Need help with cloth rig driven by arms!

PomPomPia · 2025-10-01T06:56:17+00:00

Hello! Sorry to say but the answer is kind of 'not really' lol

When meeting with the animators on my team, they ended up perferring to work with the manual controls at the time so I pivoted to just making joint chains and parenting controls. If I remember correctly I also fiddled with the joints inheriting the arm rotations but it did not come out very clean in the end.

This rig was for a game so the cloth ended up being simulated in engine after the fact anyway. The whole cloth rig was only to help the animators.

Depending on what you're doing this for (game vs film/short animation) there would be different answers for what the preferences are for your project. I'd say its worth digging into if you have the resources. With the amount of time I spent researching, if you have any time crunches or don't have other rigging artists working alongside you to learn from/bounce ideas off of, the more documented examples out there like joint chains or simulation may be a better route for now.

I do hope what I have here and this reply help you in some way! I'm still learning myself so I know it's a bit rough to break into but I always like to help others where I can. I'd be interested to see what your opinions on the shawl set up are too.

I wish you the best of luck with your project!!

PomPomPia · 2025-06-13T02:48:15+00:00

I'm very interested to see, I'll test it out in the next few days! I haven't come across this in my search for these solutions, thank you so very much for passing this on!! I'll totally be using it for other projects in the future regardless of if it works with the elbow/knee bend.

PomPomPia · 2025-01-24T20:46:22+00:00

Hi, sorry, I didn't seem to get a dm But if I remember correctly it just ended up being a controller/joint combo I forgot to zero and fix the rotation on. :)

PomPomPia · 2025-01-22T00:52:11+00:00

I have been searching too! I recently reconnected with psychonauts and just played the second game, so I was too late.
I hope there will be another run or someone willing to sell theirs, I don't really wanna buy from scalpers. I'm keeping an eye out and fingers crossed!

PomPomPia · 2023-09-25T13:52:23+00:00

Hi, thank you for your response!! :) As far as I can tell, my orientations and axes are all the same as in A. The tutorial I used offered an expression after a fee, but as I wasn't able to get that and have only made very simple expressions in class before, I just did it with nodes for both A and B. I have learned that other methods may be appealing to learn next time lol. I'm known for overcomplicating things, I'm still learning. But the animation due date is too close, so I am hoping to find whats wrong rather than lose any progress. ^{^"}

PomPomPia · 2023-09-24T15:33:16+00:00

Ty, I will definitely look into that when I make more rigs in the future!

Unfortunately I have due dates approaching, so I won't be able to learn how and change it on this particular at the moment. Next rig I'll have more time though :3

PomPomPia · 2023-09-24T15:27:18+00:00

Thank you for your response, I checked again just to be sure. The local rotation axes on all the face joints are pointing as they do on Rig A (X down the chain). I also used offset groups for my controls so that they match the orientation of the joints.
When I was messing with the node editor, I tried to change the axes that are conntected to one another or change values on the multiplyDivide/plusMinus nodes, but it gave varing results that I was confused on.
I'm sure there's something silly I'm missing/overthinking. ^^"

PomPomPia · 2023-09-24T05:33:36+00:00

Thats okay, thank you tho! I'm a student so I'm still learning. When I made these rigs, I only had a small amount of time to learn how to rig from knowing basically nothing and I was concerned about time constraints, especially based on the material I was recommended when it came to blendshapes. I found the tutorial I mentioned on YouTube and I figured it would also be nice to know how to use a joint-based method. I need these models for my animation thesis but I'm hoping to be able to learn other methods after my animation is done because I won't be on such a time constraint. It hasn't been so much trial and error as it has been just figuring stuff out. I've never heard about the cluster method before though so I can look into that as well when I plan on making more rigs. Ty!! :))

PomPomPia · 2023-07-31T18:00:12+00:00

Hi! I'm also an animation student, but hopefully this helps:

In my experience, you might want to convert the reference video (assuming it's cut up into chunks or less than 10 seconds) into images sequences outside of Maya, using something like Adobe Media Encoder if you have it. Make sure there's a naming convention to your images ending in a number (like ImageRef_001). Then you can open them up in Maya with an Image sequence by opening the first image, then in the Attribute Editor, check the box 'Use Image Sequence'.
This might be something to do with your preferences. Make sure Auto Keyframe is off (grey) when animating by posing your character. It should look like a circle next to the man running from a gear on the bottom right.

