Squetchy Thom

#1

Here’s a rig I’ve been messing with for a little while. It still needs some user feedback, so, feel free to critique it. The entire thread on the Hash forums is located here and the release candidate is also attached to this post.

#2

Release Candidate 2 is attached. Changes in this version:

The hands lock with arm movement…I made it lock on both IK and FK.

Added on-the-hand finger curl and hand clench controls (rotate the roll handles on the bones pointing up…they appear when you set “show_finger_controls” to on).

I don’t think I broke anything in updating, but, if you see anything broken or don’t like something I did let me know.

#3

Release Candidate 3:

Changes in this version:

Knee rotation independent of the foot control added in IK (control is on the back of the foot below the heel control…it rotates on the Y axis).

Added a controller to isolate the hip manipulation (it’s the bone pointing downward from the hips).

Fixed the broken FK leg controls.

Fixed a right foot squetch problem (it didn’t have a “scale to reach” set, so it didn’t match the left foot).

Fixed the scaling of the hand controls when scaling the arms.

Fixed the lack of leg rotation (I didn’t notice it until I was working on the independent knee rotation).

#4

D’oh! I fixed a couple of things…sometimes my head doesn’t work too good. I’ll get it right one of these times.

Changes in this version:

Fixed the FK on the arms to work correctly.

Made the IK arms percentage sliders instead of on/off.

Made the IK legs percentage sliders instead of on/off.

Cleaned up some of the organization.

#5

Changes in this version:

Arm controls for IK have rotation limited to the ‘X’ axis for contolling the elbows.

Fixed a problem in the rotation of the hips.

Head and neck by default does not orient like the chest, a percentage slider is now added to accomplish that.

The default is now FK arms and IK legs…maybe that has been the case, I forget.

Turned the roll handles on the model bone, head, neck and chest bones to face front…I don’t know why I had them facing backwards.

Added an entire model squetch slider…I think that actually happened on the last version.

There are probably more things to do that I haven’t seen yet, but I’ll try to nail everything down as soon as I can. Let me know if you see any problems.

#6

Okay, I skipped posting some versions here, but, here’s the final version of Squetchy Thom for anyone interested.

EDIT

I reposted this version because of a thumb control being knocked askew. Sorry for any inconvenience.

#7

Have only played with the rig a little (I’ve been out of the AM loops for quite awhile) but so far it seems like a really nice rig. It really shines when you activate all the squetch controls and it becomes more of a broken hiearchy rig, similar to some of the stuff I saw at the Disney booth for Chicken Little. Will be curious to try out on another character. How tough is it to transfer the rig over?

BTW, has Hash ever added any scripting language so you can more easily install a rig like this? Like in Maya it is easy to write Mel scripts so you can say lay out the arm bones and hit the script and it will add all the additional controls. That way it only takes a few minutes to add the rig instead of few hours.

#8

First off, thanks for taking a look at the rig.

How tough is it to transfer the rig over?

That’s what I’m working on now, I’m thinking that as-is it would take longer than building it from scratch…several hours, probably. I’m making an installation version of the rig though, it should speed the process up a lot. I’m not sure how much yet, but, I think it will be at least comparable to installing the 2001 rig in amount of time required (I’m actually shooting for faster, we’ll see if I can deliver that). It should be a week or so to get it done. One thing that I won’t be able to speed up is the CP weighting, although there are a couple of tools that I’ve seen that will mirror the weights. I don’t use the “compute CP weights” feature, I’m a control freak.

Hash ever added any scripting language so you can more easily install a rig like this?

Not yet, I’ve heard rumors of one being developed by a third party (other than the Python scripting from a couple of years ago, I don’t know how that’s going either)…but, I haven’t seen anything concrete. It would be nice. I have seen a macro made in jEdit for mirroring bone falloff located here on the Hash Forums…I’ve thought about doing something similar for automating rig installation, it depends on how much energy it requires.

#9

I found out that I had knocked the right thumb controller askew in the “Final” version, so I had to go back and fix it. I reposted it as the same name because it was dubbed “Final”…“Final_v2” didn’t sound very final. Anyway, if you downloaded the final, you’ll probably want to re-download it. Sorry for any problems this may have caused.

#10

Okay, here’s an update to the final for Squetchy Thom…so, it wasn’t really a final yet and probably still isn’t. I’m going to start putting the installation version of the rig together again tomorrow, and, barring any updates, should have that worked out in a few days.

Several changes since the last one I posted here, the most recent fixes are:

FK to IK transition is smooth now.

IK hand control can be used in FK.

IK foot control can be used in FK.

Bicep roll is automated in IK (any unnatural arm twisting should be correctable using the IK elbow control).

#11

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.