Zspheres Rig, Adaptive Skin

[system]

omg, i’m such a noob.

okay, so. i want to create a zsphere rig for a spider creature. easy enough. then i want to model details… but keep the armature/rig/zspheres base.

so i am using adaptive skin. i’m NOT using zsketch spheres or unified skin. that’s… just not working for me. i have a sphereish body and tube legs, so i just want the skin to follow the zsphere base.

then i thought… it would be faster/easier (haha) to model one pair of legs and copy them to use as the other legs. no? well.

1: is it actually possible to select multiple zspheres (ie a ‘limb’), copy them, and paste them into the zsphere rig?

i couldn’t find anything on that, so what i then decided to do was to do the body and legs separately. so i added another zsphere subtool and made one pair of legs. what i want to do now, is what i apparently did with the original spider, which is to get a subtool that is the adaptive skin of this zsphere armature. but pressing the ‘make adaptive skin’ button is not doing anything.

2: when i “make adaptive skin” where is this skin/mesh supposed to appear?

according to my notes… i had the spider zsphere rig, i hit ‘make adaptive skin’ and then i added a subtool and selected the new tool thingy zbrush made out of it.

but as i’m trying to do that with the legs… when i’m in zsphere mode, the tool is a set of zspheres. when i go into adaptive skin preview, it looks like the adaptive skin, but then it loses my zsphere leg armature.
also…

3: why does the current ‘tool’ preview icon have a number in the upper left corner?

oh, is that the stack of subtools? so… the current tool is BASICALLY a snapshot of my whole document at this point??
3a: how do i get just the new adaptive skin to go into my subtool list? without removing my zsphere version of it?

so what am i doing that is impossible to do?

[Altea]

1: is it actually possible to select multiple zspheres (ie a ‘limb’), copy them, and paste them into the zsphere rig?
No

2: when i “make adaptive skin” where is this skin/mesh supposed to appear?
It creates another tool that you can find in the tool list. Another tool, not a subtool in the same tool you currently have.
The preview is only that, a preview, and the tool only will be generated when you hit the make adaptive skin button
The new tool will not have appended the original zsphere structure, that remains in his original tool. You can link them as a rig in the rigging menu of the zsphere.

3: why does the current ‘tool’ preview icon have a number in the upper left corner?
It is the number of the subtools

3a: how do i get just the new adaptive skin to go into my subtool list? without removing my zsphere version of it?
You don’t need to move the create geometry to the zsphere tool. Simply use the rigging menu.

so what am i doing that is impossible to do?
?

[system]

thank you! i am a bit more comfortable with understanding what is going on here.

annnnd then i ran into some more advanced questions.

1: how do i turn on/activate forward kinematics for the zspheres?
like, if i create an arm with upper arm, elbow, and forearm all the exact proportions i want, but then i want to rotate the arm from the shoulder… or if i want to move the whole limb?
is that only active with a mesh bound to the zsphere rig?

2: how do i model the attached skin?
OH I FOUND IT! hit A to show the skin!

3: how do i “yaw” the limbs? (aka twist)
with the armature rigged, i can bend the limbs, but how do i rotate a limb around its own axis? i can’t seem to figure this one out.

thanks a bunch!

[Altea]

1 - Rotate a hierarchy - If you drag in rotate mode the link between the spheres (no the spheres) the following hierarchy will rotate. Use alt to change 90 degrees the rotation angle if needed.
3 - twist -drag Sphere in rotate mode (rotate only the zsphere, no the link between spheres) Notice that can feel unresponsive as rotates with small increments.