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# 1 28-02-2007 , 08:41 PM
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Really weird issue in Maya 8.5....

I made a rigged character that I was planning on importing into a scene, and everything was going fine. After weighting him, I imported him into the scene, and went to scale him to the proper size. That's when the issues started. Whenever I scale him, his left hand joints basically explode, making a huge hand that grows as I scale. I cannot undo it, either. I tried importing the scene into his file, and scaling, but that didn't work either. I guess I could just scale up the scene, but wouldn't that affect lighting and everything? Does anybody have any suggestions? Any help will be greatly appreciated!


Eric Tacti
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# 2 28-02-2007 , 08:53 PM
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This problem usually occurs because one object has different scale parameters than another, like when you create, and revolve a curve. The revolved surface and curve scale differently because of their different parameters.

One thing you could try is freezing the transformations which should make the parameters equal, or you can create a group, which should make all your body parts have equal parameters.
Then u can ungroup when youre done scaling.


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# 3 28-02-2007 , 09:04 PM
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Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. The body is all 1 piece of geometry. And, I froze transforms when it was all done, so they are set at default. When you say group everything, what should I be grouping? I tried grouping the body and the bones together, and then scaling, but it scaled them a ta adifferent rate, where the body scaled down much quicker than the joints.


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# 4 28-02-2007 , 09:51 PM
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it sounds like the joints for the hand are already grouped together so basically when you go to scale you are scaling the hand geometry twice - once on it's own and once as a group - which is why the hand exploded. I have seen similar things happen before and it is usually the result of a double transformation due to grouping.

You might want to have a look in the hypershade to see if you have any funny groupings going on. I am no expert though, so I could be way off the mark.

# 5 28-02-2007 , 09:58 PM
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I thought of that too, arran, but it's not the case. Plus, the right hand is made exactly as the left hand, but it's only the left hand having an issue. I appreciate your suggestions, though.

But, I think I have figured it out. I'm using that FBIK example that came with Maya 8.5, thinking it may be an easy way out of having to rig the characters. What a mistake, apparently! Anyways, I got rid of the effector closest to the problem area, and it seems to have worked. I scaled everything to the proper size, and it seems ok thus far. Does anyone have any idea why it would be doing this with a rig that comes with the software?

On a side note, awesome picture, arran!!:p


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# 6 28-02-2007 , 10:07 PM
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Scratch that, it isn't working fine. I did get it scaled down, and it was ok, but as soon as I try tom manipulate the main rig node, which is a 'humanIK' node, the hand does it again.


Eric Tacti
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# 7 28-02-2007 , 11:33 PM
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Eric,

What you are doing is a big no no... All the scaling and stuff needs to be done before skinning and weighting. Once thats done you should not deform, use blend weights or manipulate the geometry in any way.

Best to detach the skin and get all your scales right first then re skin, re do the paint weights, you should not have to re do the rig that should br fine.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but needs must.


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# 8 28-02-2007 , 11:55 PM
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I see...I was afraid of that! Luckily, this wasn't extremely imperative. It was more of a test to see if I could use the FBIK rig that came with it. So, there is a good side to it. At least now, I know that that rig is usable, and also that I shouldn't scale after I rig. I've done it in the past plenty of times, though, and never had any issue. Oh well, no big deal. I'll detach the skin and make my changes and see how it goes. But, that brings up another question. I have already exported the weights, because detaching and stuff was my last resort. But, I can't seem to import them. Any ideas?


Thanks a lot to all who offered their help, especially R@nSiD, who painfully set me straight!:p


Eric Tacti
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# 9 05-03-2007 , 01:37 PM
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Originally posted by R@nSiD
What you are doing is a big no no... All the scaling and stuff needs to be done before skinning and weighting. Once thats done you should not deform, use blend weights or manipulate the geometry in any way.

hmmm... I'm not sure if that's right - in the Foundation book you parent all of your skeleton and set up nodes to a master node and that lets you scale your model after you've done your skinning and weighting. Also, I'm pretty sure you can add blend shapes after skinning and weighting as well.

# 10 05-03-2007 , 02:37 PM
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Well, for now, I've scrapped the rig and created a new one. I have, since then, scaled my own rigs and stuff, and it worked. So I'm thinking it must be an issue with that example rig or something. Any thoughts?


Eric Tacti
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# 11 05-03-2007 , 02:45 PM
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Maybe the rig supplied has some parenting/constraint issues.

Could have missed out something when the constraints were adeed.


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# 12 16-08-2007 , 10:39 PM
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same problem but from diffrent source.

Yeah I seem to be having the same problem, where my hands go crazy in scale. But my problem has absolutly nothing to do with scaling, Im getting it from just animating with fbik (Yes im using ctrl F) and changing between pinning modes.

Im gonna check more forums to see if this happened to anyone else now.

Anyways if you still need help scaling your character, i think i found out that they did something pretty neat in maya 8.5. You used to have to select every bone in the skeleton, but now you only have to select the root joint (or atleast I only had to do that).

As for the rigging, i think i had no problems doing it, but if I did, I would have just deleted the fbik, scaled it then added the fbik again. (Since its only 1 click)

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