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.