

It didn't occur to me either...then I lost hours of work. ?

 

If you are still having problems with the camera, try clicking "view" on the "3d view" window. Then hover over "align view" then click "view selected"

 

Spoiler

 

 

[bearlyAlive]

42 minutes ago, Ōkami X Ningen said:

It didn't occur to me either...then I lost hours of work. ?

 

If you are still having problems with the camera, try clicking "view" on the "3d view" window. Then hover over "align view" then click "view selected"

 

You can also hit , on the numpad to focus on the selected item.

[Ecohex]

once again many thanks! i installed blender 2.79a, and no problems so far (except for using the interface. i just got used to 2.82...). however

1. the view is still weird... as i can't properly see the individual bones. any ideas?
   Spoiler

   

    

2. i have two models(?), rig_control_male and rig_male. which one should i animate?

 

EDIT: 1. if you click on the eye of the rig_male, the dot of the individual joints appear.

[Ōkami X Ningen]

55 minutes ago, Ecohex said:

once again many thanks! i installed blender 2.79a, and no problems so far (except for using the interface. i just got used to 2.82...). however

1. the view is still weird... as i can't properly see the individual bones. any ideas?
     Hide contents

   

    

2. i have two models(?), rig_control_male and rig_male. which one should i animate?

 

EDIT: 1. if you click on the eye of the rig_male, the dot of the individual joints appear.

What you are seeing is a control rig. I use the same one. The control rig uses layers.

 

The rig_male will be important when you are done with the animation, so for right now ignore it. Just get used to the rig control and play with it a bit.

 

Spoiler

 

[LrdNikon]

I tried to follow Mia's YouTube for setting up the work space on two monitors, but it's not coming out right is there a better tutorial on setting up dual monitors for blender to animate Sims 4?

[absins]

I have a couple of questions that have probably been answered somewhere in this book?

 

1. How do I attach a prop to a custom rig? I've seen a few tutorials about exporting out of S4S and fixing the weights but I want to use a different rig and am having no luck.

2. How do I use cc objects that move? Do I append the object into the scene and move the rig just like I do for the sim rigs?

 

I am very new to animating, so if there is a guide to read/watch please let me know!

[bobahloo]

7 hours ago, absins said:

I have a couple of questions that have probably been answered somewhere in this book?

 

1. How do I attach a prop to a custom rig? I've seen a few tutorials about exporting out of S4S and fixing the weights but I want to use a different rig and am having no luck.

2. How do I use cc objects that move? Do I append the object into the scene and move the rig just like I do for the sim rigs?

 

I am very new to animating, so if there is a guide to read/watch please let me know!

1. refer to post #893 in this thread   

 

 

2. Yes 

[bobahloo]

So does anybody know a way to lock the selected bone in blender. I mean so when I am trying to move/position it,  I don't end up grabbing/selecting another bone in the rig I don't want. Been getting used to using the IK rigs, and although this was a problem with the standard rig, it seem to be worse(for me anyway) with the IK rig. Hope I am explaining this right. So example I want to grab the control rig foot to move it, so I select it in the dope sheet, but then when I go to grab it by right clicking on it, it ends up changing the the foot roll. Only way I found to avoid this is to change camera angle/position, but then I can't move it the way I want. So I was hoping there was a way to lock my selection from the dope sheet.

[asketo]

On 6/20/2020 at 5:48 AM, bobahloo said:

So does anybody know a way to lock the selected bone in blender. I mean so when I am trying to move/position it,  I don't end up grabbing/selecting another bone in the rig I don't want. Been getting used to using the IK rigs, and although this was a problem with the standard rig, it seem to be worse(for me anyway) with the IK rig. Hope I am explaining this right. So example I want to grab the control rig foot to move it, so I select it in the dope sheet, but then when I go to grab it by right clicking on it, it ends up changing the the foot roll. Only way I found to avoid this is to change camera angle/position, but then I can't move it the way I want. So I was hoping there was a way to lock my selection from the dope sheet.

Maybe you will try to experiment with those parameters and options to block bone?:

[bobahloo]

10 minutes ago, asketo said:

Maybe you will try to experiment with those parameters and options to block bone?:

I'll give it a try. Thanks for your help. Everything you learn in blender leads to more you don't know.