I have broken down a character in photoshop and imported it into 4.5, as I mentioned in my previous post all the elements were huge, taking your advice (thanks) I switched to “camera view”. I selected my character and shrunk it down to fit the screen and proceeded to rename my elements (it would have been nice if the photoshop layer names came along!) Then, onto setting up the hierarchy as laid out in the workout series. The problem is, as I drag the elements onto their “parent” they disappear! When the process is finished I’m left with hips or torso, nothing else. I find this whole rigging business seriously non-intuitive, why is the torso attached to the hips? The tutorial, though far better than the previous ones, still rockets through critical areas like: Why do I attach the arms to the hips not the torso?
Well, can’t say anything about the “workout series” - haven’t worked with them.
Importing the layered photoshop file, check “Fit image to camera width”.
(it would be indeed very nice if TBS could import the layer-names as well)
I guess, the elements haven’t disappeared, they just “shrunk” and hiding behind their parent. Hide the parent and you might find them there.
Regarding building hierarchies, - think in “anatomical-terms” of your character,
this process is really “straight-forward”, fairly easy to build.
You might consider, not cutting your character in Photoshop, but TBS.
Import and vectorize your image: (with an alpha-channel “transparent background”).
Cut these image (it’s a drawing now) with Scissor- or Cutter-Tool to size and save all parts into a different drawing-element, and then assemble your hierarchy.
Major advantage of this technique, the whole image is still contained in every single drawing-element.
Select any drawing element, select the Contour-Editor and move some points around and you will see what I mean.
Now one can round joints, modify overlapping areas…e.g.
Cheers
Nolan