CGTalk - foot control orientation

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rustymclellan

01-17-2006, 10:55 PM

Hello all,

I just completed my first rig and was hoping to get some crits on it. I know there are a few problems (IK/FK bones dont match up in the arms) but aside from that and one other problem, it seems pretty solid. Also if anyone has some advice on what type of stuff I should be adding/working towards future rigs, that would be helpful too. That other problem is the reason why I'm posting. I've linked the file, and if you check in the hypergraph (should be neatly organized!) under the IKControls group, you should see a left and right foot controls group. This is the controller that houses the reverse foot setup. Because the characters feet aren't facing directly forward, all the groups within the IKControlsl group are aligned with the world axis instead of following the LRA of the foot bones their pivots are oriented at. Is there an easy way to realign these groups to the orientation of the bones without having to redo the entire leg setup? You can see where this problem is evident when you use the peel heel attribute located on the IK Controller. Thanks in advance!

http://rusty.ivillage.cc/CG_CHARACTER_DESIGN/finalRig.zip

Rusty

rustymclellan

01-18-2006, 09:34 PM

hey all,

I got some help on this problem from a friend, and everything seems to be working (just a rotation axis problem, had to unconnect the SDK and reorient the group). If anyone is still willing to give some advice on the Rig itself and how it could be improved, it would be greatly apprectiate.

Rusty

AlphaJoe

01-27-2006, 12:21 PM

I have been looking at your rig and there are a few things you can work on.

1. Try and make your controllers a little more intuitive as to what they are for. Right now they are all nurbs circles and it can be a bit confusing as to which one does what. For instance, shape the foot control curve into the shape of a foot, make pole vector controls in the shape of arrows, etc...

2. Lock and hide any channels that you do not want the animators to set keys on. Pole vector controls should only translate, FK joints should only rotate, and so on... Right now, a majority of the controls have all of the channels available for keying.

3. There is an orientation problem with the toe tap on the foot control. The bone has rotational values when the toe tap is zeroed out. This problem is not evident on the FK bone chain. You want to make sure that the bones do not have rotational values before putting any controls on them. When I have to rotate my joints to get them into the correct position for placement, I immediately redraw the joint chain by vert snapping a new chain on top of the one with all of the rotate values. This will cause the new chain to have perfect transform attributes.

4. Don't use renderable geometry for controls. I personally never use geometry as a control, but if you really want to use it, make sure and turn off primary visibility in the Render Stats attributes of the control object.

5. It took me a moment to figure out what those joints sticking outside the hands were for. You shouldn't use joints in your chain for controls and SDK's. I would put all of those custom attributes on the hand controller and call them pinky curl, index curl, etc...

6. On the Clavicle/Scapula configuration, I prefer to use an IK setup. I stick a SC chain for each and translate the control to move them. But that is just me.

7. You might want to consider putting in a head control instead of just a neck. That way you can rotate the head independently of the neck. This would be for things such as cocking the head and "goosing" the head forward and backward. Right now all of your head rotations are coming from the base of the neck, which is unnatural.

All in all, it isn't a bad rig for a first timer. There are a few anatomy issues that could be addressed, like in the shoulder area. I think the shoulder joints might be a little low and on the inside, but things like that come with practice and problems become more evident when you do your bind. I would like to see it after you do the smooth bind.

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