Rigging - What i can take forward...

I took on rigging as i am to be head of rigging within our team. Its something i decided i would be better at then most other creative areas within animation.

I needed to develop my skills for rigging three characters that are to be in our film. The bird, the marmot and the mongol. They are all quite different quirky characters and they all will have very different rigs to make.

A bird rig, quite challenging as i haven't done different rigs then the two legged two armed characters.

The mongol and the marmot both needed to run and jump and be as flexible as possible. If I am able to paint the weights right on these two characters then, I think we can get good animation from them.

Rigging- What i Have learnt

Before i started this unit, I had a very basic understanding of rigging, and when I started to learn more of rigging, I decided i quite enjoyed doing it. I didn't really have a good understanding or painting weights on a character, but now i believe have a better knowledge of doing it, and feel i can do it well.

I still need to use tutorials in places where I get things wrong, but I think that in time I will be better with more practice. I think this unit has allowed me to gain a better knowledge and understanding of rigging and I would like to believe I could go into this profession when i leave uni.

I can now rig to a closer professional standard a Biped character:

Things to work on in future: Blend shapes and Four-Legged characters.

Painting weights in Maya 2011 - The new tool - 01

Here i have been playing with the new paint weights tool in maya2010.
I have been getting used to using the handles to change theinfluence on the vertices. Thered colouris high influence, where thr blue is low influence. It seems pretty easy so far.... I then use the paint weights tool to tidy everythingup slightly howi learnt in maya08. thishas given me a very good result.

Rigging_ Painting the Weights - Influence

This is a Mixture of images for what the influence looks like on the character once i have painted the weights on the character.

It then helped to mirror the painted weights so it all looked and worked the same....

Timing for Rigging

Since the Beginning of term i have found that i was very slow with rigging a character as i wasn't sure of what i was doing. So one character rig took me aprox 6 full days to complete.

I had some major difficulties with painting the weights on the character as its a long and boring process.

I found when i learnt the painting weights on maya 2010 that the process is a lot quicker and now i believe i can rig a character properly in roughly four days.

I feel i have progressed a long way from when i started the term and when i move on to rigging the characters for real this term coming, i think I feel confident enough to get a good rig going for our characters.

Each week i have tried to learn a different skill within rigging.

I concentrated on:

Painting weights maya 2008

Painting weights maya 2010

Naming of joints and placing of joints

Joint orientation

Ik handles - With IK spline, Ising Sticky and Non-sticky

Rigging by myself problem two - IK handles

Here i have done a couple of tests to get a feel for the different settings for IK handles, as i found i had a couple of problems with using IK sticky earlier on in the Term.

Learn How to use the IK Handle tool for bones in Maya 8.5. For more Maya How-To Videos & Articles, visit WonderHowTo.

Here i was testing the difference between and IK handle with sticky and onewithout sticky.

Left in video is without and Right is with sticky.

As you can see the Right holds better to the floor when the "leg" is straight, where as the Left without sticky doesn't.

Rigging by myself Problem one -Joint Orientation

This week i concentrated on joint orientation and making sure that the joints were correct for rigging purposes. This was because i had some issues with orientating my joints, as i found they were not moving in the correct way....

for this i looked at this tutorial, which is about rigging a tongue character. I found it very helpful.

Joint orientation.

Tutorial took from it was:

http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/tutorials/maya/rigging-common-techniques-tongue-creature/Creature-Rigging-02-Joint-Orientation-Reverse-FootLock/Creature-Rigging-02-Joint-Orientation-Reverse-FootLock.htm

The Y axis should be going down the joint.

The Z axis is facing forward on the joints.

In the option box i need to use: +Y with the Orient child joints on and the reorientate localscale on as well.

This is done by selecting all the joints, but i don't necessarily need to re-orientate the root joint, an i can just leave that where it is.

Here is a close image of the default settings given when maya creates a Joint.

Everything relates to the world axis, which is not what we want..... we want everything to relate to the joints or bones, So the Y axis needs to move down the joints.

The third picture is from the tutorial. This is showing the option Box and the settings needed for my characters.

As we can see here the Y axis is going Down the joints.

This final image is what's needed for my joints to look like.

Begin Rigging by myself without Book Tutorial - 01

This was one of the problems i came across when i was rigging the dog by myself. The arm was not correct as the handle to move the shoulder was not parented with the IK handles properly. The left arm was also unable to rotate at the wrist. To resolve this i had to re-do the IK handle in order to make the wrist move as it should. The second video shows the rig how it should be...... The first shows the problems i was having.....

