Ok fellas, I’ve found a new good and useful tool for rigging our characters, I think we should make it the OFFICIAL tool for rigging.
DL it, examin it and put your OPINIONs here:
Creature Tools, by Antony Ward
It’s easy, fast, and complete, with some minor bugs!
I have never tryed this yet. I have tryed Animan and it has proved its self.
For the alien I thinck we need to take a closer look at the geometry. That was the problem I had with. The geometry had a mind of its own. :hmm:
Hey men,
what do you think about this?
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=711254#post711254
Hey everyone glad to see something productive happening over here. I’m basically a student trying to get his foot in the door , find my skills are best at modeling and rigging character. Ila has been testing a toonRig setup I’ve made. Its a complicated but easy to use setup. But offers an elastic/Stretching IK/FK setup aswell Spline IK deformation.
Anyways I just registered here at CGtalk so I’m a bit of a newb but glad to join the group so I hope this thing really takes off for sure…
-STEVE
Welcome Steve! You need to get together with Lluis and compare notes on rigs. He’s doing the Hero and Mom at the moment.
Welcome Mayajuana. I thinck your name kicks a$$.
Luis if you need any help on rigging the characters please let me know cause I have nothing to do now since the alien is beighn remodeled.
Hey sorry about the delay in response been busy getting this Character Rig of mine off the ground.
I got a preview of the rig for anyone who wants to check it out. All you need is Maya 5. Just import into a new scene and you’re set…
Let me know what y’all think…
Saw your rig in the rigging section. Looks very promising. Would like to play around with it :rolleyes:
Heya! Just read through the “Did you know?” section of your page! You rock! That’s exactly what I thought of. Cg/animation looks so cgish 
I think the biggest problem is that ppl can’t solve their mind from the “realistic” 3d environment when animating. In traditional animation you need something to look exaggerated and you draw it. But in cg everything depends on the volume of the mesh. Barely animators play around with deformation. Not to mention timing. Instead of thinking of the result and how the shapes look on the final piece the motion has to be right in 3d space. But the viewer doesn’t care about it!
I think we should take more time to examine the masters. My choice is The Emperor’s New Groove. One of the best motion in Disney Movies IMO but underestimated in popularity :rolleyes:
Sorry for writing it here. Just needed to say that. I’ll keep watching your cgtoons page. :applause:
Let’s do it cartooooony!
Yeah I understand what you mean. What makes traditional animation so interesting and alive is that its exaggerated and so well staged. Not only does their dialogue speak , but also their actions expressions and body language do also…
Thats why I built this rig to show traditional properties can exist in a 3d world . I havent recieved much feedback on it thats for sure, either its that bad or that good.
I’ve started a collaboration group where I’ll be posting my work but if anyone’s interested, also be a good place to propose any good project ideas. Anyone here is more than welcome to join. The focus is 10-30sec animations to get warmed up working in a group. We sure need some talent from here on there. It hasnt really taken off yet. So far the majority of people are lurkers, and few local spys from my area. But there have been a few that joined who really expressed an interest.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cgToonsGroup/
well, I think aniMan is a very good tool, Seynaeve Emmanuel did a very great job. I think we can use it in some of our characters:
http://www.manus3d.be/projects/personal/aniMan/intro_0.htm
Steve, please give it a shot and see if you can do some needed stuff?
and this is the LATEST version for download up to now:
http://www.manus3d.be/images_forums/aniMan_1.3.4.zip
don’t forget to check the official site for tut and manual (previous post).
Actually I have played around with Animan, Creature Studio, Final Rig and some other automated rigging scripts and have found Finalrig 1.2 by far the best setup. It has some cool strtch features for toony looking styles. Its easy to set up, has a very easy to use control rig.
In my opinion your best bet is to use Finalrig 1.2.
How is the facial setup going to be done, blenshapes or bones ?
Ayjay.
Hi there, thank you for the suggestion.
well, I think finalRig is very good, but I have a problem with that, dono it’s my misunderstanding or the script weakness, that is:
I can’t set the bind pose for the arms which are not in the T shape figure, say I have a model that arms are in 30 or 45 degree angle with the body. the finalRig doesn’t let you to bring the elbow/hands down in the setting up the skeleton pose.
Do you got what I mean? or am I wrong?
You have hit the nail on the head my friend ! Thats very true, you cant bind a character with arms down at 45°. This is the case with version 1.2, but 1.3 will be released soon and the guys have addressed that issue.
Are all of the characters going to be bound at 45° ?
How are you planning to deform the mesh? Will you be using wrap defromers ?
Keep up the great work guys.
Ayjay.
Well, so that would be an option (ver 1.3)
My alien#1 mesh has arms in 30 degree position, and some others are not totaly horizental. About the deformation, I doubt we use it, if so that would be another option, I think we just go for simple smooth skin binding at this time, not sure though.
Cheers