I have a bit of a problem, I need to rig a robot character so that it can be animated breaking apart when it dies, what it the best way to do this?
I used to scale the joints to zero and then fire off a particle with a static mesh depending which hit box you shoot. I normally use some kind of rayfire collision for this, most engines come with this function as it will help give the object direction and some kind of adjustable velocity.
If you wanted the whole object falling to bits then I would just replace the object with a particle animation.
Chad Robert Morgan of (Double Helix Games)
Shows his method of creating a similarily functioning 3dsmax biped rig in Maya in a 12 part series.
1 of 12
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNfSG1DEj58"]Create a switchable IK/FK character rig in Maya (1 of 12) - YouTube[/ame]
So I rigged a low poly character that has a cape/scarf thing with a few controllers to fix penetrations issues.
The scarf has thickness, and the problem is that in some poses the polygons on the underside penetrate the polygons on the top, creating some weird shadow issues.
For now, resetting the controllers and posing the cape again may be a workaround, but is there any other tips that I could use to avoid those issues?
Cross-post from Tech-Artists. I have this automated knee setup that I'm proud of that I never see anyone else use, which is sad because it's so easy to create! So I made a video tutorial about it. Any feedback is appreciated.
I'm currently stuck on a custom rigging script as I don't know how to design it. I'm working on a custom auto-rigger in Maya, rather simple, that match the requirements of one of my game project. So it's a not a tool dedicated to match every case possible.
Before explaining my problem, here is how my script is used :
- Create joints and place them to fit the character
- Run the auto-rigger which will build the IK and other controllers
- If face bones are present, it also store their positions
- In a new scene I reference the rig to animate it
So I try to keep a non-destructive workflow, allowing me to update the rig without affecting too much the animations that could already exists.
My current issue is that I don't see how I could do that with facial animations. Currently I ask the user (me) to setup 4 main face pose (neutral, smile, angry, fear) to get the extreme bone positions. Then I create a custom controller with some attributes and add driven keys on them to blend different parts (for example smiling or blinking). This way I can update a facial animation only by changing the base expression with the rig.
The problem is : how to avoid linear blending introduced by the driven keys ? Since sometimes I can blend between 3 poses (for example the eyebrows : neutral, angry and fear), it's visually obvious that I'm under three states when going from fear to angry because I'm passing by neutral.
I was thinking about simply setup some shortcut to put the bones in position and they add a keyframe on them directly, but if I update the base expression later, the animation will not be updated, or I will have to update every keyframe manually.
The problem is : how to avoid linear blending introduced by the driven keys ? Since sometimes I can blend between 3 poses (for example the eyebrows : neutral, angry and fear), it's visually obvious that I'm under three states when going from fear to angry because I'm passing by neutral.
I generally have an attribute for each pose. So instead of an attribute that goes from -10/10 called Inner Brow, there would be an Inner Brow Up and an Inner Brow Down. That way you can blend between the two without going through the neutral pose.
I generally have an attribute for each pose. So instead of an attribute that goes from -10/10 called Inner Brow, there would be an Inner Brow Up and an Inner Brow Down. That way you can blend between the two without going through the neutral pose.
Yeah, but behind the scene isn't the blending still linear ? Since you have to blend from up to down by disabling up to for to down ? So you still have an intermediate state ?
Yeah, but behind the scene isn't the blending still linear ? Since you have to blend from up to down by disabling up to for to down ? So you still have an intermediate state ?
You start turning on the other well before you get to 0.
I've had this issue for a while, and I was waiting for an ideal time to bring it up.
I'm working on a character at the moment who has a scarf that acts like a third arm/tentacle and is also detachable. I'm not super good at rigging or rigging theory, but I've been trucking along just fine up to this point. How can I set up a spline IK that can allow the scarf to wrap around the neck region, and can still stretch out?
You could have around 5 bones running down the height of the door, then scale each bone down along its length as the part of the door it's responsible for becomes invisible to the player.
If you made the door more like an ordinary overhead door (in my area at least) that has several solid, thin planks, you could roll them along the ceiling as they go up, but the design of that particular garage door precludes that strategy.
Hey guys! Total noob on rigging here, but I need a rig for my personal project and I can't seem to find an answer to my problem. What would be the best way to rig a skater character along his skateboard? I've seen videos where two rigs were used, one for the skateboard and one for the character. This seems the way to go, but I'm planning on exporting the character to UE4 and I don't know if this is possible: export an animation file from maya to ue4 that uses two skeletons, the character and the board.
