Limber Rig

[shalabology]

hi brad, nice work there , but i am surprised coz i always knew that u are using max , but nice shift though to maya , well done

[mlefevre]

Comprehensible setup there, looks very flexible! Nice work!

[PEN]

Nice work as always Brad, how are you finding Maya?

[Polimeno]

hi Brad,
this is awesome !
has lots of cool features and seems pretty Friendly to animate.

the rigging system is made 100% with nodes/connections ?
or does it have expressions and custom programming ?

have you thought about put some 'proxy mesh' on-top of joints ? (like TSM´s 'widgets')

http://www.anzovin.com/products/images/TSM02MayaManual/image002.jpg
"The Widget Surface—made up of NURBs cylinders—can be manipulated directly to help fit the widget to the correct shape"

http://www.anzovin.com/products/images/TSM02MayaManual/image049.jpg
"Fit the tail widget to the model mesh."

TSM´s EXAMPLE (http://www.anzovin.com/products/movies/tsm2maya_06_proxyTools.mov)

congratulations again,
seeya

[theflash]

This is great. I like your auto rigger the best so far. Good adaption of BlockParty Rigging concept.

[Boucha]

Pretty Cool...I really love the idea of Auto Rigging in a component level, with library and all those stuffs. I liked the bendy arms and the spine deformation, very cool setup indeed.

All in All...Great Stuff...Best of Luck :cool:!

[tonytouch]

congratulations to this great piece of work - it really looks great ! i love the functions for the arms and legs ( the bendy stuff ) . i like the unbreakable spine-twist ( but maybe i am missing an FK-setup , additionally for the IKspine ) . and i even like the control_curves a lot !

---------
here is a suggestion:

i am not sure , if you might want to reorganize your scene.hierarchy ( as i always think it is best , to seperate the Controls ( in one group ) , the deformation-skeleton ( 2nd_group ) , and the DONTTOUCH_group .

Character
-> GEOMETRY ( inherit Transform this one )
--> PROXY
--> HIRES
-> DeformationSkeleton
-> RIG
--> Controls
---> body_Controls
---> finger_Controls
---> head_Controls
--> DONTTOUCH
---> ikHandles
---> curves ( i usually set this one to "inherit Transform")
---> brokenHierarchy
----> leftArm
----> rightArm
----> leftLeg
----> rightLeg
----> spine
----> neckHead
----> leftHand
----> right Hand

-----------------

but so far : RESPECT !!! keep up the great work !

[Chinwagon]

Hey thanks for the compliments. The system seems to be holding its own at the moment. It's weirdly pleasing to have it be able to do rigs that are more out of the ordinary, like putting fingers on the end of a tail or combining components that make more sense like putting a clavicle at the base of a leg so you can have a leg that can has a moveable hip.

PEN: I'm offically a maya convert. For rigging and animation I prefer it so much more to max.

Max's rigging is good but its results are kind of arbitrary, a basic example: connecting float values to rotation values. You need to chuck in "degtorad" in the wire parameters dialog or it'll wig out when the float value is changed (and a lot of people learn that by asking in a forum like this). In maya that connection will work as you expect because it'll throw in a unitConversion node for you. Basically, in maya, the value you put into a node makes sense with the value you get out of the node and you can track that value all the way through a rig with the hypergraph.

There are two simple reasons I prefer it so much more to max:
Speed. In max it might be fast to scrub a complex rig but it'll be dog slow to move a key in the track view. In maya the speed you get when you scrub is always consistent and usually quick.
The hypergraph. 'Nuff said.

I've tried my skeleton rig in max 2010 and there are tons of errors now in it that weren't there in 2009. I've fixed the biggest ones but there are still some that don't make any sense, bones skewing when all the values and inheritances going into them are correct and without a hypergraph, debugging it is just a pain.

To be honest, I just can't be bothered with it any more.

Polimeno: The rig is 100% nodes, no expressions, no script jobs, not even a set driven key (so far).

