Max or Maya. That pdf seems helpful. Thanks! Got any more?
Question: Tutorials for people that are new to rigging?
eek
#43
Ok people,
A lot of people have asked me about rigging quadraped ( 4 legged creatures) So ill make a tutorial for you guys including the rig too. I’ll do 2 different types, 1 with locking feet like a horse and one without.
How do you want it? just a skeleton rig, so you can put it in you own models, of with a control mesh too?
Also do you want a version with a simple and complex spine?
The rigs will work will all versions of max 4 -up as they dont rely on version specific tools e.g spine ik. Also do you want a stretchy spine version (framestore,weta movie rig type)
eek
GrahamHRoss
#44
Hey eek. Thanks ahead of time for offering to make a tut for this. It’s been driving me nits trying to build the damn thing.
I think for me it would be helpful to have a model with a mesh, so I can see how the bones affect it in the end. Not so sure about the spine. Perhaps simple is better in teh beginning, no?
thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou:bounce:
eek
#45
ok, ill get cracking on it this weekend. Ill make a low poly control mesh to with it and a simple spine to start off, if you guys want a more complex spine ill add one in.
eek
eek
#46
Ok,
Here you go. Just finished this dog rig for you guys, its the same rig type we use at work. I’ll make a tutorial this week , for now just have a play. It has all the standard features plus locking front feet for when they touch the ground.
Please right click and save-target-as:
eek
GrahamHRoss
#49
Nice stuff Eef. I’m jsut beginning to pick through how you rigged this thing.
QUick question. The second file with the walk cycle dosen’t seem to ahve any helpers included with the file. Is there a way to see them? I’d like to see how the helpers shift around as the character walks.
scrimski
#50
Hi everyone,
does any of you knows a skinnig tutorial for Max (except Joan of Arc). I always get weird results on the elbow and knee joints. Tried to fix this with additional edges, gizmos etc, but it’s just getting worse
thx
eek
#51
hi Kungfu,
yep the helpers are there, just hidden.
just wondering if you guys want a biped rig setup, i would do the same like the quadraped. But possibly add a more complex spine setup. For you guy’s to play with.
DogBreath
#52
Thanks for sharing …again.
Now I just need to add some jiggle…
Html help file would be great…its a very different rig to your other ones…an explainiation of the small helpers between each bone would be helpful.
Nice work…thanks again.
GrahamHRoss
#53
A more complex spine would be interesting. Right now I relaly like the simplicity of the skeleton.
Also, I know you said you’d do some kind fo HTML file documenting the rigging process. I’d like to see that. I’m particularly interested in how you did the swinging of the tail and the ears. Those look very fluid and nice.
eek
#54
The tail (animated FK) is just a followthrough/overlap of the hips. The hip up/down movement is key directly onto the tail bones just ofset 2 frames. Its the same with top view rotation side to side - copied from the hip, offset 2 frames but also a whole offset of the tail 6 frames (half a step) - this makes its classic arc.
Arcs are key to animation, and this whats happening. If you rotate the dog so you see the back/bum, play the anim and watch the tip of the tail - it’ll make the classic 8 shape.
The ears are very simple, i watch the up/down f-curve of the head. See when it gets to the tip of the arc and start the ears rotating 2 frames from that. The bottom part of the ears is just another 2 frame offset.
**The key thing with all walk/run cycles is that everything starts from a base. So for quads its the hips, and this motion translates down to verything else. But its not just overlaping everything, things have a key relationship with each other - weight to overlap- to followthrough etc etc. **(this is wahat a learnt at Framestore)
Maybe i should do a tutorial vid of a walk cycle walkthrough, for you guys?
GrahamHRoss
#55
But when you started animating, you started with placing the feet and then moved up, right? Or did you start by doing the sway of the hips and then move down?
And for the tail, so you went into the curve editor and just coped the keys from the hips onto each of the three tailbones, then offset them by a few frames…is that correct? I never would have thought of doing that. Does that technique hold true for other kinds of secondary motion?
I would love a vid tut on a walkcycle, but I would like jsut as well some kind of documentation on the process you went through to rig that dog!
BTW, I took some of what I saw from your rig and used it to animate a simple walk for an ostrich. It was very helpful to have your file on hand when I was putting it together! I’ll make a render of it within the next few days and put a link up here.
eek
#59
Thankyou,
Im gunna put together a website and possibly some dvd/cd tutorials on rigging for everything. Gunna be max specific ver 4/5/6. But could work for most packages.
Ive gotta work out some webspace and some dvd stuff. Give me a list of what youd like to see.
basic list:
reverse foot setup
standard foot setup
sticky ground foot setup
knee setup with look at control
knee setup with expression control
knee setup with shape control
fk/ik arm setup
fk/ik 4 bone shoulder setup
3 bone spine setup
6 bone spine setup
8 bones spine setup
hand setup - auto/manual finger control
hand setup - stick to plane
quad setup- 3 bone spine
quad setup- 6/8 bone setup
quad knee lock setup
biped setup - 3 bone
biped setup - 6/8 bone setup
unusual setups:
wings,tails,snake
Understanding LOD:
Understanding LOD
Using reference objects and proxys
using control meshes
Theory on rigs:
how constraints work
how expressions work
understanding pivots
floating pivots and the need for them
Understanding puppets
theory of inverse kinematics
theory of forward kinematics
extras
MCage
#60
:(! I want to see everyting…
eek do u have a website, i want to see some ur animation…
U are my new Guru :)…:bounce: