aescripts + aeplugins

edmund fletcher · March 2018

Hi there looks like a nice simple rigging system for Vector layers and if I understand right via the bones/joint option, in full version , you could parent a bitmap or vector layer to any joint in the rig

Trial started up fine the first time -but now every time try to apply a new rig I get script errors looking for undefined groups etc...apologies if Im doing something silly?

cheers Edmund

uma guru · March 2018

Nice work.....really loved it...more like rubberhose but with MORE PRECISE CONTROL over the limbs....

Christian Kunwald · March 2018

What is the main benefit of Limber compared to Rubberhose... the speed if you are using CC2018?

Adrian Gatchalian · March 2018

I was disappointed. I was expecting that I could use the "Swap" on my version CC2017. But no.

That's the only problem i had with Rubberhose

Steve Kirby · March 2018

Adrian Gatchalian said:

I was disappointed. I was expecting that I could use the "Swap" on my version CC2017. But no.
That's the only problem i had with Rubberhose

Hey Adrian, I'm sorry to hear you're disappointed. The description does say that the Swap button does not function in AE CC2017 and earlier, but if you submit a support ticket we can arrange for a full refund.

Steve Kirby · March 2018

Christian Kunwald said:

What is the main benefit of Limber compared to Rubberhose... the speed if you are using CC2018?

There are a few differences between RubberHose and Limber, and some similarities too. I know you can't download a trial version of RubberHose but if you're familiar with it already, why not download the trial version of Limber and see for yourself how they compare. Everyone has a slightly different point of view about the pros and cons of tools depending on how they like to work.

Steve Kirby · March 2018

uma guru said:

Nice work.....really loved it...more like rubberhose but with MORE PRECISE CONTROL over the limbs....

Thanks Uma!

Steve Kirby · March 2018

edmund fletcher said:

Hi there looks like a nice simple rigging system for Vector layers and if I understand right via the bones/joint option, in full version , you could parent a bitmap or vector layer to any joint in the rig

Trial started up fine the first time -but now every time try to apply a new rig I get script errors looking for undefined groups etc...apologies if Im doing something silly?
cheers Edmund

Hey Edmund - sorry I didnt catch your comment sooner, there were some changes to the system backend that went over my head. If you open a support ticket I'd be happy to try and help you.

Michael Smock · July 2018

I have yet to buy or try this. None of the videos, even the You Tube ones, seem to make it clear if I could use imported Photoshop layers and rig them?

Steve Kirby · July 2018

Hi Michael. Limber is a Vector IK tool, it's not designed for use with bitmap files.

David Hong · October 2018

Hi there, love this tool so far! Quick question - is it possible to get a noodle kind of limb similar to rubber hose, where there isn't a clearly defined joint? If so, how would we achieve that?

Steve Kirby · October 2018

EDIT: Limber v1.6 and later now includes bendy stroke-based limbs out of the box - check out the 'Bone Curvature' property with a default Bone limb.

ORIGINAL REPLY:

Hi David - thanks!

YES - you can get a bendy, stroke-based limb like Rubber Hose, but only with a Bone. There is one in the limb library called 'Bone with foot' which has a control for curving the joint into a bend. If you want this but without the integrated foot on the end, we do have that option coming up in the next release, or if you contact me via email (just google me and you'll find it on my site) I can send you a version that should work for you now.

If you want a curved joint inside the tapered limbs, that is something we haven't got.

Steve

Jerry Honeycutt · November 2018

Is Limber compatible with the latest release of AE? I'm getting some expression errors now. If it's not, do you have an ETA for compatibility?

Steve Kirby · November 2018

EDIT: Limber v.1.5 was released in December 2018 and fully supports the new expression engine in CC2019, and it's about 1.5x - 2x faster too

ORIGINAL REPLY:

Hey Jerry. You can change your project settings to use the legacy extendscript expression engine and Limber’s expressions will work as normal again. Just go to File>Project Settings>Expressions. We will have an update out very soon which will work with the new engine.

Michael Janzen · February 2019

Really enjoying the plug-in so far! Can you parent pngs (say I created assets in Photoshop) to the limbs? Or is it better to create custom assets in Illustrator?

Steve Kirby · February 2019

EDIT: Limber v1.6 and later now support embedding of vector-based artwork inside limb layers. You can design in Adobe Illustrator, import, convert the layers to shape layers, then use the Rig & Pose button.

ORIGINAL REPLY:

Michael Janzen said:

Really enjoying the plug-in so far! Can you parent pngs (say I created assets in Photoshop) to the limbs? Or is it better to create custom assets in Illustrator?