I've seen TSM's widgets but haven't used them and so I'm not really familiar with any benefits they bring.

theflash: I wasn't aware of the block party thing until I did a search here on it. From eek's post (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=5863164&postcount=7) it looks like a really cool approach and I'm kind of glad that my philosophies kind of match theirs (in a basic way - that volume guide thing they have sounds awesome).

tonytouch: I've separated the groups as I find it easier to exchange rig parts. However I have thought about having a script that will convert it to a hierarchy kind of like the one you suggested.

Cheers!
:¬)

[PEN]

Well it is to bad to loose you on the Max side but I know where you are coming from. I like the speed of animation in Maya far better then Max and I like how you can track what you are doing in Maya far better. One of these days we will get that in Max. As far as unit conversion that doesn't bother me at all and never really has. There are many things in Maya that I find just as much a pain so I think that it is really just trading one issues for another. Speed is the biggest thing and Max 2010 once again has issues with keys in the trackview, I wonder if that will ever go away.

[theflash]

You should look at the video presentation. I think you can buy it on http://encore.siggraph.org/

Even besides volume guide they have a really nice approach to separating rigging parts and plug them properly to create desired hierarchy. I think generalizing such idea as much as possible will make a really robust rigging system.

Cool to have you on Maya now :) Will be looking forward to more stuff from you.

[shalabology]

i really suffered from track view speed but i thought it could due to any hard ware issues, but after hearing brad saying that my confidence in max has been oscillated , the one thing in these posts calmed me out just PEN post it relieved me out , brad i will personally miss u in max happy journey with maya , something last to point out though , brad wasnt the first one to shift to maya there had been michael comet who shifted completely to maya , so wats up?is m,ax really nasty?

[IkerCLoN]

Awesome and inspirational work as always, Brad! And good to know that you built everything just by using nodes. I like the BIG button that executes the whole thing :)

By the way, I'm in the process on learning XSI and using it on rigging. I like a lot the idea of models and groups, so you can have all the parts on your rig quite more organized than in MAX (I was using Layers under MAX). Is it the same in Maya? What more advantages do you find now that you know the two softwares?

[Chinwagon]

I don't want to get into any sort of slanging match about which program is better, all I can say is that for what I do for a living, maya works much better for me. When it comes to modeling and rendering, I'm not an absolute authority but I would say max beats maya hands down. Suffice to say both programs have their strengths and weaknesses and it just so happens that maya's strengths are in my line of work.

IkerCLoN: I love the hypergraph and the node based workflow of maya but I miss max's modifier stack. I can replicate some of it with maya's construction history but a few things are still missing (eg. a good volume select equivalent).

Maya is heavily based around a grouping hierarchy layout and I like that because it encourages good organisation of your rigs. And for those who know me know that I'm very big on scene cleanliness - bordering on obsessive compulsive!

PEN: I personally don't see that speed issue going away until they rewrite the track view which doesn't seem high on their list of priorities. Also people around here don't seem to jump up and down about it nearly as much as I did (note the past tense used).

theflash: I'd love to see that block party demonstration but it was from 2006, the only recent year the siggraph encore section seems to be missing!

:¬)

[Leffler]

Really good system you got there, and impressive that you´ve done it when you are pretty new to Maya. I kind´a know how much work it is ... :)

5 stars :thumbsup:

[theflash]

theflash: I'd love to see that block party demonstration but it was from 2006, the only recent year the siggraph encore section seems to be missing!

:¬)

Ah! that sucks. But, you can always watch it on ACM portal if you have a membership. you can try getting membership through your company.

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1179849.1179993&coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=44694699&CFTOKEN=62852574

[Freij]

Hi Brad!

I just want to say that I think you kick ass, as you already did at Nexus a few years back! It's great to see that your Maya rig is looking so very promising.
Hope you're doing well!
Always a pleasure to follow your work and animate with your rigs!

