Character Update 1

#1

Hey everybody
I’ve been working on the body rig for my character recently. More specifically on the hand rig. I wanted a completely intuitive approach to the hand controls. XP made this possible. Oh, and Cj as well. Cj gave me his base hand script to work off of. Thanks to Cj’s file, I was better able to understand what was going on. THANKS CJ!

After making some adjustments and additions to his script, I was able to fully automate the hands animation via sliders. Yes sliders, and not the morph windows sliders either. I created custom sliders to control the rig from with in any viewport. The hand controller even moves with the hand and always faces front. I did this using a position constraint. This way when ever working with the hand, the controller is right there at all times. Also, the sliders have limits so that they never go off the rails and give unwanted results. Take a look at this clips to see exactly what I mean. The objects being animated are the low res proxies. This way I get realtime feedback in Animator.

http://www.morleyarts.com/auto-handrig.html

#2

Outstanding Richard.

Right off the bat I’ve got like a million questions.

How did you create the virtual sliders and their text labels? Are those all Nulls?

Each slider obviously does not control an individual finger - so what do they do? And what is PMITS?

Fantastic work. With CJ providing counsel as Remote TD you are seriously pushing the EI envelope!

#3

Thanks
The controller actually does control one finger at a time.
P=pinky
M=Middle Finger
I=Index
T=Thumb
S=Spread of fingers

I just grabbed all the finger sliders and dragged them all down at once in that little clip. The blue boxes are nulls, the text was done in EIM. The sliders will never derail or fall apart because they have limits set.

Hope this helps

#4

Here’s a new clip that might help illustrate the sliders functions better. It’s using the skinned model, not the proxy objects.

http://www.morleyarts.com/post/smooth-hand-rig.mov

#5

Ah, non-rendering wire entities, now I know how Alonzo made the labels for his “ReadyRigs”!

Sweet. You’ve made your own Light/Sound Mixing Board, or it’s virtual double.

#6

This is a common technique used in Maya. Only difference is there is really no need for virtual wireframe slider controls on the rig itself. Everything is routed through the channel box and set driven keys. Controlling nulls on the rig can have custom attributes added by the user which can drive these kinds of joint rotations. I would love EITG to incorporate that kind of technology into EIAS.

#7

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