Help! explain why I suck please
 

OK, I don't know if its the physical scale of the model, or the number of polygons used, or terrible rigging, or what, but whenever I try to animate this guy the computer is just freezing, and I've already deleted history and cant scale him down.

Is it cause I combined all the polygons into one? Am I not supposed to do that? I'm so confused, lol, I just want a simple rig that i can actually play with.


on a lighter note, comments/criticisms on the model are welcome

8000 verts
15000 edges
7000 faces
15000 tris

As for size, he is about 1.5x the width of the default grid tall.

Thanks!

edit: heres a copy of my model, i call him Blargh - http://www.mediafire.com/?pj2vk9myam0

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/1571/31318383we1.jpg

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/6259/27977377hk9.jpg
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/6...b56b8eb8cc.jpg

So I just make a very fast skeleton on an old t-rex model i made, it has no iks, and is smooth skin bound like this blue monster is.... and it works fine, using same computer and everything.
this trex has
20k vertices
28k edges
19k faces
37k tris

If it's so much bigger why does it move smoothly and my monster doesnt? grrrrrrrr :headbang:

whats your pc specs? Are you trying to animate a high res character?

How do you mean it freezes? Do you mean the cursor lags? or do you mean when you set a keyframe it crashes? can you be more specific on what happens?

i just downloaded the file and im running a quad core 4gb ram and it STILL lags on my pc. And its a reasonably low poly character.

The problem lies with your rig itself i think. I got a warning telling me;

// Warning: Cycle on 'joint8_parentConstraint1.target[0].targetParentMatrix' may not evaluate as expected. (Use 'cycleCheck -e off' to disable this warning.)

So i searched for joint 8 and it appears you got something weird going on with the characters back. Perhaps try and re-rig it

ok i think ive found the problem.

Im no rigger so dont take this as gospel, but using my common sense i read the warning msg when i tried to animate and like i said it, the problem lies with joint 8.

Joint 8 is the character's lower back. After playing a bit more. I also discovered that you didnt freeze transformations on your control curves. So when i reset all the values to 0, i got another warning message and your curves went crazy.

My advice? This is a stab in the dark, but i advise you to re-rig, or go as far back as you can and re-constrain all your curves to your joints,....but THIS time freeze all transformations first.

It wouldnt hurt to name your joints to. But thats your call. lol


Good luck and repost if you resolve it. It be interesting to know what it was causing the problem

I noticed the error about joint 8 as well... i went looking in my outliner but couldn't find it, so ignored the error, loloops... as far as the rig is concerned, I don't really know what ik and fk handles and control curves even do, thi sis my first time rigging, there was no mention of freeze transformations in the tutorial :/

When I meant it freezes, I did mean the cursor lags.

What I did was go back to an un-rigged character and check the response times for moving it, they were good, and just kept adding a bit then checking. What I've narrowed it down to is binding the skin to the mesh and then altering some of the geometry. I would bind the skin, deform it, and notice holes appeared, so i put it back into bind pose and fixed the holes, while the skin was bound, which I beleive was the problem.

However, thanks a bunch for looking at it

you find joint 8 by going to the right top hand screen. and type joint 8 then press enter. This will select joint 8 and show you where it is.

Ive seen all riggin tutors for digital tutors and they always drum it into people to Freeze transformaitions as its so so important when rigging.

Do you know what freeze tranformations means? Before you constrain a control curve to a joint, you freeze it by first snapping it to the joint by holding v + mmb. Then go to Modify > Freeze Transformations.

If this doesnt solve your problem then im baffled.

If you watch the whole of a Digital Tutors rigging training kit, and take your time, there should be no mess ups as DT produce amazing tutorials.

is the problem solved then? if so what was it?

By the way, the image below shows you where to type in to look for something. As long as you type it in correctly in this box, letter for letter, it will find what you're looking for

Yes my problem was that I was editing the mesh AFTER I had bound the skin to the vertices. It was only after that that the computer started to lag.

My guy is all weight-painted now and deforming nicely, however I didn't think to put in all the control curves before I bound the skin. Now I'm trying to and its just not working at all.... probably my own fault. I've already got some set driven keys for his fists and getting a proper IK for his arms/legs was a hassle so its not worth going back for me, It'll just take longer to animate i suppose.

also, what do you mean v+mmb? what is mmb?

mmb = middle mouse button. (or press the scroll wheel in if you don't have a middle mouse button)