FreeStyle Rigging (SMR Tool)

Part of the Smart Magnet Rig workflow

Functionality

An interactive tool for creating and editing Smart Magnet Rig ™ hierarchies.

FreeStyle Rigging (SMR Tool) is usually grouped with KineFlex (SMR Tool).

It can be chosen by long-clicking the KineFlex icon and then choosing from the drop-down or by using the FreeStyle Rigging (SMR Tool) command or pressing F4. The cursor becomes a +.
In Animate 2020 and newer, click on the [ ··· ] at the bottom of the toolbar, find the tool's icon in the pool of tools and drag it to a desired location in toolbar. (Click for details…)

Rigging
Rigging is done in direction from 'parent' to 'child'.
Best practice would be to start from the Master Parent and branch out from there according to a FK logic.

Clicking on a Symbol instance and dragging in the direction of another Symbol instance will draw bounding boxes around the source and the target instance and will show a dynamic arrow pointing from the source to the target. Upon mouse-release the target symbol will become a child of the source symbol. If Magnet Target is not present in the parent symbol it will be added automatically and so will be a Center Marker in the child symbol.

Refine MT Position (Alt+double-click)
Quick and easy editing of the position of a Magnet Target from the outside.
In cases when a rig element's snap position needs to be adjusted, this can also be done from the outside (v.7). Choose the new position of the element, for example the upper arm. With FreeStyle Rigging as your current tool, hold down [ Alt ] and double-click the element. This will move the symbol's corresponding MT to match the current location or its Registration point.

Bounding Box Trim (Shift+)
While FreeStyle Rigging is the current tool, holding down [ Shift ] will activate Bounding Box Trim mode. Clicking on a symbol and dragging will show 3 parallel, interactive arrows. Upon release, the bounding box of the symbol will become aligned with the direction of these arrows.
This is similar to Zero Transform, but it only affects the rotation component of the matrix – a very fast and intuitive way of trimming the bounding boxes of limbs or other rig elements.

Show SMR structure (Alt+Shift+)
To quickly see the SM Rig structure, hold down [ Alt+Shift ] and with the FreeStyle Rigging tool click and drag a little over any rig element. The parent-child relationships will be visualized.

Suggested use

Smart Magnet Rigging. Read more…
Trimming of bounding boxes (See video below)

Where does it work?

Stage, Current Keyframe

EDAP Tools shortcut

F4 (FreeStyle Rigging Tool becomes the active tool); Shift+F4settings in Animate (Quick Settings)
Modifier keys: Alt+double-click (Refine MT position); Shift+ (Bounding Box Trim); Alt+Shift+ (Show SMR structure)

Settings

You can open FreeStyle Rigging Settings from Commands > EDAPT Control Panel > FreeStyle Rigging or Quick Settings via the Shift+F4settings in Animate shortcut.

Two color swatches (Animate only) where you can choose the highlight color for the source and target boxes which appear around symbols, during rigging.

Enter Symbol after MT re-position – is ON by default as it can be useful as a visual confirmation of the successful edit.

Notes

FreeStyle Rigging (SMR Tool) will not work if the current frame is not a Keyframe.

FreeStyle Rigging (SMR Tool) will not work on Parented Layers (PL).
(To convert Parented Layers to a Smart Magnet Rig, use SMRize Parented in the SMR Helpers panel.)

Known issues

Plugin tool script error in method mouseUp: If you see this message in Output, that means that the JSFL engine has crashed the tool. You need to restart Flash / Animate to be able to continue using it.

System Clipboard interference
A known issue with all versions of Flash and Animate is that data stored temporarily in the System Clipboard can be exposed to interference by other programs running at the same time as Flash/Animate. This can cause an error during EDAPT Object creation or insertion.

If you see any error messages or if you experience problems during FreeStyle Rigging, please, follow this link.

Zero Transform (Bounding Box Trim) can only work in a container which has not been rotated, skewed or flipped.
To successfully complete a Bounding Box Trim operation, exit your container, right-click on it and choose "Edit", "Edit Selected" or "Edit in New Window". This will open the content for editing without the external transformations.

Video demonstrations

This tool is part of the Flanimate Power Tools package. Get the latest version from Downloads.