I'm planning on creating the skeleton with UE4's rigging tools. Thanks!
riot: It does not matter how many rigs you use in Maya, as long as the skeleton of both meshes uses the same root bone. For example:
Root
- Pelvis
- Skateboard
You then drive each chain in whatever way you prefer. Just make sure not to set keyframes on this export skeleton. Keyframe controllers. This makes sure the FBX exporter doesn't go nuts when you try to export animations.
Nice Pole Vector Knee setup, Denny. Looks like a winner
____________
QiqTools - Demonstration
Some impressive stuff going on in this demo But, you might want to lower or Mute the volume before watching this
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcSdsgqML-E"]Character Rigging and Animation Production with QiqTools® for Autodesk® Maya® - YouTube[/ame]
MAYA >How do i partially affect anything in rig? For example i want to make a control object to only partially be affected by some other object, how would i do that? Weight in constraints does nothing, it only toggles. I use maya lt.
MAYA >How do i partially affect anything in rig? For example i want to make a control object to only partially be affected by some other object, how would i do that? Weight in constraints does nothing, it only toggles. I use maya lt.
You can keyframe the affected channels, for example the rotateXYZ channels. This will give you a blend attribute to work with.
Figured id xpost from the tech art waywo thread since its rigging related
I started learning the maya api and decided to write a skin weight save/loader. Needs optimizing but pretty happy with it so far. It queries the skinCluster node for the weight values and then uses setAttr to reapply the weights, i could have used get/set weights from the api but the data you get slows python down.
Being somewhat new to Maya, I wanted an automatic FK/ Ik Switch( similiar in how 3dsmaxs' Biped functions) in order to make an easier transition to the new software.
With building a basic ik chain, I've gotten it to the point where all I need to do is select the parts in the hierarchy (in a given order of selection) , then hit a single hotkey. Which builds the switch automatically for that particular leg or arm joint.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLOn-XoZYBQ"]Automating Ik / FK switching - YouTube[/ame]
Thanks Denny :icon60:
You wouldn't happen to know of any intuitive ways to setup the pivot points on the foot, would you?
I've done the classic reverse foot-roll setup. Though, I'm wondering if there are better ways to go about it
i'm still a beginner with rigging and now i have a problem with blending between IK and FK which i can't solve by myself.
I set up a global controller with an attribute holder and did the constraints on my chains and set up the wire parameters. but instead of going fully with the FK or IK chain the original bones are always in the middle. Is it a hierarchy problem?
Maya to UE4 Animation Rigging Toolset, Has anyone had a chance to test this out, I am about to research into it so was wondering if there are any problems before I start.
I want to make a dynamic rifle sling using bones, The idea, is to animate the rifle, so the sling will follow dynamically.
I'am trying to do this using a spline Ik handle driven by a hair system. Not the nHair because the nucleus solver is kinda funky.
But no matter what, the tip of the joint chain won't stay fixed. Even setting the Point lock to booth ends, the end joint won't stay fixed. I tried using constrains but no luck.
Any advice? or any other solution to animate this?
Replies
Blogs
http://morganloomis.com/
http://td-matt.blogspot.co.uk/ <-No updates for years but some good info
http://www.marcuskrautwurst.com/
Other
http://www.riggingdojo.com/
http://vimeo.com/groups/masterofrigging/ <-Inspiration
http://www.rigging101.com/freestuff.htm <-Download rigs and learn from how they where built
http://tech-artists.org/
http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/python <-Good to actually know python properly
http://www.chadvernon.com/blog/resources/python-scripting-for-maya-artists/ <-- look at the maya api stuff as well, lots of awesome on this site
https://sites.google.com/site/mayariggingwiki/home
http://paulneale.com/tutorials.htm
http://rd3d.com/Rich_Diamant_uncharted2_character_pipeline.pdf <- Old but still a good resource to learn from
http://www.comet-cartoons.com/melscript.php <- really old but awesome tools and you can learn alot from reading the mel files
Oh and this is ridic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myZcUvU8YWc
And if you just want something to make rigs with and not learn rigging
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Content/Tools/MayaRiggingTool/index.html
http://rd3d.com/Rich_Diamant_uncharted2_character_pipeline.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myZcUvU8YWc
Oh, now this one is beautiful, thanks for the heads up, its always nice to see new stuff coming from the pros.
