Character Rigging Reel

[Leffler]

Wow, that was really good stuff! And nice to hear SWEDISH music :-)

// Otto

[theflash]

Really nice reel. I liked the deformation systems you showed a lot and some facial features were really impressive to me.

I will remove the shot where the space boy is kneeling down to pick up the stone. The deformation of legs in that shot is not as good as your other deformation demo.
I think you have some shots that repeat a lot, for example the cat wearing hat and a cat in the chair. There are probably 3-4 shots (if I remember correctly).

Really liked your work.

[mlefevre]

Inspiring reel Sune!

Like theflash said, some of those deformation systems looked really nice. Especially on the polar bears neck & arms. That little orange dude's rig looked sweet as. Would love to see more on that layered approach you used on his skin weighting.

[Nenox]

Thank you for your comments guys!

I agree that space boy leg deformations are not up to snuff! The shot is really only there for continuity.

I really wanted to demo the layered skinning more, but unfortunately it's really hard to "show" whats going on. Basicaly the shoulder and arms are one discreet skin layer, the rest of the body on another and then the facials again on their own.

Cheers

[theflash]

I keep going back to your reel because I love what you have done for deformations. I think that deformations are very very important and they create aesthetics.

So for layered approach you have everything feeding into final rig right? May be through blendshapes? I really like that approach. I generally separate jaw and eyelids for mainly ease of skin weighting. And as you had mentioned you don't have to fight between areas. But doing it for body parts sounds like a great idea.

One more question. Could you tell a bit about that orange alien guy, mainly how did you do the jiggling you are showing with colored mesh? It reminds me of that Pixar alien.

Inspiring work man.

PS. If I were you I would remove the boy with the stone shot. Continuity is always good but not at the cost of adding a little lower quality material.

[Nenox]

I keep going back to your reel because I love what you have done for deformations. I think that deformations are very very important and they create aesthetics.

Hi Flash. Thank you for all your feedback. I really believe that good deformations are key to selling a shot to the audience. Obviously no amount of fancy control rigging can do it for you, so I'm always a "deformations first" kinda guy :-)


So for layered approach you have everything feeding into final rig right? May be through blendshapes? I really like that approach. I generally separate jaw and eyelids for mainly ease of skin weighting. And as you had mentioned you don't have to fight between areas. But doing it for body parts sounds like a great idea.


The whole idea behind this is to combat weight fighting. Example: I wanted the bones of the neck to have a lot of influence under the chin and out to the sides. But due to the character design there is also shoulder/arms and jaw wanting to claim influence over these areas. With the layered approach I've kinda done away with weight normalization in these areas.

You could probably do it with blendShapes(think i might have added the facial layer this way), but for the body deformations I did it with several layers of actual skinning: shapenode(original model)->skinCluster->shapeNode(outMesh)->(inMesh)shapeNode->skinCluster->shapeNode(The one you see on screen)

I had to avoid the double transformations that would normally occur. So I did a lot of transform connection between the skeletons and also some connections between the skeleton of one layer and the bindPreMatrix attributes of the others skinCluster. It's hard to explain without getting into detail, also the work is about two years old, so I don't have the data fresh in mind :-)


One more question. Could you tell a bit about that orange alien guy, mainly how did you do the jiggling you are showing with colored mesh? It reminds me of that Pixar alien

This was done with the per point jiggle of what used to be the Michael Comets awesome cMuscle system. But then he sold the product to Autodesk and got a job at Pixar! It's now the Maya integrated Muscle System. Haven't tried their version yet, but I guess you might still find the jiggle feature in there.

[vvkonline]

sweet reel, i really like the shark quadruped : ) such a cool character, and small alien's face deformation is awesome.

[Polimeno]

hey man,
i personally loved the facial systems/features and its deformations.
the orange alien is very cute, though !

great rigging reel at all !!
seeya

[theflash]

The whole idea behind this is to combat weight fighting. Example: I wanted the bones of the neck to have a lot of influence under the chin and out to the sides. But due to the character design there is also shoulder/arms and jaw wanting to claim influence over these areas. With the layered approach I've kinda done away with weight normalization in these areas.

You could probably do it with blendShapes(think i might have added the facial layer this way), but for the body deformations I did it with several layers of actual skinning: shapenode(original model)->skinCluster->shapeNode(outMesh)->(inMesh)shapeNode->skinCluster->shapeNode(The one you see on screen)

I had to avoid the double transformations that would normally occur. So I did a lot of transform connection between the skeletons and also some connections between the skeleton of one layer and the bindPreMatrix attributes of the others skinCluster. It's hard to explain without getting into detail, also the work is about two years old, so I don't have the data fresh in mind :-)


Thanks a lot for the explanation. I think I have got the basic ground of what you have done. It seems that it has a lot of tricks and logic to make multiple skin clusters work together.

I am a deformation guy too :) Definitely not as much experienced as you, but It would be really great to talk to you about deformation systems some time.

[Nenox]

Thank you for your feedback!

Flash, It have found it can be really hard to find good information about deformations. I look at many productions and think - "Man I wish I knew how they do that!" Quite frustrating sometimes :-)

I think in part it because many inexperienced people doing rigging don't find it as interesting as learning/showcasing elaborate control setups. Also I think many experienced riggers and studios feel that what they know in this department, is to valuable give away. And of course many studios have their own propriatary deformation systems.

I realise I'm rabling a bit here, but you touched upon something that I though a lot about.

I've written some posts about about deformations over at my blog www.sunekempf.com/blog (http://www.sunekempf.com/blog). You might have to go back to the old posts. You are also welcome to write me and we can arrange to have a chat.

Cheers,
Sune

[theflash]

I know what you mean. I think part of the reason deformation becomes secondary for beginner is the tedious job of skin weighting. I think almost everybody enjoys making control hierarchy way more than the skin weighting and so we put a great deal of time in controls and skeleton than skinning.

I think talking about rigging techniques can get touchy sometimes because people invent their own techniques which takes a some time and experience. And ofcourse working in a studio binds you by the rules in sharing. But I think talking in general about the ground theories of achieving deformations can be discussed without much trouble.

Your blog is great, I found it very helpful for my learning. Thanks for everything :)

[Larry_g1s]

Nice reel. I too like the music, very 80's-ish, danceable beat. I'm sending you an e-mail soon.

[Larry_g1s]

P.s. who is the music artist.

[Leffler]

P.s. who is the music artist.

Its a swedish band called "Kent"

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