HELP ME...motion designer problem

[jfanale3]

Hey guys,
look, i been workin on this project with my character and his trenchcoat. I dont know if any of you have run into this problem but if you have, please help me....

My trenchcoat is in layer two, the guy in layer 1, i have the coat parented to my guy and using bones from layer 1...the problem is, i have been using the root bone to move my guy around, (i feel i have much more control) but for somereason, doing that, does not bring the bounding box of my character with it...so, becuase i have the MD Coat parented to layer 1 object, the MD Motion part of the coat does not follow the guy, it stays the bounding box....
WHAT DO I DO????

if that made any sense to anyone, or if anyone has any ideas, please let me know, i really dont want to do the animation over using the object instead of the root bone to move him

thanks
jim

[andy gee]

Hiya

right i read your problem and can suggest a couple of things.

If i understand it your trying to animate a character doing

a motion or whatever, then have his trenchcoat follow that

motion. (Hope thats right) 1 suggestion would be DONT

Move your character about using one of the bones i know it

might be easier but it will just give you problems. Instead use the

Null heirarchy system ie all of your IK nulls, character object

parented to a null called master, then parent that to another null

call handle that way you can move one null for the entire rig and

create key frames etc for the entire rig also.

2 would be to parent the trench coat object to one of the spine

bones in your character preferably the last one under the neck.

that way if you move or rotate the pelvis or any of the other

spine bones the coat will follow (note that the coat object will

go through your character object, because MD is not added).

Animate your character as normal. then Pick the character object,

Clone it, then replace it with a low rez polygon version of the

character ie shoulders and back or whatever !! Then create a

simulation. That way you should be able to select the characters

bounding box etc.. another little tip would be to place the master

null in the middle of the character, instead of 0,0,0 like the handle

this is because, for me i like to make my characters jump and

having it at 0,0,0 creates problems. Anyway hope this helps

Andy Gee