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=hldCtjT9baI[/ame]
More information on how he thinks game animation demo reels should look here -
http://www.gameanim.com/2013/02/27/ten-steps-to-the-perfect-game-animation-demo-reel/
More rigging tutorials
http://www.digitaltutors.com/software/Maya-Rigging-tutorials
Bipedal character rigging setup in Maya - Part 1 of 7
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA8X_KrmEhI[/ame]
Quadraped leg set up - Maya
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu6cSCpxJcE[/ame]
I used to scale the joints to zero and then fire off a particle with a static mesh depending which hit box you shoot. I normally use some kind of rayfire collision for this, most engines come with this function as it will help give the object direction and some kind of adjustable velocity.
If you wanted the whole object falling to bits then I would just replace the object with a particle animation.
I hope that helps
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Full play list - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZlv_N0_O1gb2ZoKzTApbv3LvhaXJ9elg
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=knbZ_g8Hgvk[/ame]
Shows his method of creating a similarily functioning 3dsmax biped rig in Maya in a 12 part series.
1 of 12
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNfSG1DEj58"]Create a switchable IK/FK character rig in Maya (1 of 12) - YouTube[/ame]
Maya character rigging for games, scripting, Unreal Engine.
http://td-matt.blogspot.co.uk/
Tips to improve your animation workflow and pipeline
http://morganloomis.com/resources/rigging/
Modular creature Rigging Systems
http://creaturerigs.com/modular-rigging-system/#.Ui4mfcasiVZ
FACS - Facial Action Coding System
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~face/facs.htm
A script and deformer that can invert a shape through a deformation chain
http://www.chadvernon.com/blog/resources/cvshapeinverter/
Description Of Facial Action Coding System
http://face-and-emotion.com/dataface/facs/description.jsp
Explore the human body in interactive 3D
https://www.biodigital.com/
Dinosaur Skeletons
http://www.skeletaldrawing.com/
Maya rigging wiki
https://sites.google.com/site/mayariggingwiki/anatomy
DPK Scripts/Plugins
http://dpk.stargrav.com/pafiledb/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=31
Articulation Theory, I love this website :thumbup:
http://hippydrome.com/
I have fixed some of the above links and added descriptions (like below) so its easier to find what you are looking for, more to come soon. Enjoy!
Unreal Engine - Maya character rigging scripts
http://td-matt.blogspot.co.uk/
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEHs9BAUj8M[/ame]
Custom Motionbuilder Facial Rig tutorial: Part 1
http://www.3dtotal.com/index_tutorial_detailed.php?id=1647#.U_jaqfldV8F
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The scarf has thickness, and the problem is that in some poses the polygons on the underside penetrate the polygons on the top, creating some weird shadow issues.
For now, resetting the controllers and posing the cape again may be a workaround, but is there any other tips that I could use to avoid those issues?
Hope to get some time to try this out soon.
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[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6jNFKn7hgM"]Maya - Automated Polevector for IK Leg - YouTube[/ame]
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=myZcUvU8YWc[/ame]
Disney's Maleficent: Re-creating Fully Digital Characters-Design FX-WIRED
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls29dPeOy-A[/ame]
Thanks for posting it here. I never thought about keying the constrained channels and using the blend in that way. Thumbs up!
Before explaining my problem, here is how my script is used :
- Create joints and place them to fit the character
- Run the auto-rigger which will build the IK and other controllers
- If face bones are present, it also store their positions
- In a new scene I reference the rig to animate it
So I try to keep a non-destructive workflow, allowing me to update the rig without affecting too much the animations that could already exists.
My current issue is that I don't see how I could do that with facial animations. Currently I ask the user (me) to setup 4 main face pose (neutral, smile, angry, fear) to get the extreme bone positions. Then I create a custom controller with some attributes and add driven keys on them to blend different parts (for example smiling or blinking). This way I can update a facial animation only by changing the base expression with the rig.
The problem is : how to avoid linear blending introduced by the driven keys ? Since sometimes I can blend between 3 poses (for example the eyebrows : neutral, angry and fear), it's visually obvious that I'm under three states when going from fear to angry because I'm passing by neutral.
