Just animating the Jaw and Hand here :
… I could have probably pipped in the waveform into the rotation of the jaw… hmmm…
… I could have probably pipped in the waveform into the rotation of the jaw… hmmm…
4 Likes
Haha, I love this. 
1 Like
Hands?
Yes hands and fingers!
I’ve put some distance constraints between the knuckles to keep things a bit more glued together.
I think I might do one more acting piece tomorrow with this guys with the improved fingers/ hand and save the new rig here then. Just wanted to make sure the hands were working well before uploading .
6 Likes
THE RIG, for all the play with!
Have fun and please share if you use this to make any cool performances 
Download
pirate.zip (7.6 MB)
Usage Video
You should find:
- Pirate rig
- Mug rig
- Textures
Happy simulation!
4 Likes
Gah, so flippin’ cool… Thank you for sharing 
1 Like
Awesome work yet again @Jason !
Now, and I feel like I’ve asked for this before, but is there going to be a tutorial for setting up this guy in Ragdoll? (I’m in the process of watching the latest Live Stream but that appears to be only animation, which of course is still highly valuable 
)
This appears to be the closest character representing production work so it would be invaluable to see Ragdoll construction including the how you came upon the values you and how you tested, and any control rig specifics you utilized to enhance Ragdoll performance (acting, not speed ‘performance’).
As always thank you!
-Steven
EDIT: Also, in creating the custom Mesh Shapes for the entire body, did you use Automatic Mesh Islands or did you create bespoke hulls yourself?
It would be awfully similar to the existing tutorials on the Manikin, there is nothing new here in terms of character setup, except more use of Replace Mesh and also including some fingers.
You can inspect the character and setup for yourself too, the link to download it is right above your post. 
Yea well, be that as it may, the point would be to replicate a quality character setup. Manikin 1 is functionally fine, but clearly @Jason spent a lot of time massaging the Pirate to perform as he needed, including introducing Distance constraints on the fingers which wasn’t explained as to why that was necessary. Also the Mesh Shapes I asked about…bespoke or using the new tool you ‘just’ introduced?
So perhaps it would be similar to Manikin 1, but it would be far more mature and represent a production quality asset that Manikin 1 simply does not.
I clearly support the tool and want to see it succeed and grow, so I imagined you would want to constantly improve the education for it. I learned the tool just fine as evidenced by our chats on Discord, but the reason I suggest a tutorial here is to expedite past the 101’s and start thinking of executing with Ragdoll on a production level. Tinkering, theory and concept are fine but application is invaluable.
Hi Steve,
You bring up some good points, I think an in depth look at a good hand setup is for sure something I could do, The distance constraints were there acting as tissue holding together the bones, without them having a loose pose strength would cause the hand to splay open . Rather than pumping up the pose strength value to try hold them together I thought using distance constraints felt like a more elegant solution.
Heya Jason and yea that makes sense…I think.
So then why use the Distance Constraints on the fingers and not any other joint? Perhaps because there would be greater stresses from interlocking the fingers?
Also, I didn’t notice any angle limits on any other joint but the metacarpals; I would reason to create realistic limits on a given joint. Is it safe to assume you didn’t find the need since you were driving most of the performance from the control rig and wanted to have ‘wiggle’ room for poses or did you feel it wasn’t necessary? I’d assume then that the hands used limits so they wouldn’t shear apart?
Lastly (I think I bury this question in each of my posts as it seems to be overlooked each time lol)…
…did you create bespoke hulls for the collision shapes or did you use Ragdoll Auto Mesh Islands to create them?
Thanks man!!
-Steven