Hey Michael.

Glad you like it! Using external assets is not something we support - Limber was designed as a shape-layer based system (only).

However, if you set up your lengths to be exactly the same as your artwork's pivot / anchor points, you could then parent artwork to the controllers. You might like to add a joint controller so you can see where each point of the triangle is. However… this will not work nicely if you have anti-pop set above zero, or if you stretch your limb beyond it's max length, or if you adjust the Lengths on the fly. Because the artwork will not be changing length along with the controller positions.

One alternative is to use Puppet Pins with Nulls to control their position, and parent those nulls to Limber's controllers. That works better because your artwork can then stretch. But again, it's not something we officially support. We might consider it in the future, but there is a lot more we can offer if we keep all the look and feel of the limbs as rigged shape layers, like they are now.

If you're confident with shape layers, you can design artwork in illustrator and convert it to shapes (or just design it in AE) and then embed those shapes inside the limb layer's groups, which move and rotate the parts of the limb. If you put a shape you've made inside the 'Upper Group' in the limb layer, it will be 'stuck' to the upper arm/leg. If you use the 'Scaling Groups' custom limb, it will even stretch that shape to match the Anti-pop and Stretchiness of the limb. The great thing about this method (which is how we planned for it to be used) is that you can then use the Duplicate, Copy and Paste buttons to make copies of your limb and modify it, etc.

Hope that helps. Steve

Zack Lee · May 2019

Hi, can I know if I give my project file to other people without the plugin, will they be able to edit the limbs?

Steve Kirby · May 2019

Zack Lee said:

Hi, can I know if I give my project file to other people without the plugin, will they be able to edit the limbs?

Hey Zack. They will be able to animate the limbs and use the Limber Effect controls (eg Lengths, Sizes, Colors etc) to edit them. But they will not be able to Duplicate limbs, or Copy and Paste styles from one limb to another. They also will not be able to add (or remove, if you add them beforehand) FK Controllers. Basically, anything that requires the buttons in the Limber panel will not be possible, but there is nothing to prevent already generated limbs from functioning normally.

Kyrill Huet · May 2019

Hi, I would like to know, how can I end up with a limb with a hand or feet myself without using the limb library and customising those? How do I add my own foot or hand shape in the limb?

Steve Kirby · May 2019

Kyrill Huet said:

Hi, I would like to know, how can I end up with a limb with a hand or feet myself without using the limb library and customising those? How do I add my own foot or hand shape in the limb?

Hi Kyrill. This is a lot simpler using the limb library but I'm assuming you're using the trial version and don't have access to it. Make a new Shape Group inside the 'Limb' Group, next to the Upper Group and the Lower Group (not inside one of them), and call it 'Hand Group'. Apply this expression to the Hand Group's Transform>Position property:

var endctrl = thisComp.layer("left-Wrist"); var s1 = endctrl(2)("Admin")(2)("sides")(3)(2)[0]; var s3 = endctrl(2)("Admin")(2)("sides")(3)(2)[1]; var a1=degreesToRadians(endctrl(2)("Admin")(2)("angles")(3)(1)[0]); var a2=degreesToRadians(endctrl(2)("Admin")(2)("angles")(3)(1)[1]); var p2 = endctrl(2)("Admin")(2)("p1")(3)(2)+[Math.sin(a1)*s3,-Math.cos(a1)*s3]; p2+[Math.sin(a2)*s1,-Math.cos(a2)*s1];

Add an Angle expression control Effect to the limb layer and name it 'Hand Rotation'. Then, add this expression to the Hand Group's Transform>Rotation property:

var endctrl = thisComp.layer("left-Wrist");

(endctrl(4)("Limber")("Rotate End")/100)*(endctrl(2)("Admin")(2)("angles")(3)(1)[1]+thisLayer(4)("Hand Rotation")(("ADBE Angle Control-0001")

)) + (1-(endctrl(4)("Limber")("Rotate End")/100))*(180-thisLayer(4)("Hand Rotation")(("ADBE Angle Control-0001")

));

In both expressions, you will need to change the first line's reference to the "left-Wrist" layer to whatever layer is your End Controller. Any shapes you add inside the Hand group will orient around the wrist position. This set up is the same as the one in the Hand limb in the Limb Library.

Kyrill Huet · May 2019

Thanks a lot Steve, I have actually bought limber but I was just interested on how to add more joints. Great plugin, saves a lot of time for the style that I use.

brien hopkins · May 2019

Is Limber compatible with Bodymovin?

