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JGaines
02-02-2009, 08:52 PM
Hello everyone,

Could I please have some help on my biped character rig? I am trying to create a control that will keep its pivot at the hips joint and allow the the character to flip.

The IK feet controls and the COG must be selected to move the character off of the move all control and throughout the scene. I created a group node named "Flip" and parented my joints and rig controls under this node. The Flip node is then parented to the move all control.

Problem: I need the Flip node to follow the hips joint. This keeps the pivot of the Flip node at the hips... otherwise it stays back at the move all control, causing the rotation pivot to be off. However, I can't constrain the Flip group to the hip joint without getting double transforms because the hip joint is under the Flip node down the hierarchy.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Joshua Gaines
Student Creature TD
edwardG
02-04-2009, 09:48 PM
What you're looking to do is create an animatable pivot. Here is how your hierarchy needs to look (dashes before arrow indicates child level):

Master Control
Mesh Group
Master Control Group
->Animatable Pivot Group
-->Animatable Pivot
-->All Control Objects Group
--->(All the Control Groups both IK and FK)
->Joints/Bones Group
->IK Handle Group

I'm explaining this in Maya terms.

1) The Master Control Group is parent & scale constrained to the Master Control.
2) The Mesh group contains the mesh and is not connected to the master control.
3) The Animatable Pivot Group, The Joints Group, and the IK Handle Group are all parented under the Master Control Group.
4) The Animatable Pivot is parented under the Animatable Pivot Group.
5) The Control Objects Group is parented under the Animatable Pivot Group.
6) All of your other controls group nodes will be parented under the All Control Objects Group.
7) Now that those are set up, you will need to open up your connection editor.
8) Create a direct connection from the Translate of the Animatable Pivot to the rotate pivot of the All Control Objects Group (make sure both pivots are in the exact same place before doing this, preferrably worldspace 0 0 0).
9) Select the Animatable Pivot, then select the All Control Objects Group and perform an orient constraint.

You can now move/snap the Animatable pivot up to the COG. You may just have to compensate the height changes with the master control, because you are going to get cycles unless the movement happens outside of these connections. You will rotate the Animatable pivot to perform the flip.

Hope this helps. :)
JGaines
02-05-2009, 01:40 AM
Ed,

Thank you very much for your help! My friend at school was able to show me a similar method today using the connection editor with the translate and rotate pivot. I appreciate it very much and thank you for being thorough in explaining the way the hierarchy needs to be constructed.
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02-05-2009, 01:40 AM
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