Finished Rig.

Here is the finished rig for the dog monster. Everything seems to be working as it should.

turn sound off- suggestion :-)

The Tutorials- Books gone wrong

I have been going through the Book: An essential guide to maya Character rigging and found that within the book there are a few miss-prints. This means that when creating a rig, some of the parts didn't move correctly.

Some of the bits in the book's problems might have just been that it was designed for a PC and not a mac, which is why some of the actions weren't happening as they should.

I compared this book to the one of maya 2010, and i managed to sort out a few of the problems.

The Final Rig complete.. Compared with previous rig

Here is a rig i did last year for a previous project.

It is of a Monkey,

There are a lot of problems with the rig as the painting of the weights is all wrong, so when they are animated the geometry clashes together and it doesn't look very professional. If the weights were painted properly then I think that I could get better animation out of the two characters.

As you can see in the Pictures that the geometry is all wrong with the painting of the weights.

The Geometry is all twisted on the lower picture.

Also the Handles do not sit right when they are on 0 as they should be.

Therefore, looking back on what i have a achieved now with the Dog monster rig, i have done a lot better then previously.

Rigging-Joints

One thing i have learnt over the week is to name all my joints so that later on i can find them in the outliner to be able to join them up.

I also need all my joints named so that when it comes to painting weights i can pick out the joints needed to be influencing the geometry.

Various books have different names and methods for re-naming the joints.

I have decided to pick one similar to that of the Maya 2010 modeling and animation handbook. This is a book i know works well and i refer back too quite often when something went wrong within creating a rig by myself.

Here on the above two pictures is my practicing of placing joints within a character and making sure they are all connected in the correct way and all are named correctly so i can refer back to them later on.

All the joints are connected by the root joint which is good, as i didn't manage before to connect the joints correctly when i first did the skeleton for the Dog.

TUTORIAL

Below- Tutorial for placing joints_ http://www.freemayavideotutorials.com/maya-animation/character-animation/creating-joints-for-characters-1.html

http://www.freemayavideotutorials.com/maya-animation/character-animation/creating-joints-for-characters-2.html

Let’s start lesson,

Place your 3d character right on the origin of the grid

Keep the face of human character to the front. (It means when you look through the front camera your character should gaze at you. Character’s front should be in front of you, in front camera.

Go to side view

Change the camera to wireframe mode

Go to the layer editor and create a new layer

Name the layer, mesh

Select the object and add it to the mesh layer

Click the empty square in layer editor right adjacent to the square V

Choose T for when you click in blue empty square

This will make your object a template, and object will become dim

once again you need to create another new layer in layer editor for joints,
let’s do it
10. Create a New layer change its color and name it Joints

11. Choose animation Menu Set and Go to the Skeleton Menu
12. Get Join Tool with default settings

13. Start creating joints from the hip of human model
14. Create three joints for leg in side view as shown in image below,

If you see the Joint size is larger or smaller in accordance of
the character, you should set the new Joint size from
Follow the image below,

15. Go to front view

16. Get Move Tool and move the 3 leg joints to the right leg
17. Get Rotate Tool and rotate 3 leg Joints and fit them in leg, see the image below,

18. Go to the Skeleton Menu > Mirror Joints > options

19. Reset settings and change the Mirror across to YZ

20. Leave all other settings as it is and hit Mirror,

Creating Joints for Characters (2)

Yad | Jun 29, 2010 | Comments 1

This free video tutorial will tell you how to create joints for 3d organic character. After this video tutorial you will be able to create joints for any organic character including human characters within Maya.

21. Go to the side view and create a joints chain as back bone of the character, follow the image below,

22. Create one joint for jaw and make it a child of the neck joint, follow the image below,

23. Go to front view
24. Create three joints’ chain for right arm

25. Go to the Top view

26. Adjust right arm’s joints on their proper place, follow the image below,

27. Mirror the right arm’s joints as you mirrored the right leg’s joints

28. Go to perspective view
29. Examine all of the sides of the character and make sure that all joints are going to be fit very well, see the image below,

30.Go to the side view
31. Get Joint Tool for creating joints chain for the foot
(Note: We are not going to cover reverse foot in this lesson, because reverse foot is an advance level matter and we’ll discuss it in Projects Chapter of this website)
32. Start creating foot’ joints right from the ankle’s joint
(Note: you may need to make template of the joints’ layer in layer editor before starting foot’s joints from ankle)

