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I’m pasting a reply I made to you below. I’m putting it here as a new comment incase you didn’t see it as a reply comment.
Thanks Jerry, again, for putting up with me. I sent you an email last night that was about this same topic. It had a few screenshots. As I haven’t finished video 17, there’s no point in sending my blend file. What I would ask is, can I simply do the two videos that covered the foreleg but this time doing it for the back leg? Using a “B” instead of an “F” in the bone names? Thanks again. I’m grateful you haven’t kicked me out of the course. Less patient instructors might have!
I have received your message and email, so please don’t worry.
In your email, you mentioned the project files for intermediate steps, so we will be updating the tutorial soon with corresponding attachments for each part to help everyone with their learning process.
Regarding the hind leg rigging issue, you can certainly follow the process of rigging the front leg to complete the hind leg. However, I still recommend that you watch the entire video of Lesson 17. While the front and hind legs are similar, there are still some differences. In Lesson 17, we cover not only matching the positions of the bones when copying the front leg rig to the hind leg, but also some modifications that need to be made due to the structural differences.
Additionally, I will respond to the issues you mentioned in your email as soon as possible, so please bear with me.
Thank you Jerry.
I found my paw pad helper bones on the front paw…I had them in a TEMP bone collection.
If possible I could send my blend file via file transfer or something.
Of course! You can upload your project files via Dropbox or Google Drive. Alternatively, you can simply send them to me via email as attachments.
I’m sorry to hear about the issue you mentioned with the comments section. Unfortunately, that’s something beyond my control at the moment, but I will do my best to pass along your feedback regarding the problem.
I wish this comment section would allow for paragraphs. I see that it simply puts all the sentences together into one paragraph. making it hard to read. Or at least unpleasant to read.
I know you have told me to relax and take everything in stride. At 76 years old I understand that completely. My previous comments were not about any of that. Yesterday I did video 16 here, Foreleg Rigging-Assigning Shapes. It took me over 7 hours to complete.
Here is why. You go so fast. I have to watch the video at half speed. Even then I have to stop every few seconds to try to understand what you a re doing, what bone you are selecting, what mode you are in [pose, edit, object]. The ony way I know what bones is being selected is to look at the info bar in the upper right of the 3D viewport where the selected bone is displayed. I finished video 16 and everything worked perfectly, so I didn’t mind that I had to go so slow in order to do it correctly.
The main problem is the differences in the bone collections in Blender 3.6 (whiich you use) and Blender 4.2 (which I am using). Even though you provided blend files for both versions, they are bone collections of the finished model, not of just the bones created at the point in time of the video being studied. So I solely depend on being able to see each bone as it is selected to make sure I am doing the operation on the correct bones, selected in the correct sequence (for parenting and constraining).
That brings me to today and my utter failure to make any progress on video 17, Hind Leg Rigging. Here you mostly box select bones and bone tails and heads. When you box select, the selected bone is not displayed in the info bar and therefore I am totally lost. I got as far as maybe 9 minutes into the video. Here you are saying, “The position of the paw pad’s helper bones are not correct.”
At this point you are placing a copied bone fromthe front paw called “DEF_sole_F_d.L.002” and moving to the top of the bone called, “DEF_sole_B_d.L.”
This is one of the few bones you are not box selecting, the .002 bone. What throws me off here is that where you are placing these copied bones on the back paw I do not see them on the front paw as “paw pad helper bones” or if they are, they are not placed on top of any other bones on the front paw.
So that too confuses me.
All of my bone snapping has been guesswork up to this point as most of the bones you have used box selection to select so I had to guess by selecting visually. As there are bones that overlap other bones I don’t know if I got it right. So I am stopping until I hear back from you as to how I can overcome this problem. Thanks for your understanding.
Hi there,
I totally understand where you’re coming from, and I appreciate your dedication in working through these lessons. However, I think it might be helpful if you try focusing more on understanding the reasoning behind each step rather than strictly following the tutorial frame by frame. Let me explain the approach I use in the course, which may help clear things up a bit:
For example, when rigging the hind legs, we copy the rig from the front legs because the structure is quite similar. The key is to match the copied bones from the front leg to the appropriate positions on the hind leg, including the controllers and the auxiliary bones for each joint. When working on the front leg, the bone controlling the lifting of the paw is positioned at the second joint of the toes. So, when you copy this controller to the hind leg, you’ll also need to move it to the second joint of the hind leg’s toes. Similarly, the auxiliary bones and controllers for the toes need to be moved to the corresponding joints on the hind leg. Does this make things a bit clearer? This understanding will help you figure out which bones to select and manipulate.
As for the version differences, don’t worry too much about the bone layers—these are just for organization and shouldn’t affect the actual rigging process. What’s more important is understanding the role of each bone you are selecting, whether it’s a helper bone, a deformation bone, or a controller. This knowledge will give you more flexibility in setting up your own bone layers and managing them however it works best for you.
The goal is to focus on what each bone does rather than which layer it’s on. Once you get comfortable with that, you can more easily navigate the small differences between Blender versions without getting stuck.
I understand how you might be feeling at this point—it can be frustrating! But what do you think about trying this approach? Maybe give it a shot, and see if focusing on the underlying concepts makes things easier to manage. Let me know how that works out for you, and don’t hesitate to ask any more questions!
Thanks Jerry, again, for putting up with me. I sent you an email last night that was about this same topic. It had a few screenshots. As I haven’t finished video 17, there’s no point in sending my blend file. What I would ask is, can I simply do the two videos that covered the foreleg but this time doing it for the back leg? Using a “B” instead of an “F” in the bone names? Thanks again. I’m grateful you haven’t kicked me out of the course. Less patient instructors might have!
I’m finding it difficult to know which bones you are selecting (I am at around 2:38 in the video) when yoou “box select). What can I do ? I am in Blender 4.2.1. I have my bones and controllers inside the bone collections that I copied from the .blend file you provided for download but it is still not clear what bones you are selecting. I sure could use some help here. Thanks
The two bones “IK_ankle_B.L.007” and “IK_ankle_B.L.012” copied from the front foot are selected here. The corresponding bones in the front foot are named “IK_ankle_F.L.004” and “IK_ankle_F.L.006”.
Thanks Jerry, I just posted the comment above this one that you replied to. So this problem of not knowing what bones are being selected is ongoing. Thanks for the clarification of these four bones.