I was thinking about simply setup some shortcut to put the bones in position and they add a keyframe on them directly, but if I update the base expression later, the animation will not be updated, or I will have to update every keyframe manually.
I don't see what to do.
The rig set up
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_QhZYTukac[/ame]
The level set up
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoLpPw864eA#t=382
Results
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvhwWXF-LfU[/ame]
I generally have an attribute for each pose. So instead of an attribute that goes from -10/10 called Inner Brow, there would be an Inner Brow Up and an Inner Brow Down. That way you can blend between the two without going through the neutral pose.
You start turning on the other well before you get to 0.
I'm working on a character at the moment who has a scarf that acts like a third arm/tentacle and is also detachable. I'm not super good at rigging or rigging theory, but I've been trucking along just fine up to this point. How can I set up a spline IK that can allow the scarf to wrap around the neck region, and can still stretch out?
If you made the door more like an ordinary overhead door (in my area at least) that has several solid, thin planks, you could roll them along the ceiling as they go up, but the design of that particular garage door precludes that strategy.
I'm planning on creating the skeleton with UE4's rigging tools. Thanks!
Root
- Pelvis
- Skateboard
You then drive each chain in whatever way you prefer. Just make sure not to set keyframes on this export skeleton. Keyframe controllers. This makes sure the FBX exporter doesn't go nuts when you try to export animations.
____________
QiqTools - Demonstration
Some impressive stuff going on in this demo
But, you might want to lower or Mute the volume before watching this
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcSdsgqML-E"]Character Rigging and Animation Production with QiqTools® for Autodesk® Maya® - YouTube[/ame]
You can keyframe the affected channels, for example the rotateXYZ channels. This will give you a blend attribute to work with.
I started learning the maya api and decided to write a skin weight save/loader. Needs optimizing but pretty happy with it so far. It queries the skinCluster node for the weight values and then uses setAttr to reapply the weights, i could have used get/set weights from the api but the data you get slows python down.
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Pretty quick too, especially with all that geo
____________________________________
Any good Customizable Character UI's out there? So far, I've found::
(1) AnimSelector
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/animselector-the-fast-picker
(2) AnimSchoolPicker
http://www.animschool.com/pickerInfo.aspx
Seeing as I'm fairly new to Maya, I'd be interested in hearing what GUIs' you use
With building a basic ik chain, I've gotten it to the point where all I need to do is select the parts in the hierarchy (in a given order of selection) , then hit a single hotkey. Which builds the switch automatically for that particular leg or arm joint.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLOn-XoZYBQ"]Automating Ik / FK switching - YouTube[/ame]
You wouldn't happen to know of any intuitive ways to setup the pivot points on the foot, would you?
I've done the classic reverse foot-roll setup. Though, I'm wondering if there are better ways to go about it
edit:: Found an interesting Pivot Switching Method using nodes
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and another with minor issues
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Oip-YiKuik"]Maya multi-parent script - YouTube[/ame]
Actually, I guess the easiest thing for me to do would be to setup a Set-driven key on the controller with a few different pivot options
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http://blog.digitaltutors.com/breakdown-character-design-uncharted-4-thiefs-end/
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i'm still a beginner with rigging and now i have a problem with blending between IK and FK which i can't solve by myself.
I set up a global controller with an attribute holder and did the constraints on my chains and set up the wire parameters. but instead of going fully with the FK or IK chain the original bones are always in the middle. Is it a hierarchy problem?
Maya Animation Rigging Toolset
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Content/Tools/MayaRiggingTool/index.html
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=knbZ_g8Hgvk[/ame]
I want to make a dynamic rifle sling using bones, The idea, is to animate the rifle, so the sling will follow dynamically.
I'am trying to do this using a spline Ik handle driven by a hair system. Not the nHair because the nucleus solver is kinda funky.
But no matter what, the tip of the joint chain won't stay fixed. Even setting the Point lock to booth ends, the end joint won't stay fixed. I tried using constrains but no luck.
Any advice? or any other solution to animate this?
Great rig break down.
Did you ever wonder how they made the quick transitions in this cinematic? well here is your answer, and its quite genius.
I wonder how a bendy rig like this one would look like in realtime with motion blur? might have to do some tests in UE4/Unity
https://www.facebook.com/itsartmag/videos/10153749509479239/?pnref=story