The Recluse: Rig

The Recluse mech is back on the scene. This time he's being rigged up for animation. It seems the rig is going to be primarily made of rigid bound joints with a few areas of soft bound spline IK for the spring/shock areas. For the hoses, I've worked out a system of connecting the hair follicle system with spline IK, so they should move realistically (I hope). So, here is the setup as it looks now.

Maya 2011 controller orientation workaround

I've created a simple tutorial which shows the workaround for the problem Maya 2011 has with orienting a controller to its children while remaining neutral in world-space. This is an adaptation of  Carlo Sansonetti's technique for controller orientation. In this example, I'm setting up a controller for a foot with the rotation axis at the heel for an advanced foot setup.

Unfortunately there is no voiceover for the video at this moment since I do not own a microphone, so hopefully the text will guide you through what you see in the video.

Here is the tutorial:

1.) Basically, I add in the controller, in this case a nurbs circle, then scale it up a bit.

2.) Then I name it and group it twice, one layer is SDK for whatever sdk controls for later, the top group is the offset group (l_foot_IK_ctrl_O).

3.) I Point Constrain the offset group node (be sure the group is selected, not the shape node) to the ball_jnt.

4.) I then Aim Constrain the offset group node to the toe_jnt.

5.) Next, I delete both constraints, as they are no longer needed, then I shape my controller the way I want it with the shape node CVs.

6.) Next I create a locater node, and parent it to the ball_jnt. I then zero out all the transform attributes for the locater, moving it to and orienting it with the ball_jnt.

7.) Then I go Edit>Unparent the locater, and move it into the place where I want the heel rotation to be.

8.) I select the controller (the shape), hit Insert to move its transform center and hold down V to snap it to the locater, and hit Insert again.

9.) Then I delete the locater node as it is no longer needed at this point. ( you may want to keep it for further snaps and constraints later on down the road though)

A girl can change her mind can't she?

After consideration I decided to rig the pyro instead of the scout. See here the skeleton I've set up for him prior to any IK, SDK, or controller added. I don't know why I added joints for the gas tank, I want it to stay rigid when the character bends... we'll see if they're necessary...

Rig Sheet : Team Fortress 2 Scout

This quarter I am taking a class called Advanced Animation for Gaming. This weeks project is to plan the layout of a skeletal rig for an existing character mesh. The mesh I've chosen is the Scout from Team Fortress 2.

Here is the general plan. I may decide to revise later with some bone extensions for secondary movement of the necklace and backpack, but right now. I want to keep things simple.

The Bodies

So here is what I turned in. I won't say these are finished. Being new to ZBrush without formal training has proven to be a challenge, but one that served as a great learning experience. At this point, both models are at their densest I can comfortably work with them. It is now time to learn retopology during my break between quarters so I can add the detail and refinements I wanted in these sculpts.

It is worth noting that the female mesh was run through Decimation Master at 1% prior to these renders. This was my first attempt at reducing the poly-count so it would be possible to add the detail I want. However, I didn't get quite what I wanted, as the new topology is not ideal for resculpting, so it appears decimation should wait until the end of the sculpting process while retopology can take place earlier in the process. I'll go back retopologize using the high-poly version.