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I have been learning about blender for a few weeks now and I am currently attempting to make my first character in Blender. I have come to the point where I am about satisfied with the model parts I created and for now I want to rig the character (with rigify) and then see if I can animate it. I have made an armature and a rigify rig for it. In order to connect the deform bones to my character model I read I have to parent the rig to my character. In order to do that it seems I should join all the objects that make up the character first and then parent the rig to it.

overview before joining closeup before joining

Before doing so, I applied modifiers such as mirror and solidify. I did not apply the hair particles, because if I do they become inflated. Then when I join all objects, some of them become messed up and the character looks weird. For example, all of the hair particles on the face and green coat collar are gone/deformed, the vest material scale is inflated, eyeballs red, hat ring material pattern deformed. Coat buttons and trousers are also changed. This can be seen in the images below.

closeup after joining

closeup 2 after joining

To me it seems that it (partially?) may have to do with scale issues. I probably have not applied scale where it was needed (& need to learn about this). If I apply scale on my hair objects regardless of joining, the hairs become huge. On the other objects I can seem to succesfully apply scale without change. I have no parents active.

Does anybody have ideas on what causes the problem and how I can go about fixing it? I hope I did not mess up beyond repair. Please let me know if additional info is required.

Thanks in advance!

Thomas enter image description here

Firebee
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  • This is expected behaviour, as when you hoin it, the particle modifier is removed and all the scales are reverted to a single object's scale. Therefore, I would recommend you first apply the scales of all the objects by pressing Ctrl + A > Scale and when joining, make sure to select the object with the hair particles last, it should be highlighted light orange instead of dark orange. Or you could parent each object with automatic weights to the armature. – Yousuf Chaudhry Jul 06 '22 at 16:08
  • Hello Yousuf, thanks for your reply! I have applied scale now on all objects except for the ones with hair particles. How can I go about selecting the hair objects last when joining, since are multiple hair objects (head hair, mustache, eyebrows, collar, etc.) and I can only seem to get one object highlighted light orange? As for the other option, to clarify, do you mean parent each object separately to the rig (select the rig, then hold ctrl and select the object (light orange), then parent - automatic weights and repeat for each object)? – Firebee Jul 06 '22 at 18:01
  • You can apply scale on your hair objects, and then go to the particles system and scale the hair down. Then apply the hair particle modifier, it will be okay. Then you won't have any problem joining everything. Or you could join the main body parts/clothes and parent the hair objects to the face/whole joined mesh excluding the hair. – Yousuf Chaudhry Jul 06 '22 at 21:34
  • Tell me if this works, I could make an answer then. Also consider uploading your .blend file: https://blend-exchange.com – Yousuf Chaudhry Jul 06 '22 at 21:35
  • Okay, I found out that if I disconnect the hair, then apply scale, and reconnect only the diameter changes a little, which I have now adjusted to the right levels. So now the hair is looking good with scale applied. But when I apply the particle modifier the hair particles are gone and instead the emitter faces (I used part of the head as base to emit hairs from) is shown. See the newly added picture in the post. However, parenting the hair to the head does work now. – Firebee Jul 07 '22 at 12:27
  • Also, joining clothing parts together still results in a change in pattern size of the material, even though I applied scale succesfully on every part without it changing appearance. Do I need to change something in the material manually? – Firebee Jul 07 '22 at 14:36
  • Update: I did manage to readjust the material appearance fairly good manually. Furthermore I tried joining hair objects individually to the head the right way. Sadly the hair particles are visible, but instead the head itself disappears. Same goes for the hairs I have on the coat collar, the hairs stay but the collar itself becomes invisible. I have looked for this online and tried changing some settings, but to no avail. And when actually applying the hair particle system, the head is visible but the hair particles disappear, and only show the emitter faces. Do you have any more suggestions? – Firebee Jul 07 '22 at 20:13
  • Don't apply the hair particles modifier. Click the Convert to Mesh button on the modifier and then just remove the modifier. It should solve it. If it works, tell me, I'll convert it to an answer. – Yousuf Chaudhry Jul 07 '22 at 20:23
  • @YousufChaudhry No, converting particles to mesh is a very bad idea if you want to animate the character. The created mesh can easily have several million vertices. It's not fun to weight paint and animate this. – Blunder Jul 08 '22 at 03:09
  • Kindly attach your .blend file. Also, do not join the hair particles object to the face. Just parent them to the face, and since everything else is working, when you move your rigged head the hair objects will follow. Don't apply the hair particles or anything. – Yousuf Chaudhry Jul 08 '22 at 09:14
  • Converting the hair to mesh looks weird for me (black hairs mixed in). I parented the hairs and the hat to the head, and the head to the rest of the joined body. Now when I move the character everything moves with it! Also I deleted the collar hairs entirely because that made moving the character slow (1 million hairs). Problem now is when parented to the deform bones of the rig, the head does not move with the rest of the body with the rig controls and other parts like the coat are not deformed properly. Maybe because the head & clothing vertices are not connected since I built them seperate? – Firebee Jul 08 '22 at 13:21
  • Thanks for your help so far. Parenting appears to solve part of the issue. I will attach my blend file in the description so you are better able to take a look at the rig problem. Let me know if it is customary to make a new topic for this instead. – Firebee Jul 08 '22 at 13:26
  • Unfortunately I am unable to upload the file, even after removing all materials/textures from it and trying unpacking and cleaning data blocks, i can not get it below 58 mb. – Firebee Jul 08 '22 at 18:15
  • @Firebee you can share it via google drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, https://wetransfer.com/ (press the (...) menu to create a link, no account required), or try https://mega.io – Blunder Jul 08 '22 at 18:49
  • Good suggestion, here it is including the materials hopefully. https://we.tl/t-VToRsxL2Jy – Firebee Jul 09 '22 at 10:35
  • There are a few issues with your model. 1) It has flipped normals I think that is caused by the Solidify modifier. Something went wrong 2) the mesh is a bit dense and heavy for animation. Maybe do a retopology of the head? 3) it has a lot of loose parts and automatic weights won't work well. Have a look here https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/233759/107598 – Blunder Jul 14 '22 at 02:10
  • Hi Blunder, Thanks for your analysis and the link! I shall try following those steps. It is clear to me that animating a character can be quite a complex process (for a beginner atleast). Thank you both for helping me on my way. – Firebee Jul 14 '22 at 18:56

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