James Thompson - Masters rigging script project - Homology rigging

HR - WIP - 045

HR - WIP - 045, originally uploaded by James D Thompson.

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Woooo, everything is almost finished, just uploading all the WIP images ive not have chance to upload yet.

This is the "LongLimbIK". This is basically a more complex IK system for Limbs that don't end at the wrist.

Animals like dogs and horses don't have the ankle on the floor, its raised up to make a second bend in the leg, so using a normal IK would make the animation hard as the control wouldn't rest on the ground.

This uses a IK spring solver, which maya doesn't enable by default. The spring handles multiple bends better but this system doesn't stop there.

The leg is duplicated and a normal IKRP is applied to the last bend, and parented to the spring IK, this means the animator can now move the IK which rotate both bends correctly but also there's a pitch and twist attribute.

The pitch attribute allows the animator to place the ik anywhere, then have the limb rotate from the hip but still keeping its foot in the same place.

This is a massive advantage as this allows for a lot of control.

HR - WIP - 044

HR - WIP - 044, originally uploaded by James D Thompson.

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This is a line of all the full pre-sets. From left to right:

Human, Dog, Horse, Bat, Dolphin, Template, Centaur, Spider, Octopus and Hexapod.

When creating these you can specify custom names and joint counts for the spine and neck. Also this process is undo-able.

As so many limbs get made at the same time, a loading bar pops up to show how far its is through generating the character. It takes no longer that 10 seconds to generate one but the progress bas is there just to reassure the user maya hasn't crashed and its just working.

These pre-sets are fully integrated with the other tabs, so the user can still edit them or even add more limbs if they want.

HR - WIP - 043

HR - WIP - 043, originally uploaded by James D Thompson.

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Now with Preset spider

Although this script doesn't quite cover insects (as they have extra joints for the legs) They will be supported later on so just to show how quick it can make different rigs ive added in a few pre-sets like spiders centaurs and octopuses.

Also, the user can use the fast tab to create the main pre-sets of human, dog, horse, bat and dolphin but the cool thing is that if we add some sliders that connect to all the limbs, its possible to blend from a full human rig to full horse rig ect...

HR - WIP - 042

HR - WIP - 042, originally uploaded by James D Thompson.

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Getting close to the deadline so im adding as many areas as possible as asked for in the user feedback.

This is the new first tab which is the fast rig. As everything is procedural this tab just generates a tab and rig to the most used characters.

This also means the new character is fully integrated with the other tabs, so you can still edit, delete or add new limbs.

Leg_blending001

Leg_blending001, originally uploaded by James D Thompson.

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Its also possible to key frame the sliders in the UI,

This just shows how the leg limbs blend seamlessly between the different species.