33. Create 3 joints for foot, see the image below,

34. Go to the front view
35. Move the foot joints into the right foot
36. Rotate the foot joints to fit them into the foot
37. Repeat the steps that you have done for mirroring the joints of leg and arms,
38. Mirror the right foot joints to the left, see image below,

(Note: you have done almost all necessary joints, although there are a lot of joints left yet of hands fingers, feet fingers, ribs, reverse foot and etc but the joints which we have created in this lesson are sufficient for making a simple walk animation of human character. Now you need to parent all joints into the root joint and name them)
39. Go to perspective view
40. Open the Outliner from window > Outliner

41. Rename 1st joint to rLeg
42. Rename the 4nd joint to lLeg
43. Rename the backbone joints to root
44. Likewise use the names rArm, lArm, rFoot, lFoot and so on for more joints in a body
(Note: this is the time you need to parent all joints into the root, let’s do it)
45. Select rLeg , lLeg and root joint (last selected should be root)
46. Press the Key P on keyboard

47. Repeat the same action for the rest of the joints

(Note: This is the time; you need to un-template the mesh of the character)
48. From layer editor un-template the character’s mesh

49. Select the root joint (this will automatically select all of the joints)
50. Shift select the mesh of the character

51. Go to the Skin Menu
52. Bind skin > Smooth Bind Skin (with default settings)

53. Go to Skeleton Menu
54. Get IK Handle Tool
55. Click on the rLeg Joint and then on the ankle joint (in actual joint No.1 and then joint No.3)

(Note: you have created an IK handle it means that you have created the muscle of the leg and by moving the ankle joint you can move the leg now)
56. Repeat the same thing for left leg, arms and feet
57. Create an Ik handle for backbone joints start from root and end on the chest joint.
58. Create Ik Handles for neck and jaw as well
59. Use Move Tool and move legs, arms, backbone, neck and jaw
60. Enjoy the funny movements of the character and be ready to rig them and animate them in next lessons.

Congratulations:

You are now ready to animate your 3d human character. Simply select ik handles and keyframe them. In next lesson we shall cover creating joints for fingers, ribs and then rigging them with readymade objects for better control. You should stay with me if you have reached here.

Painting skin weights tool....

For adding influence I have been using the Add option in the tool. If i know the influence is needed throughout i add to the value of 1.

Some of the geometry is needed to be slightly influence by others so i use half the value of 1 or .3 to influence the verts in the right places.

If influence needs taking off i use replace at the value of 0. - However using this adds other influences from other joints so it can make the geometry worst then needed.

When i have all of the influence needed i smooth them over using the flood tool under smooth. If you work from the outside or more influenced down the joints i fid this can work best.

Painting Skin Weights

Painting skin weights is probably where i will struggle with this.

As he is quite a big character he has more geometry that needs to be painted by weights. Here i am trying to do the Left arm. I dont think im doing too badly. The book says to use replace, but some riggers say only use add. Im going to try both....

Here you can see the geometry is acting up, this is because the vertices have different influences from different joints. So i need to remove all the wrong influences from the wrong joints.

IK handles - Problem fixed

TURN SOUND DOWN BEFORE PLAYING VIDEO_SORRY

Here is a video of the problem I came across when I was Rigging the Leg. I found the leg didn't move in the correct way and to fix it I had to change the IK handle to have sticky on it.

Skinned dog - Before painting weights

Here i am identifying some of the key areas that need to be sorted in painting weights....

After skinning my character i animated the main features such as the arms and legs and head. From this i can see a lot of deformation in the character. Above we can see that the stomach isn't moving correctly as its influences are in the wrong place.

Above the leg is nearly there, however the stomach around it needs to be more rounded.
The arms are making the back of the character the wrong shape, so if i paint weights to let the character relax and move better, it will look more realistic....

Rigging the dog - 04

Arms All set up...

Spine- adding the IK spline solver..

Allowing the Bones to bend how a back would adding clusters...

Rigging for our animation- What we need

Out Line...

Both Characters will need to run and Jump and be as flexible as possible.

I will need to make the characters IK stretchy so we can get a lot of exaggeration in the animation.

The marmot needs to hold the Food whilst he is running.

The eagles claws need to grip.

The wings need to bend. I could use bend handles for this.

They need to show expression in there faces. Blend shapes for the Mongol and marmot.

Rigging tests

Here is a Rig i am in the middle of doing at the moment, I have had a couple of problems where i have missed out vital steps, i also have been concentrating more on my other project, so hopefully ill get a lot more finished in the next couple of days.

Wing test-Bird

Here i was testing a curve for the birds wings instead of rigging them normally, i thought we could get a good wing flap from using a curve instead.