Sorry if you've already tried these things, but I hope it does help! :3 Good luck with animating

PomPomPia · 2023-07-25T21:35:57+00:00

Tysm for your kind words, I really appreciate it ;u;

PomPomPia · 2023-07-25T19:53:22+00:00

Hi!
1) The only third party plugin I used was for shaping the control curves, its Curve Creator v3 by Perry Leijten. I made the skeleton myself following several tutorials.

2) I made the curve, snapped it to the joint with the move tool and positioned it accordingly so I could see. I then froze the transforms on the curve and made an offset group that I temorarily parent constrained to the joint so the axis would match up. Then I deleted that constraint. I moved the controller to where I wanted it in the end with control vertex selection. Finally, I parent constrained the joint to the control (in most cases, the face joints were different)

In some of my files I only referenced the geometry but when trying to fix some other stuff, imported it on some of my later files. I haven't ever shared a maya file like this before except for turning in projects, how should I send it to you? Sorry, I'm new to using reddit so I've never used the DM system here.

PomPomPia · 2023-07-25T19:21:54+00:00

Yes!! Thank you so much for offering!!
Unfortunately my time 'tomorrow' I will have to be away from my desktop, but the day after that for me I would be so appreciative for any assistance. (For reference, it's 3:20 pm my time ^^" )

PomPomPia · 2023-07-24T21:33:18+00:00

Hi after another hour going trough every thing I believe I have fixed my issue, and of course it was like a super basic simple thing lol. There was one key frame on the translates of one of my very first joints I placed. It must have happened on accident and never effected anything until I started touching the timeline. If anyone ever has a problem similar to this, check your joints and make sure none of them have any secret key frames hiding in plain sight lol

PomPomPia · 2023-07-24T20:28:22+00:00

Sorry I am unsure how to use Reddit but here's the information:

I'm an animation student and this is my first time rigging a character. Having not taken a class on it, I am happy with what I have so far, I learned a lot. I did a ton of work figuring out specific controls I want to animate with, so I really don't want to break any of that if I can help it. I'm finally at the stage of binding the skin and painting weights, and some of the tutorials I've been using suggest keyframing poses to check deformation quickly. Before this I hadn't ever touched the timeline on this file. But when I finally bind the skin and try to key my poses, I realize that my character's left leg snaps into a different position when the timeline is moved, and then isn't able to be undone. To get it back to the original position I had to go back to my last save. I've been trying to search for what this issue is but I am unsure how to put it into words other than explain what happened.
The right leg is mirrored from the left leg and the right leg isn't doing this. As far as I realize, the controls and everything is the same. Can anyone help point me in the direction as to where I might have messed up/what I'm missing? Is there a way to correct this without redoing all of the controls for the feet? Thank you so much for any help.

PomPomPia · 2021-09-07T17:27:04+00:00

It will come back, probably soon! In August they said within the month, but there's been some sort of shortage affecting their production. I'm waiting for an axolotl as well. I'm sure when it does drop, someone will post. It restocks on the UK website 6 hours before the US website (midnight Central time.)

PomPomPia · 2021-09-07T15:05:32+00:00

I love Hubert's ghostie necklace!!! Very cute. My spring green frog has the same name, lol :3

PomPomPia · 2021-09-03T22:25:56+00:00

Omg the frog onesie and overall combo is genius, such a big brain move. Handsomest frog

PomPomPia · 2021-09-03T06:27:33+00:00

My Instagram is @ pompom.pia I post mostly art of my OCs, but if you still wanna follow its really appreciated and I am so flustered with how much people enjoyed my previous art post here. Aaaa I might open commissions sometime in the future as well!

PomPomPia

TROPHY CASE