blog 10

PPD2 blog 10

In this blog I decided to rig the character that I made in advance 3d, to start off with I went into the side view

I created a row of 7 straight joints

I added an IK spline handle

I then duplicated the spline and kept only the first and last joints and renamed them bind joints

I selected the bind joints and spline curve and hit smooth bind on the skinning option. I decided not to make the FK hybrid due to the fact he’s wearing amour and wouldn’t be able to move so freely   

I then created a cube

I went round it using the EP curve tool to create a control

I moved it into the hip position and parented the hip bind joint to it

I did the same to the shoulder bind joint

I then went onto do the neck

I only used one joint with this one due to again the armour

I then created a curve for a control and parented the head joint to it

After I moved onto the legs

I created joint in the shape of the legs

I then added an IK handle from the thigh to the ankle

After I created two more, one from the ankle to the ball and then the ball to the toe, because on the armour on his feet, then was no need to add the locators in order to raise the heels and toes

I then created a control for the foot

I then parented all the IK handles to it

I then created a locator

I positioned it into the knee 

I parented it to the foot ctrl

I selected the locater and the leg IK handle and added a pole vector constrain 

I then created a curve for a knee turn control and parented the locator to it

After I parented the knee control to the foot control

After I mirrored the joints and selected the behaviour option

I then went the work on the arms

I mirrored the joints for the other side

I then created a cube and went over it with the EP cuvre tool to make the arm controls

I then began to parent the controls to each of the joints

After I parented the forearms controls to the upperarms

I then parented them to the shoulder control

After I went to do joints for the wings

Here as shown below

I then created a curve

I used these for controls

I then parented then to the shoulder control

I parented the legs to the bottom of the spline

I created a curve in the shape of a plane for the body ctrl

I then parented every control to it expect the leg control

After I created a curve circle for the main control with every control parented to it

After I selected the root and the mesh and skinned it

Reflexion

Unfortunately this rig didn’t make it to the show reel as the mesh wasn’t suitable, due the vertices not all being connected together.

Here is the finale show reel

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bq-rYR9Bn8

Blog 9

PPD2 blog 9

In this PPD2 blog I am going to talk about rigging the dog model I have made. To start off with I went into the front view in maya

I then created a row of joints in the shape of the back legs. I decided to start from the legs, as I find it easy to work my way up from the bottom. I then added an IK handle for the upper leg to the ankle  

The from the ankle to the toe I added another IK handle, after I created a control curve and parented the leg IK handle to it

I then made another curve for the paw and parented the second IK handle to it. I then parented the paw control to the leg control. After I mirrored the joints with their behaviour and copied the controls for the other legs

After I went to work on the front legs by going back into the front view

I reapeated the same process as I did with the back legs

It was now time to work on the spline, so I went into the front view

I created a row of joints in the shape as you can see in the diagram

I then selected the IK spline HDL to add a spline curve to it

I duplicated the spline and kept only the first and last joints and rename them Bind joints. I then selected them and the cuvres

I then went onto the bid skin option and set the preferences and then applied it

After I created a box, and then I went round it using the EP tool in order to create a control

I placed it and then parented the Hip BIND joint to it and I did the same to the shoulder control

I then parent the legs to the bottom of the spline

I then work on the neck by going into the front view and creating a row of joints in the shape of the neck

After I added an IK spline curve and then copied it and kept only the first and last joints and rename them Bind joints

I selected the bind joints and the neck curve and clicked smooth bind

I then created a curve

I then moved and scaled it and parented it to the neck base bind joint and I also create one for the neck top bind joint

I parent the neck top control to the bottom and then the bottom to the shoulder control

I then started work on the tail by going into the front view

I create a line of joints in the shape of the tail

I click on the IK spline tool to give it an IK spline HDL

I copied the joints and kept the first and last two, then rename them bind joint

I then selected the bind joint and the curve and then I smooth bind them together  

After I created a box and I went round it using the EP tool to create a control box

I placed it and parented the bottom tail bind to it

I also did one for the top

I parented the top of the tail control to the bottom one

I then connected the bottom of the tail to the back end of the spline. I then parented the end tail control to the hip control

To finish the joints off the last piece was the ear

In the front view I created three joints

I then copied them for the other ear

I then created a curve for a control

I lined it up in the front view

I then reshaped it and copied it four times, so I would have a control for each joint in the ear

I parented each curve to the joints and then parented the bottom ear control to the top

I then parented the ear control to the second neck control

I then created a plane

I went over it with the EP tool to create the body control

I then position it

After I parented every control except the leg controls to it

I then created a circle curve for the main control

After I parented the body and legs controls to it

Finishing the rig and then selected the root

I then selected the mesh and went onto the skinning options and set the preferences and click bind skin

To do the skinning I used both the component editor and the pain skin weight tool

Reflection

Unlike what I first thought the dog rig was easier to make than the bird rig, however the skinning was a lot harder, this was mainly due to the ears being closer to the head. However looking at other four legged animal’s rigs, in my opinion my rig was a lot easier to use than most of them, which I think is a very important part of rigging as an animator needs to be able to work the rig without too many learning issues. I feel I did very well as I have not done animals rigs before .