CGTalk - Help on BIRD RIG

venga_dude

04-22-2005, 07:11 AM

Hi everyone,

I need to rig an eagle that can be animated to take off from sitting position, flap its wings during flight and also to land and wrap its wings back to the sitting pose. The wing geometry of the eagle is like that of a featherless bird and I've used separate patches for feathers to give a realistic look.

My Qs are:
1. What is the simplest rig for the above stated actions?
2. Is the model that is explained, fine to support the rigging requirements? Or is there a better way to model the feathers to keep the rig simple (maybe a single patch with the feathers shown by texture).

thanks.

sneezy

04-22-2005, 12:52 PM

this tutorial might help ya with the feathers: http://www.jackals-forge.com/tutor/tut1.html

venga_dude

04-25-2005, 10:35 AM

hi sneezy,

Nice tutorial ... thanks! Good combination of many tools in there. ok, one thing i always forget to mention in my first post; the software i use ... this time, its max 7. But from the tutorial i've understood the concept. Its only 'bout finding equivalent tools in max to do the same thing that has been implemented in maya. I'm not so convinced 'bout the realism of wing motion in the videos. The feathers are too flexible and the motion is too wavy. Its more like a simulation of ocean surface. The feathers must be strong enough to push the air down and thrust the body of the bird up. Only the end of the feathers are weak and give secondary motion.

Any more ideas/inputs 'bout the wing rig?

cheers

venga_dude

04-28-2005, 08:15 AM

hi all,
I saw a couple of videos that show eagle land and wrap its wings. It is so amazing and very difficult to imagine how to create a rig to imitate that motion.

I've been trying to get a rig for this transition using some inputs from the tutorial that sneezy mentioned above.

I constructed the wing skeleton similar to how it is explained in that tutorial. Then i used the reaction manager to set up reactions between the feathers and the bones that the feathers are linked to. The initial pose for the reaction is the wing open and stretched wide (as during flight) and the final pose is the wings wraped up (as in sitting pose). But i'm not able to get the arrangement of feathers properly at the final pose.

Guys plz help me complete the rig. It's really challenging and i'll be very happy if i can see a realisic result from it.

cheers.

joconnell

04-28-2005, 09:24 AM

Heya Venga - I'm doing a max 5 rig for a pterodactyl at the moment which has a lot of the same problems as a bird rig with the arms folding and the such - I'll post a copy of it. It mainly has FK bones for the arms and the front edge of the wing and then a set of bones that fan out and deal with the feathered area.I'll chuck it up in a wee bit - Gotta sort some skinning first.

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04-28-2005, 09:24 AM

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