Malcolm Mods

[admin]

Post any questions or topics about Malcolm Mods here.

A "mod" is a modified version of a character, made by a user. They should be sent to the "charactermods" address at animschool for any redistribution. AnimSchool does not support modified characters, but the author may provide support here on this forum, or elsewhere.

[pnarse20]

I was trying to download the MOD version of Malcolm from Josh Sobel, but when I follow the download link it didn't show the link. Can you check the problem?

[admin]

Hi. Sorry about that! Now fixed.

[pnarse20]

Thanks a lot Dave for such a amazing rig!

[AlexKS]

Hi Dave,

I'm looking to use the Malcom rig with a new 'mod' tuxedo outfit for the 11 second club competition. Looks great and can't wait to start so thanks!

I'm using Maya and have finished modelling up his new getup.

Is there a easy way to identify the joints I need to skin to?

I notice there is a quick selection set called 'armSkinning1' which looks to contain the joints for the hands arms and possibly upper body?

If there something similar for the legs? or a someway of easily getting to the relevant joints I should be skinning to?

Many Thanks,
Alex

[admin]

You can select any piece of skinned geometery and run this script to get the influences:

string $skinClusterMesh[];
$skinClusterMesh = `ls -sl`;
string $skinCluster = findRelatedSkinCluster($skinClusterMesh[0]);

string $influence[] = `skinCluster -q -inf $skinCluster`;

for($i = 0; $i < size($influence);$i++) {
select -add $influence[$i];
print ($influence[$i]+",\n");
}

[AlexKS]

awesome,
Thanks for the quick reply. I'll give it a go.
Cheers,

Alex

[matiuste]

Hi,

I've been trying to skin a new shirt for Malcolm rig.
I tried the Script but it isn't really accurate.

Do I need to bind the mesh to specifics joint or just binding it to any would do it?

Basicly I would need a bit more information for this method.

thanks!

[admin]

That script just *finds* what joints are in the skin cluster. You can skin your new object to those same joints.

Here is another, better workflow I think (shown on another character, but it should work for Malcolm):
I have NOT tried this.

[kevinpworth]

So I've been trying Jason's method (above) on a mod for Malcolm, and came across a couple issues so far.

After extruding the geometry on Malcolms UpperBody I noticed that the polygons I created had hard edges. I've been trying everything I can in order to soften thse edges but nothing seems to be working. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? And how to fix it?

Also, it looks as though changing the low res Geometry does not translate well when switching to the smoothed. I'm not sure if smoothing Malcolm would be an option with this method, but I could be wrong?

I am by no means a modeler/rigger so most of the stuff happening under the hood here is beyond my expertise. Has anyone else tried adjusting Malcolms geometry yet; or is everyone just playing with UV Maps; and adding props for their mods?

[admin]

Did you try Normals>Average Normals?

Or, if this method doesn't work for you, you can just make a collar and use a wrap deformer to attach it to the shirt.