Maya2011 new rigging techniques- Research

Here is a video to show rigging techniques in maya 2011, it could help when rigging my characters. There are new skinning methods in the new program. which will help with the deforming of some of the joints when binding the skin. I found this helpful, so long as i can get the program to work for me in 2011

Bird rig- Research

A bird rig is very different to a normal character rig that is standing up, as with any four legged creature. I have rigged butterflys to get the wings moving, but i thought it would be good to get bird rigs to show how i should operate my eagle.

Here are a couple of riggs to look at to get an idea of the handles and rigg needed for our eagle.

New 2010 Paint Weights tool- Research

I have been doing some research into painting weights. Although i have not updated my mac to maya 2011 i have it on my home computer at home. I found out about the new tools from lecturer Dan and have gone on the internet to show me how the tool works. I think the tool could prove very useful when it comes to painting weights as using the regular method takes me a while to get right.

This bottom video isfor painting weights normally in maya 2008. this is the version i have of maya. If i can see and watch people do it themselves, i find i can learn quicker then looking through some of the books which i can find hard to understand at points.

Hidden Keys-03

I managed to Hide and lock the translate attributes to the left hand manipulator which meant that i couldn't move the hand as i would have liked, I found how to unhide and unlock the attribute, by going to general Editors,Channel control, Finding them in the list, then moving then back across to the left so i can select them and translate them. - At least i didn't have to re-rig the whole arm again which i was going to if i could find how to unlock them...


The First image the arm cannot move as i have somehow managed to hide the keys.

The second arm works fine....

Rigging - Arms - 02

I found that when i rotated the legs on the Character, one foot was acting differently from the other, i managed to fix this by creating the IK handles in the right foot again, as it turns out i did not have Sticky keys on when creating the solver.

I now have a similar problem with the arms, so i am re-doing the left arm again as i believe the right arm was ok, and i cant quite pin point the part where i went wrong, but it could be down to the solver again.

Im quite enjoying it at the moment, but i think its going to be the paint skin weights that will be the problem in the end.

Rigging character- The set up -01

Today i have started to create a skeleton for a character taken for auto-desk book - Intermediate 2010.

what i have found difficult is getting the orientation of the joints correct, but after some playing around in component mode and setting the preferred angle for particular joints, i believe they are all moving how they should now.

So long as i can remember the Y axis goes up for horizontal joints and the Z axis goes across for Vertical joints i should be able to keep my characters skeleton in the correct position for the joints to move correctly.

I have just found out what gimbol lock is and found the reason why one of my rigs before wasn't bending in the right way.

Tutorials and Books

For this project i will now be learning and improving new skills in Rigging, such as Blend shapes, Facial rigging and the Paint weights tool.

I have decided to get on and rig a character for practice so i can identify where i need to improve on in rigging, and then when i have fully rigged the character, try to animate it according to my project film.

I have taken a model from the Book: Maya Autodesk Intermediate, and am using the book to go through and rig the character which is a dog. He is quite a big character, as i thought if i learned how to rig a bigger character it would get easier when i rigged a smaller or thinner character.

I will then use this practice to rig one of my own models and hopefully get a better understanding of rigging different characters.

Tutorials:

I am looking at Books:

• Auto-desk official training guide - intermediate - THe modeling and Animation handbook

• Learning Autodesk Maya 2008 - Foundation

• An Essential introduction to Maya Character rigging - Cheryl Cabrera

• Body Language - Advanced character Rigging - Eric Allen and Kelly Murdock

Online Tutorials - I am going to be using the escape tutorials

I also will try to disect someone elses rigg in order to understand it better.

I want to also look into blend shapes, for this i have a book called

• Stop Starring, Facial Modeling and Animation done Right by Jaspa Osipa

Specialism

Im going to look more into rigging this term for dans project.

The reason i am looking into rigging is because i have decided that it is the area in which i want to move forward into when i leave college. I am also head rigger for our BA group meaning that i have three characters to rig as well as possible rigging on other groups.

When i have done rigging before i have quite enjoyed it, but i don't know a lot about it and if this is what i want to go into then i should look more into it for this project.

I have a range of books that will help me to understand more complicated rigs and rigging methods.

I want to look in to more complicated rigs so that we can get the best expression and body language from our characters in our film, so really allowing the rig to move properly, which means Painting weights correctly on a rig.

Ill need to look into bird rigs, as we have a eagle in our film. How ever the bird rig doesn't need to be over complicated as he will only be in the film for a short time.

The bird needs to flap his wings and claw his feet to grab the food.