Steve Kirby · May 2019

brien hopkins said:

Is Limber compatible with Bodymovin?

EDIT: Since we updated Limber to v1.6, you typically no longer need to bake expressions to use default limbs (both Bones AND Tapers) with Bodymovin / Lottie FOR WEB. So long as expressions are unsupported in Lottie FOR DEVICES, however, you will need to bake expressions for that, just like any other property that uses expressions.

ORIGINAL REPLY:

Hey Brien. Yes and no. Bones, the path and stroke-based limbs, are compatible out of the box, with no issues. Default tapered limbs do not work because Bodymovin does not support Merge Paths, which we use for the color splits. However, if you can deal with having a tapered limb with just one colour there is a custom limb in the limb library called 'Bodymovin compatible' - and that works.

Lottie for devices (as opposed to Bodymovin in a desktop browser) doesn't support expressions, so things don't work natively. But Limber Bones have very few expressions on the layer and so can be very easily baked to keyframes once animation is complete. Then they work really well with Lottie too.

Yaniv Cahoua · September 2019

Is Limber able to make soft limbs like Rubberhose ? (With bones so it will be compatible with lottie for devices)

Steve Kirby · September 2019

Yaniv Cahoua said:

Is Limber able to make soft limbs like Rubberhose ? (With bones so it will be compatible with lottie for devices)

EDIT: Since we updated Limber to v1.6, default Bones now have a 'Bone Curvature' property to make them soft / bendy. You can use any default limbs (both Bones and Tapers) with Lottie for DEVICES if you bake the expressions first. Lottie / Bodymovin for WEB does not require any expression baking.

ORIGINAL REPLY:

Yes. Grab the Trial version and have a look at the 'Bendy Bone' comp inside the Limb Library. But - and this goes for Rubberhose too - you will need to bake the expressions to keyframes before export, because Lottie for devices doesn't support expressions. Limber's Bones use very few expressions so it's pretty straightforward, I've done it in the past without issue.

Steve Davies · September 2019

I want to make a character spin 360, just wondering if anyone has done this using Limber?

Steve Kirby · September 2019

Steve Davies said:

I want to make a character spin 360, just wondering if anyone has done this using Limber?

Hey Steve. That is totally possible. There are a few different ways you could set things up though. A lot depends on the design of the character. Personally, I usually find the torsos and heads more of a challenge than limbs. I’m not sure if you mean a literal spin, kinda like a rotating 3d model, or an animation where the character moves their feet and turns themselves around. Feel free to email me directly (a google search will take you to my personal site which has contact details) if you want to discuss in more depth?

Pirulo Chupala · November 2019

I have a problem with the preset GradientBone. When I apply it, it creates the text layer but it does it out of position, slightly offset. Why is this happening? Thanks!

Steve Kirby · November 2019

Pirulo Chupala said:

I have a problem with the preset GradientBone. When I apply it, it creates the text layer but it does it out of position, slightly offset. Why is this happening? Thanks!

Hi Pirulo. Have you followed the instructions in this video? That method should work fine if you follow it pretty closely. Your text layer needs to have it's Position and Anchor Point zero'd out.

Alexander Weil · December 2019

Hey Steve, my company recently purchased Limber and till now i really like it. Now, i want to use the Bendy-Bone and because i like to understand what i am doing i wanted to ask where is the difference between the Bendy-Bone and the Standard-Bone? Is there a way to recreate it? is there a tutorial for it?
cheers

Alex

Steve Kirby · December 2019

EDIT: The Bendy Bone was integrated into the default Bones in Limber v1.6 and above.

ORIGINAL REPLY:

Alexander Weil said:

Hey Steve, my company recently purchased Limber and till now i really like it. Now, i want to use the Bendy-Bone and because i like to understand what i am doing i wanted to ask where is the difference between the Bendy-Bone and the Standard-Bone? Is there a way to recreate it? is there a tutorial for it?
cheers
Alex

Hi Alex. Glad you're liking it. The only difference with the bendy bone is that it can be curved around the joint / knee. On the limb layer, there's an extra parameter 'Joint Tangent Length' that controls how that curve looks - it generally works best at around 30-40 (it's expressed as a percentage of the two Length properties). Most of the limbs in the limb library have some kind of extra parameter on the limb layer like this. To use one: import the library, select one of the layers (eg the bendy bone limb layer), click Limber's Copy button, go into your own comp and select one of your limb's layers, and click Limber's Paste button. If you hold down Alt when you Paste, it will retain the style properties you already have (lengths, sizes etc). Otherwise, it'll bring them all over from exactly how they are in the limb library version. Does that help? Or were you asking about how the bendy expression itself works?

