What is the Trick to Genesis Collar/Shoulder Posing?

mikethe3dguy

I get myself in situations SO frequently where I'm trying to get a G8 to reach out and grab or hold something and find it virtually impossible to get the arm extension right! I'm Twisting and Bending and Front-Back'ing endlessly on two joints and all I need to do is to get his frickin' arm to move ACROSS his body instead of up and down, or vice versa! Drives me insane. I typically use sliders when posing. Richard once suggested that I use the rotational gizmos at the joints but when I try that all I get are crazy and erratic joint rotations that give me far worse results. I don't have these problems with any other body parts.

felis

I find that DS posing can be somewhat odd and clumsy.

But I often use the 3 rings around the gizmo. Then it will first light up a cirkel for where the rotation willb e.

mikethe3dguy

felis said:

I find that DS posing can be somewhat odd and clumsy.

But I often use the 3 rings around the gizmo. Then it will first light up a cirkel for where the rotation willb e.

Yeah, I hear you, but those (gizmo rings) give me erratic adjustments - difficult to control fine movement. Mostly the challenge I have is rotating the arm away from the centerline when it's sticking straight out in front of the torso (as when you're shaking hands).

felis

Doing small morement of the rings is ok for me. I hoover over the ring I want to use, click and hold, and then drag my mouse, and let go with the wanted result.

One thing to consider when posing the arm, it can be a combination of more bones. For the overall arm direction, I would say collar and shoulder bend.

mikethe3dguy

felis said:

One thing to consider when posing the arm, it can be a combination of more bones. For the overall arm direction, I would say collar and shoulder bend.

Yes, and it feels like I've exhausted all possibilities, and either have to compromise in some way or sometimes accidentally get it where I want it, or close.

barbult

I often leave the collar unchanged at the beginning, rotating only the shoulder and forearm. I find that the bent forearm gives me a lot of clues about how to rotate the shoulder. For example, if I know I want the arm across the chest, as in your example, I know I will want the forearm bent at a sharp angle. that would be about 80 on the right forearm or -80 on the left forearm. With the forearm already bent, I can play with the shoulder bend, twist and front-back to get the arm into place. Only then do I teak the collar if necessary.

Sometimes it can help to place the other hand on the shoulder bone of your own body as you move your arm into place, to feel how it is moving.

Everybody has a different technique, I think.

mikethe3dguy

barbult said:

I often leave the collar unchanged at the beginning, rotating only the shoulder and forearm. I find that the bent forearm gives me a lot of clues about how to rotate the shoulder. For example, if I know I want the arm across the chest, as in your example, I know I will want the forearm bent at a sharp angle. that would be about 80 on the right forearm or -80 on the left forearm. With the forearm already bent, I can play with the shoulder bend, twist and front-back to get the arm into place. Only then do I teak the collar if necessary.

Sometimes it can help to place the other hand on the shoulder bone of your own body as you move your arm into place, to feel how it is moving.

Everybody has a different technique, I think.

Thanks. That's similar to how I approach it often, but reading your reply makes me think that I might find some value in turning on bone visibility and playing with the rotations that way. Might yield a better understanding.

thoreandan

I think this problem is called gimbal lock, where the order of rotations you perform somehow makes them line up in a way that two of them act on the same axis. Definitely happens to me with the shoulder when I try posing it the way you're talking about. Suddenly, "bend" on the shoulder will just rotate the arm rather than moving in and out. In those cases, I usually resort to the universal gizmo, and in tool settings I'll change it from "local" to "world" so the rotations don't correspond directly to the gimbal-locked bone rotations.

Or, once the arm is out, I'll drag the hand directly in the viewport to get the arm to go where I want (either with viewport translation using the gizmo, or with Active Pose). So, if you have a figure reaching straight out, and want the shoulder to bend out a little so it looks more natural, I use the top down camera or move the perspective camera roughly to that position, and then click and drag the hand outwards and a little towards the body to get the shoulder to bend out a little. I might have to pin the chest so the dragging of the hand doesn't move the entire body.

function

My procedure is:

1. select a node such like collar, then partial apply a pose which is ctrl+double click a pose (the similar pose in your library), it will pop up a menu, then choose nodes-selected and accept it;

2. now partial of your figure has a similar pose as what you want, before you pull the bone for detail movement, you better lock all other bones, here I recommened V3Digitimes' Ultimate Pose Mixer which can easily lock unlock any bones. After lock unnecessary bones, you can freely pull the bone you want and will not affect other bones, or turn the dails in posing tab.

3. don't forget in Posing--Pose Control, there are a lot of detailed dails to provide partial body poses.

Not so difficult, is it?