f r e e f a c

This version of Mancandy is for use (as the versioning suggests) for the upcoming blender 2.48. from now on, I’m going to keep mancandy versioning aligned with blender versioning to make it easy to answer which version with which.

Changes from 2.0:

• (compatibility) Bones thighbend.L/R, calfbend.L/R, forearmbender.L/R, bicepbender.L/R,Neckbend and any other constraints with local/local space have the offset button checked. This fixes problems with forward cycling introduced with constraint refactor in blender 2.46 (this is really just a workaround, my hope is that offset bone and constraints will play nicer in future blender versions)
• (compatibility) Action constraints, e.g. on eyebase.L,jawfan and jaw, have had their values changed to the “right” target rotation min/max. Previous blender versions required inputing incorrect numbers for correct behavior, when this was fixed (again in 2.46) action constraints on the mouth and eyes broke, resulting in a lopsided expression. This should now work again.
• (new feature) Bone groups introduced: This is rather hackish, done just as an example, but there is now a “left”, “right”, “torso”, “mouth”, “cheeks”, “eyes” and “benders” colored bone groups, to allow a bit better 3D view and action editor organization. This just an example, it’s trivial to add new groups, change the colors, etc. Have fun!
• (new feature) Bone Wire toggle activated on controls: it is no longer neccessary to change the proxy armature draw mode to “Wire” in scene files; the bones will automatically display as wireframes.
• (new feature) Group Layer visiblity: the Mancandy Group Layers are only visible in layer 2; this means that a- linked mancandy only shows the mesh, and b- I could unhide everything in the library file. Now people wishing to use mancandy without linking won’t have a “where did the armature go” moment, and people wishing to link will still only see the mesh (and the proxy armature when they add it)
• (fix) Made everything selectable again in the library file: making empties/curves/etc unselectable proved to be more trouble than it was worth, causing many trips to the outliner.
• (new feature) IK constraint improvements: deleted kneerotIK.L/R, armrot.L/R and the rotational IK constraints on thigh and upper-arm bones, instead using pole vector on the arm and leg IKs, with new bones as targets: elbowIK.L/R, kneeIK.L/R . This is better behaved, and allows more posing flexibility. Note this causes a slight need to tweak old actions, as the knee and elbow positions might need fixing.
• (new feature) IK/FK switching improvments: removed MCdriven etc actions from the library file (it is no longer needed) and the objects IK_FK.L/R IK_FKbase.L/R. IK/FK switching now uses the bones IKFK.L/R which are parented to bone IKFK_parent (so you can place the controls where you want them). In brief, the controls drive copy rotation constraints (not IK constraints) on toparm.R/L, lowarm.R/L and hand.R/L to a new chain in Armature layer 12 toparmIK.R/L, lowarmIK.R/L, and handIK.R/L. you no longer need to fiddle with special actions to do IK/FK switching, and all your animation will be contained in the same action.
• (fix) Protected all bone layers, not just the visible ones.
• (didn’t fix) slight misalignment of foot.L/R and of the roll of knee_stretch.R; you can fix it in your own downloaded versions, but changing this would break too severely many walks.
• (cleanup) Unused actions (and their IPOblocks) such as MCdriven, MCdriven.001, Action.001, etc have been removed from the file.

Mancandy 2.48 should be the last version to go with the blender 2.4 series. Next version of mancandy will be for versions 2.50, and incompatible with older rigs (I can finally fix those misalignment problems) but hopefully, much much better.

Please test! other than the noted differences (the elbow and knee rotation controls, and the IK/FK switching, this version should work fine on old actions), and for sure should have no problems in new files, so long as you are using blender 2.48 (any of the rc versions will work for now)

Oh yeah, a download (mancandy 2.48! ) link.

Edit: since blender 2.48 got released, and I didn’t find any bugs (at least no new ones), I’ve decided that this is mancandy_2.48 official; as a result, I’ve renamed the download link,but if you already got 2.48_rc1 you don’t need to download; it’s the same file.