Alexander Weil · December 2019

Steve Kirby said:

Alexander Weil said:

...

Hi Alex. Glad you're liking it. The only difference with the bendy bone is that it can be curved around the joint / knee. On the limb layer, there's an extra parameter 'Joint Tangent Length' that controls how that curve looks - it generally works best at around 30-40 (it's expressed as a percentage of the two Length properties). Most of the limbs in the limb library have some kind of extra parameter on the limb layer like this. To use one: import the library, select one of the layers (eg the bendy bone limb layer), click Limber's Copy button, go into your own comp and select one of your limb's layers, and click Limber's Paste button. If you hold down Alt when you Paste, it will retain the style properties you already have (lengths, sizes etc). Otherwise, it'll bring them all over from exactly how they are in the limb library version. Does that help? Or were you asking about how the bendy expression itself works?

thanks Steve your respond was faster then i've expected

Question was more like how to recreate it from scratch without using the Library. I'm pretty curious how things work and how they are made.

i got a second question i couldnt find an answer yet: if i make (for example) an Arm, i want to attach an Object (Hand or anything else) to the Wrist Controller, but with Stretch checked off, the Object moves away from the arm, if the Controller is far away. Thats kind of annoying. I tried to pickwhip it to the c3 position but this doesnt work.

Steve Kirby · December 2019

Hey Alex. With your non-stretchy hand, the solution is to add an FK Controller and parent to that. It’s a slightly non-obvious workflow but is buried somewhere in the user guide! As to the how the bend expression works, I’d need to explain some math … I think it might be best done via email or text rather than here. If you google me you can find my email address and get in touch that way?

Leif Falk · March 2020

Hi
I am just testing this nice tool. But I have one issue.

It seem to me that if you parent start and end controller to an master null and flip that by setting x-scale to -100, the limbs don´t work anymore.
But in charcater animation you often need a mirrored copy of your character rig.
Is there a workaround?

Quote

Steve Kirby · March 2020

Leif Falk said:

Hi
I am just testing this nice tool. But I have one issue.
It seem to me that if you parent start and end controller to an master null and flip that by setting x-scale to -100, the limbs don´t work anymore.
But in charcater animation you often need a mirrored copy of your character rig.
Is there a workaround?
Quote

Hey Leif There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to this because different characters will be rigged differently, we can't predict how users set up their body parts, parenting chains and expressions. But, in a fairly simple rig, the problems with this approach are usually found with the Clockwise values and the Transform>Rotation values on the End Controllers. If you're just making a duplicate rig to use in reverse shots (as opposed to trying to rig in such a way that the character can turn from right to left and back again), you should be able to get a mirrored result by reversing the Clockwise values (eg. use -100% instead of 100%) and adding or subtracting 180º from either your End Controllers themselves, or the Hand / Foot layers parented to them. You might also want to remove the expression on the Transform>Scale properties of your End Controllers. Hope this helps.

Leif Falk · March 2020

Thank you. Indeed even with your suggested method, the rotate end did not work properly. It ran counterclockwise.
I changed the instead of adding 180 Degrees to the rotation the last line of code and multplied it with negative 1 like this:
((endctrl(4)("Limber")("Rotate End")/100)*(a2-rot+value) + (1-(endctrl(4)("Limber")("Rotate End")/100))*(value-rot+180)) *-1;

this seemed to work.

Steve Kirby · March 2020

Leif Falk said:

Thank you. Indeed even with your suggested method, the rotate end did not work properly. It ran counterclockwise.
I changed the instead of adding 180 Degrees to the rotation the last line of code and multplied it with negative 1 like this:
((endctrl(4)("Limber")("Rotate End")/100)*(a2-rot+value) + (1-(endctrl(4)("Limber")("Rotate End")/100))*(value-rot+180)) *-1;

this seemed to work.

Ah ok, well I'm glad you found a solution. If you have any more complex issues feel free to email me and I'll take a look at your project file if you need it.

Kyrill Huet · April 2020

Hi!

Just wanted to ask when limber will be compatible with AE CC 2020. Looking forward to it!

Kyrill.

Steve Kirby · April 2020

Kyrill Huet said:

Hi!
Just wanted to ask when limber will be compatible with AE CC 2020. Looking forward to it!
Kyrill.

Hey Kyrill! Limber is fully compatible with AE 2020, I just forgot to update the compatibility list here on aescripts. I'll do that now.

