[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

It’s going to be difficult for anyone to help you without seeing the file.

Adios,
Cactus Dan

Cinema 4D R10 XL Bundle, BodyPaint, Dynamics
http://www.cactus3d.com
http://www.cactus3d.com/Plugins.html

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

Well, it sounds like you have weights from one leg crossing over to the other leg, in other words your left leg has some weight on it from your right leg joints.

But, before I go any further, I have to say that if you haven’t finished your model, you really shouldn’t be rigging it yet. Be patient, and finish the model first before you start trying to rig it.

Now, that said, you need to be concerned with the model’s topology, because model topology affects the mesh’s deformation. If you’re model has good topology it makes the weighting much easier.

If you haven’t seen my rigging tutorials, have a look at them here:
https://www.c4dportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2501

in the first chapter of the character rigging section called “Setting up the Skeleton” I talk about the importance of model topology and deformation.

The tutorials are using my character rigging plugins, but the concepts are fairly basic, and can be applied to any toolset and any application.

The tutorials are a work in progress, so there are more tutorials to come.

Adios,
Cactus Dan

Cinema 4D R10 XL Bundle, BodyPaint, Dynamics
http://www.cactus3d.com
http://www.cactus3d.com/Plugins.html

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

First of all I would suggest making a couple of changes in your ExtrudeNURBS and Spline parameters, to get a more even subdivision in the geometry:

Then use the menu “Functions/Current State to Object” to convert it to polygonal objects. Then select all of the polygonal objects (sides, caps and rounding) and use the menu “Functions/Connect” to connect them into one object. Make sure to use the “Functions/Optimize” command on the resulting object so that the caps and rounding are welded to the sides.

If you do all of the above you’ll get better deformations.

Then I’d do like Brian said and rig it with a spline IK. You can then put the spline IK targets in their own hierarchy so you can create a single controller to control their height:
https://www.cactus3d.com/PullTab.mov

Adios,
Cactus Dan

Cinema 4D R10 XL Bundle, BodyPaint, Dynamics
http://www.cactus3d.com
http://www.cactus3d.com/Plugins.html

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

I agree with what Brian suggested. The important thing to remember, though is to make the geometry a second child of its respective bone, so that your hierarchy looks something like this in the Object Manager:

+Bone
+-Bone
+–Bone
+—Geometry
+–Geometry
+-Geometry

You should never interrupt the flow of the IK calculation by inserting geometry in between the bones of an IK chain.

Adios,
Cactus Dan

Cinema 4D R10 XL Bundle, BodyPaint, Dynamics
http://www.cactus3d.com
http://www.cactus3d.com/Plugins.html

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

It’s difficult to analyze the problem without seeing the file, or at least a screen shot of the problem in the viewport along with a screen shot of the setup in the Object Manager.

Adios,
Cactus Dan

Cinema 4D R10 XL Bundle, BodyPaint, Dynamics
http://www.cactus3d.com
http://www.cactus3d.com/Plugins.html

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

A bug was found in the CD Select All Same command that would cause a crash, so there is a service update release available that fixes this bug, which you can download from my web site.

Also, I’ve added a new option to Auto Keyframe the transfers in some of the transfer commands’ options dialogs:

Remember, there is a button in the CD Transfer Tools About dialog box that you can click at anytime to check my news page for updates:

Adios,
Cactus Dan

Cinema 4D R10 XL Bundle, BodyPaint, Dynamics
http://www.cactus3d.com
http://www.cactus3d.com/Plugins.html

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

Well, there are a couple of ways you can do it.

if the cubes are editable objects, you can use the Axis tool to position the cubes’ axes so that they’re located at the proper pivot points of the leg. Then make sure the Z axis of each one is pointing to the next child object down. Then you can apply the IK directly to the cubes:
https://www.cactus3d.com/IKOnCubes.mov

Or, you can setup the IK on joints, and then piggyback the cubes to the joints by making them children of the joints. But, make sure they’re made “second” children of their respective joint so you don’t break up the flow of the IK calculation:
https://www.cactus3d.com/CubesOnJoints.mov

I hope that helps.

Adios,
Cactus Dan

Cinema 4D R10 XL Bundle, BodyPaint, Dynamics
http://www.cactus3d.com
http://www.cactus3d.com/Plugins.html

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

If you constrain the points to Null objects, you can then animate the Null objects to control the spline points. This will give you more control over the animation of the spline, because you then have access to the Null objects’ Fcurves.

My CD Constraints plugin includes a CD Points Constraint which makes it easy to setup:
https://www.cactus3d.com/CDPointsConstraint.mov

Adios,
Cactus Dan

Cinema 4D R10 XL Bundle, BodyPaint, Dynamics
http://www.cactus3d.com
http://www.cactus3d.com/Plugins.html

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

The second video tutorial on character rigging basics now has the first 2 chapters uploaded:
“Skeleton Setup” and “Setting up the Leg”

Adios,
Cactus Dan

Cinema 4D R9 XL Bundle, BodyPaint, Dynamics
http://www.cactus3d.com
http://www.cactus3d.com/Plugins.html

[Cactus Dan]

Howdy,

I’m afraid that is one of the limitations with Mocca IK. I had something similar that was just an accordian folded paper and I did it with a user data slider controlling the rotations, so in a sense it was pushing them out from the base (FK) rather than pulling them out from the tip (IK).

Adios,
Cactus Dan

Cinema 4D R9 XL Bundle, BodyPaint, Dynamics
http://www.cactus3d.com
http://www.cactus3d.com/Plugins.html