mirroring rig w\ driven keys

#1

Greetings,

I’ve just finished rigging the left leg of a biped with ik chains, set driven keys for complex moves of the ankle, a pole vector handle, multiple fk handles, all grouped and nicely packaged. Once I finished, I realized that I’d have to do it all over again (for the right leg).

Is there a way I can mirror all of the above from the left leg to the right leg, including the custom attributes from the set driven keys? I’ve tried a couple of options, but so far all dead ends.

Thanks in advance

_benttoenail

#2

Hi…!
Try duplicating the left side with the option duplicate spexial with input connection… I doubt that it has mirror option.
Rgds,
Prem

#3

I tried that, but I can’t get it to disconnect from the left leg and parent to the right leg. It seems to create the nodes, connections and custom attributes that I’m looking for, but it looks like I’d have to key up my driven keys again.

Hence, the group is made, but it seems like there’s too much work to do - I feel like there should be a more efficient way…

thanks for the help, Prem

_benttoenail

#4

I haven’t really looked much at Maya’s mirroring tools so I don’t really know how well they work. What I would suggest though is that you script the rigging process once you’ve done it manually, this has a learning curve but will save you tons of time in the long run. You can do all the parenting, SDKs, connections etc through MEL.

I've been working on an IK leg script myself just recently, [here's an example](http://www.graphite9.com/WIP/bh_ikLegRig/bh_ikLegRig.html), this takes a joint chain and adds a no-flip knee, foot roll etc all through MEL. Part of the code here checks to see which side the leg is on and negates the control for the knee and toe twist so that poses will then mirror easily.

EDIT - out of curiosity I tried using Duplicate special here and it seemed to work ok if I enabled ‘duplicate input graph’ in the options. Before I did that I created an empty null and put everything pertaining to the leg rig under it and then duplicated that. All the SDKs and connections are working fine, so it’s just a matter of repositioning the parts now on the other side and renaming. Should be a way forward for you hopefully.

Cheers,
Brian
#5

Great, that was a slick move putting everything under the null first. By null, you mean an empty group node, right? Also, was it just the rig that you duplicated, or did you duplicate the skeleton as well?

Thanks Brain

_benttoenail

#6

Yeah, I put the lot - skeleton, controllers, IK handles etc all under an empty group and duplicated that (I use C4D here as well as Maya so I tend to mix up the terms sometimes groups/nulls/locators etc!; )

Glad that did the trick anyway,
Cheers,
Brian

#7

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