Kyrill Huet · April 2020

Steve Kirby said:

Kyrill Huet said:

Hi!
Just wanted to ask when limber will be compatible with AE CC 2020. Looking forward to it!
Kyrill.

Hey Kyrill! Limber is fully compatible with AE 2020, I just forgot to update the compatibility list here on aescripts. I'll do that now.

Oh, ok thanks. Looking forward to using limber a lot more!

PICKLE JEBI · May 2020

Hello! Thank you for a good program. But there's a little problem with running the program.

When i run the Limber in Windows, the phrase 'Unable to exit at line 6. undefined is not an object.' appears. What should I do?

Steve Kirby · May 2020

PICKLE JEBI said:

Hello! Thank you for a good program. But there's a little problem with running the program.
When i run the Limber in Windows, the phrase 'Unable to exit at line 6. undefined is not an object.' appears. What should I do?

Hi Pickle. Please open a support ticket so we can resolve this for you. Thanks.

Javier Colsa · June 2020

Hi! I'm about to purchase this plugin. But I wanted to know if it is possible to create a Bendy-bone directly with the plugin or you need to import it from the Limber Library. Thanks!!

Steve Kirby · June 2020

EDIT: The Bendy Bone was integrated into the default Bones in Limber v1.6 and above.

ORIGINAL REPLY:

Javier Colsa said:

Hi! I'm about to purchase this plugin. But I wanted to know if it is possible to create a Bendy-bone directly with the plugin or you need to import it from the Limber Library. Thanks!!

Hi Javier. At this point, you have to import the bendy bone from the limb library, yes. We are currently putting the finishing touches to a big update which will make bones bendy by default. I'm hoping we can get this update out next month (July 2020) and it will be another free update for existing users. Hope this helps, Steve

Javier Colsa · June 2020

Steve Kirby said:

Javier Colsa said:

Hi! I'm about to purchase this plugin. But I wanted to know if it is possible to create a Bendy-bone directly with the plugin or you need to import it from the Limber Library. Thanks!!

Hi Javier. At this point, you have to import the bendy bone from the limb library, yes. We are currently putting the finishing touches to a big update which will make bones bendy by default. I'm hoping we can get this update out next month (July 2020) and it will be another free update for existing users. Hope this helps, Steve

Thank you Steve for your quick response! I have another question, in the next update will it be the library directly inside the plugin?

Steve Kirby · June 2020

Javier Colsa said:
Thank you Steve for your quick response! I have another question, in the next update will it be the library directly inside the plugin?

Wow, you seem to have a knack for predicting features. I would love to do this, but it's not straightforward. One problem is that if we include them in the panel, there's no way for the user to see what they actually look like and how they work, before applying one. It would also be really tricky to save your own limbs as presets because we'd have to build an entire engine for turning layers into code. So what we will be doing instead is making the import process slightly easier by including a button in the panel. Rest assured there are a bunch of other new, headline features in this update that we have not touched on here

Guilherme Gomes · July 2020

Hi Steve,

Thank you so much for this version, great features!

I just have a question, tough: I believe that in the previous version of Limber when you had the "Rotate End" property at 100% you could control the limb's end rotation using the end controller. Was this feature discontinued in the current version? It seems that the only way to rotate, let's say a hand, using limber, would be to rotate the hand and not the end controller.

Thank you!

G

Steve Kirby · July 2020

Hey Guilherme!. Thanks. The Rotate End property still works just the same, except that it can no longer be offset by a value the user assigns to the End Controller's Rotation property - it's entirely controlled by the Limber expression now. If you want to offset the rotation of feet layers, for some follow-through or whatever, the best way to do it is by animating the Rotation property of the foot layer itself. So you can get the same control as before with the same number of keyframes, they're just on different properties. Hope that helps.

Guilherme Gomes said:

Hi Steve,

Thank you so much for this version, great features!

I just have a question, tough: I believe that in the previous version of Limber when you had the "Rotate End" property at 100% you could control the limb's end rotation using the end controller. Was this feature discontinued in the current version? It seems that the only way to rotate, let's say a hand, using limber, would be to rotate the hand and not the end controller.

Thank you!
G

Guilherme Gomes · July 2020

Hi Steve,

And is there any way to have both the rotation and position values in the end controller like before?

Thank you,

Guilherme

Steve Kirby · July 2020

Yep. You can add an Angle Expression Control Effect to the End Controller, and just pickwhip the Foot layer's Rotation value to that Angle value.

Guilherme Gomes said:

Hi Steve,

And is there any way to have both the rotation and position values in the end controller like before?

Thank you,
Guilherme

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