roll division in the standard biped rig

[franky]

anybody knows how to recreate the roll division scripted operator that is used in the biped rig?
i have to admit that i never used scripted ops so far and i cant find a way of reverse engineer that thing. all i see is the property page. i looked through the VB code of the rigger, but it just applies the operator. no trace where it comes from or whats happening inside.

i found the roll division in the biped rig most stable and good to work with and would like to recreate the same thing for my rigs.

[franky]

hm tracked it to some spdl with no readable code for me and a customOP.dll which is obviously binary.
hmm... back to square one...

[franky]

ok, can you believe that! there are two functions available already that place roll subdivision on a bone.

MakeBicepRoll and MakeForearmRoll !!!

great. it creates the same setup as in the biped guide with that mysterious custom operator!

[Sil3]

Hey

can you tell me what the main diference in using the Arm Roll of the Biped Guide and placing a null LikedWith the rotation of the hand for example.

I never use the Biped Roll I prefer to place my onw Nulls and link them.

Thanks

[franky]

for me the main reason is that the roll division still works when the hand is rotated UP and then turned.

with simpler system you just translate the x rotation of the wrist up to the elbow. but what happens if the hand points up is a different story, as you don't rotate around x any more.

its also a piece of cake now with the two commands who make the job for me.

[Sil3]

Well since im a pseudo TD (hehehe it means I have to make it as I know how LOL) I never entered the Scriped Ops... so I do everything the hard way: LInk With s :D

I bough the Scripting Tutorial form 3DTutorial...but the time to watch it, understand it and practice seems never to be available :S

Thanks for the explanation, much apreciated :)

[franky]

yeah i have that tutorial as well and i animated a project with that rig. i modified the hands though. with Charbels new auto rigger dvd he also made some changes to the rig to make it even better.

but as far as i remember it doesn't solve the particularly problem with the twice rotated hand, which happens a lot in animation.

i am a newbie with scripted ops myself, mainly because they tend to be slower than expressions or constraints. and i really appreciate a fast rig. but this was one good case for them, and even though i dont know how the scripted op internally works now, it works :)

the build in roll divisions are not free of issues as well.
when you turn the hand bone more than a certain degree, the skin bones can flip. but you can adjust the flipping point, so that you wont meet it in animation. but it means you cant make spaghetti twisted arms with this solution as well.

[Sil3]

the build in roll divisions are not free of issues as well.
when you turn the hand bone more than a certain degree, the skin bones can flip. but you can adjust the flipping point, so that you wont meet it in animation. but it means you cant make spaghetti twisted arms with this solution as well.

But a handplaced Null with a Link with resolves that isue hehehehehe :D

Another thing that I do, and it must be completly WRONG physically but i swear I have better visual deformations... I never place the Roll Null aligned to the ForeArm Bone, like the default Biped Rig does... I prefer to put the Null at the same spot as the Hand and then translate it on only one axis to its position, it doesnt seat on top of the ForeArm Bone but it Rolls the Arm Geometry in a more pleasent manner, at least it looks like it to me.

[franky]

do you have a picture of that null placement?

[Sil3]

Not in here, but monday ill post some screen shots (no web acess at home) :D

Its really easy (and like I said probably ALL wrong) but i hate to see the kind of deformation the Default Rolls do on and Arm, it looks bad to me.

Instead of having to Rolls aligned to the ForeArm ill make them Aligned to the Arm geometry (not always the geometry is on exact angle as the bone).