Anders

[PEN]

Another thing about wanting to use Maya, doesn't really matter which app you think is best and for what reason Maya is still the most used in character based feature production and I would think in series type work as well.

[luigi]

kudos as always brad , as always really inpirational, i was really impress last time you show me. really nice approach , do you have seen bluesky aproach the papers the did in siggraph 2008 , the procedural rigging , you can get them in the acm too.

i quite understand max, maya pro and contrast, i my case i ben learning maya for the last year, and i quite enjoying new ways of rigging and the bast documentation is around. But have to say maya graph editor speed in the is great, speed in max trackview is a must , dont know when it will come.

But i have to say max is nicer for turning jobs quicker, on modelling , shading and lighting that maya , but for animation and rigging maya is the king, and is kind of a must when you want to move to features.excet a few companies.

quite happy with maxscript and his orientated object programming you can do the same in maya but will need to use mel and phyton.a bit of more learning.

Have to say i like both softwares just depends of the job i will work , been only using one soft limits the amount of companies you can work with.i am not a maya converted as brad but dont know if time will make me move in the same direction.

but right know i am happy user of both aplications.

[Chinwagon]

That's the other big thing about knowing maya, I find you become more employable to many more companies with maya skills under your belt. Max is a great program but at this stage it's not geared to high end character work which is what I'm interested in.

To be honest, I was thinking about learning a new program a few years back and XSI had just released version 7 with ICE and everyone was getting excited about it. I was very close to learning it but it's funny how Autodesk's acquisition suddenly dampened everyone's enthusiasm. A couple of months after that I spoke to some Autodesk people about the future of max, maya and xsi. They suggested that each program would be marketed toward different customer bases and that max's was small companies looking to make good looking 3d imagery quickly, maya was high end visual effects and if I wanted to be a high end visual effects artist then I should take a good hard look at the software I was using. I was quite shocked at first but they do own both bits of software so they don't really care which one I go with.

This is all getting rather off topic now but I couldn't help but vent a little.

;¬)

[shalabology]

but u may get some benifit of knowing both softwares , i for examples noticed on PEN website a great comparison between maya and max regarding rigging process , its good point out there .
any how it may be frustrating for me to feel max retardness in rigging field but that would good motive to head towards maya someday when i get the luxury of spre time and mind to learn it , thank u for sharing that with us!

[Boucha]

I think all the software packages are worthless without the artist knowledge and skill on working there way out. Its all dependent on techniques, idea of art and conceptualization. Whether you use maya, max or softimage, all in all the output that you get from the system all depends in your skills and knowledge being applied to it. Its obvious that maya is the unbeatable champ for rigging and animation due to its flexibility and modularity. Same goes for other softwares too. There is always a pro and con to everything, for this reason we write tools, plugin and yes Chinwagon did the same thing. He came from max, learn a great deal of technique and shifted to maya and just utilised that skills that he have achieved from his experience. He can do the same thing on softimage, no problem I believe. I too came from max background and now shifted to maya :D !

Anyways, this post is going out of topic, I thing we should start a thread on this topic alone :rolleyes: ...

Chinwagon has done a great piece of work here, his limber rig is pretty unique, even the control objects are unique and he demonstrated some cool techniques implimented in his system such as soft IK.

Hey Chinwagon, can you explain to me a bit about how you go through setting up this soft IK ? Previously, I have seen this setup implimented in max and softimage but not in maya.

Thanks in advance !

[Chinwagon]

Thanks for getting this back on topic.

The soft IK came from these articles: Soft IK (http://www.xsi-blog.com/archives/108), Soft and stretchy IK (http://www.xsi-blog.com/archives/109).

I took the equation from the jscript available on the site and converted it to a node based solution using condition nodes for the "if x > y" stuff, multiplyDivide nodes for the exponent stuff (x^2.7128828) and other combinations of multDoubleLinear and addDoubleLinear nodes. It's a pretty straightforward expression, it just makes for a complex jumble of nodes.

:¬)

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.