Any tutorials/info on advanced rigs like this

#1

Hi,
I’m starting to learn some rigging, in Maya and Houdini. I created some rigs in Houdini and watched some tutorials. So far so good.

I just saw this guy’s showreel:
http://vimeo.com/45861083

I tried to find some info or tutorials on advanced stuff like that. I don’t know 3Ds Max
at all, and I have some questions,
-What are these boxes? Is it like a temporary model used to set proportions, that the bones are extracted from? Or maybe its the model that the animators work with?

  • How is the secondary motion of the hanging part created? Is it a simulation that runs after the animation is done, or does it react to the animation immediately based on some spring expressions?
    -Is the skinning done automatically as well, with this tool he developed?
  • Where can I find some reading material or videos on these subjects?

Thanks a lot

#2

-What are these boxes? Is it like a temporary model used to set proportions, that the bones are extracted from? Or maybe its the model that the animators work with?

Nonrenderable boxes which are used as control objects and to illustrate the rough volume of the character in case you need to hide the original skinned mesh due to performance reasons.

  • How is the secondary motion of the hanging part created? Is it a simulation that runs after the animation is done, or does it react to the animation immediately based on some spring expressions?

There’s a modifier called Flex which is great for stuff like secondary motions that and which works in real time. A cloth simulation would be an option too, it’s gonna be more accurate but won’t be calculated in real time and may need more tweaking.

#3

Hello,

I believe the Maya equivalent of the Flex modifier or Spring controller in 3ds Max is the Jiggle deformer.

I don’t think the skinning would be done automatically, I think he just skipped that part to focus more on the rigging script.

I know a bit about rigging in 3ds Max but I’m going to transfer over to Maya I think. There are plenty of rigging tutorials which don’t involve create an automated rigging tool, but I saw this book on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/MEL-Scripting-Character-Rig-Maya/dp/0321383532 which seems to cover the topic fair comprehensively.

-Harry

#4

Thanks, that’s interesting.
I’m not sure, but if this book is from 2008, is it still up to date? I don’t know how much have changed since then.
I saw in an old rigging tutorial by Digital Tutors, how he makes a script for creating buttons that will create some nodes automatically. Coming from Houdini, I was amazed how complex it is. Is it still necessary to do so much scripting in Maya for such basic tasks?
I have no problem with scripting at all, it just seems weird to UI code, instead of dragging buttons into place.

#5

Creating a autorig is not a “basic task” as you say, and MEL scripting is pretty easy. I don’t think that it is necessary to buy books about it… or at least, try maya’s own documentation first :

http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2012/en_us/index.html?url=files/topichead_d3e585888-5071.htm,topicNumber=d28e663524

http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2012/en_us/Commands/index.html

In my opinion, those links and the script editor are the only things you need to learn MEL scripting.

To create dynamic/manual rigs in maya you can watch this tutorial using hairs. I prefer to use particles but it’s more complicated, hair works fine for most uses.

The skinning is not something you can fully automate, but some tools helps a lot, like ng skinTool. I’m sure you can find a lot of good free tutorials about skinning on youtube or vimeo.

#6

Creating a autorig is not a “basic task” as you say

No, of course it isn’t, I wasn’t saying that. I meant I was surprised that you need
to write code to create a button which triggers a function, instead of quicker UI creation tools.
But I might be wrong.
Thanks for the links, Ill check them out.

#7

quicker UI creation tools

Well there is PyQT but it’s for python users. I don’t use it myself so I can’t tell you more about it, I create all my GUI with python coding in notepad++ (using an interface to create interfaces sounds a little weird to me:))

#8

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