Help with armature problem

[MadGypsy]

Do you know your way around a blender armature? If so, I need you to give me some info.

First, let me tell you exactly what's happened here.

1) I built half a rig and a control rig. I properly named everything someName.L
2) I duplicated all .L bones and scaled them x-1 around a perfectly 0 located cursor
3) I then used armature/flip names to convert all .L duplicates to .R
4) My meshs mirror has been applied and the entire mesh has been triangulated
5) I selected the mesh and then the armature cntrl+P (parent-armature/ create from bone heat)

What those 5 steps are trying to tell you is: My left and right armature is properly named and renamed. My mesh is entire (no mirrors) and the right side armature is in EXACTLY the opposite location from the left. My parenting was done properly.

All that being said, I get good deformation on the left forearm but when I copy/paste location rotation to the right, the below image happens. Take note of the models right forearm. It only seems to be the forearm bone doing this. The legs and everything seem to work fine. Weight painting is solid blue on the entire model.

[MadGypsy]

A little more info - because I want to make this as easy as possible to narrow down.

The little boxes you see to the sides of the model are control bones to manipulate the elbow, they are IK'd to the upper arm bone. The forearm's deform bone has a number of segments in it and any bezier curving has been eliminated by setting in and out to 0. The hand control bone is IK'd to the forearm control bone.

I'm not sure if any of this matters cause as you can see from the image the left side works fine. The right side is an exact duplicate of the left. I have even deleted the entire right side armature, did unparenting, etc.. reduplicated the left and flipped renamed it to the right, followed by a reparenting. There is no doubt these armatures are identical.

edit: deform has already been removed from all control bones.

[MadGypsy]

I believe I figured it out. I have at least figured out one thing and we will see if it fixes the problem. Duplicating the armature and then scaling it x-1 destroys the roll of the bone. When I went in really close and started comparing values with left and right, all my rools on the right were wrong. I'm going over the entire right side adding the proper roll right now.

Instead of double posting, Imma do that and be right back...

___

Back...

Yup, that was it. I made sure that all right bones had identically negative left bone values (and that sucked cause it was a lot of info to check). Model deformation is back on track.

[MadGypsy]

Don't make me crane kick ya, son.

[Sza]

Hmm. A very nice interesting tutor for 3d noobs modellers like me . I have an idea. I will give you the best pose/frame of the q2 soldier okay? and you could try if its so easy to do. Remember the uv map should stay no tuoched, and you should not to add new polys... you can change the angle of the bodyparts. Are you ready for a small test? If your method is faster and/or more precise i will use it. What do you think?

I have installed before 10 minutes 3d max 2012 and my md2 importer/exporter, and i will now download and install blender.

[MadGypsy]

Easy? lol I stayed up til 6:30 this morning building this rig and I started around midnight. I just spent an hour checking the head, tail and roll values of every single bone and reassigning the left values to the right, by hand, where they didn't match up.

Test? No, no tests. I'm in the middle of doing something. I didn't make this thread or armature for educational purposes. I'm building a thing right now and that's what I'm doing.

[Dutch]

Don't make me crane kick ya, son.

Lmao.

So for future reference...the armature basically needs to be built up on both sides without negative scaling to avoid the problem? Because I'd rather learn from this experience than bang my head against a wall later on.

[Sza]

@MG you should make one foken project/model to the end son

Update it looks like i must to learn my self how to use blender because i have lost my key for 3d max

[MadGypsy]

What are you talking about... I'm in the middle of 7,0000,0000 projects that are all going to the end.

I hear what you're saying though. The thing is, I almost never have a simple idea. Look at this cloneman ranger. I know it's a little bit shitty but let's overlook that and consider what has been done to it.

1) I built a base mesh and made a lot of considerations regarding proportions and edgeflow. I know both could be even better, and one day they will be.

2) pulled the most obvious details of the ranger out of the clone

3) added a bunch of materials to the clone, marked my seams, unwrapped it, mapped it, baked an AO map, baked a color map, combined them

4) created an entire armature complete with control rig and IK chains, as well ads some other misc. controllers

5) weight paint - this is where I am. Just dicking around with it really.

next I have to animate, followed by making everything I already did a lot better.

All that work just for this one little model and that work is microscopic in comparison to the work it will take to build sitephyre. Actually, I officially hate that name, gonna have to change it.

[MadGypsy]

So for future reference...the armature basically needs to be built up on both sides without negative scaling to avoid the problem? Because I'd rather learn from this experience than bang my head against a wall later on.

woops, I missed this.

No the armature does not need to be built on both sides. Actually, that would require even more work because you would still be faced with the problem of perfectly reversing everything. How do you get shoulder.R to be exactly where shoulder.L is? Also you would have to name EVERY bone. I only named the left half of them and used a menu item to overwrite the other half.

The problem is, sx-1 around a cursor will destroy the roll of every -scaled bone. I don't know why. There are things I haven't tried though. For instance maybe r180sy-1 will have proper bone roll. Maybe there is a way to copy the left sides values and apply them all at once to the right side...possibly correcting everything. I tried the buttons that are clearly used for that purpose and nothing happened. Maybe I did it wrong though.

[Sza]

What are you talking about... I'm in the middle of 7,0000,0000 projects that are all going to the end.

woops, I missed this.

No the armature does not need to be built on both sides. Actually, that would require even more work because you would still be faced with the problem of perfectly reversing everything. How do you get shoulder.R to be exactly where shoulder.L is? Also you would have to name EVERY bone. I only named the left half of them and used a menu item to overwrite the other half.

The problem is, sx-1 around a cursor will destroy the roll of every -scaled bone. I don't know why. There are things I haven't tried though. For instance maybe r180sy-1 will have proper bone roll. Maybe there is a may to copy the left sides values and apply them all at once to the right side...possibly correcting everything. I tried the buttons that are clearly used for that purpose and nothing happened. Maybe I did it wrong though.

Yep, i thought the same but how the fok... it should be very easy with bones... I am not sure.
I am a litlle bit afraid because idk if blender have enugh good md2 importer/exporter but i think misfit model 3d will help me (i hope) a lot to export the models in a usable format for blender. I have started blender... and i am looking on the whole buttons and more... and i am feeling my self like a guy who is trying to start a airbus ("where is the start button?")

[Tea Monster]

You guys can save yourself a ton of hurt by looking up some tuts on "blender rigify". Oh, and look for the 'mirror axis' button on the tool bar.

Hate to be a traitor to the cause but if you know someone with a school email address, you can grab a copy of Max for free. You cant use it for work work but it would be ok for modding

[Sza]

I had the education licence ("student") but they have changed the rulez... I have used it since may be 5 years. The idea with mirror axis is good too. I have used it already yesterday, and before a year or may be more too, but i do this a litlle bit other. I simple chose one point on the left side to read the position and angle and i use it with the other point on the rights side but instead a mirror i use a grid.

[MadGypsy]

'mirror axis'

Nope just tried it, it destroys the roll of the bone as well.

I have also tried every possible combination to scale and rotate a duplicate into a mirror... same results.

[bluntz]

There is a KB command to snap the rolls to 0 CTRL + R ,then mirror copy.