Mechanical leg rigging

Skella

So I have a robot rigged for school. I'm on a crunch so I really can't go back and undo things to redo them. I need to animate at least a walk cycle. The issue is that I have hip controls that when working correctly, should allow me to rotate the whole leg so that I can have the foot controls, with an IK handle attached raise and lower it.



But that isn't what happens. The hip control properly controls the foot control. But the leg bends unrealistically and impossibly for the design. This happens despite the fact that the distance between the IKs points isn't changing.



I want the leg to remain bolt straight up and down when the hip control rotates the leg. Which happens now, only when I turn the Foot IK off.




I need the IK leg to remain on, but not bend the leg in this manner so that I can rotate the whole leg, and move it straight up and down using the foot control. Turning that IK control off does not allow me to raise it, and turning it on gives me the impossible bend in the leg.

Any help is greatly appreciated, but I am on a time constraint and I can't completely break it down and rebuild it.

CreativeSheep

Rigging is complex, learn MEL, and you'll have alot of control. Maya is MEL no going around this, unfortunately. Why some prefer Modo, there is scripting in Modo but you can do alot without knowing much scripting with Modo.

Currently I'm putting focus on render control.

antweiler

So you want to move your hip and want the IK leg to follow, but the knee bends incorrectly, even though the foot follows the hip correctly. Do you use a Polevector contraint?
Is the pole vector following the hip as well by parenting or point constraint?

There is no need to learn MEL (or better python) to be a beginner or advancing rigger. You simply need to dive more into specific rigging tech and learn how Maya works on a deeper level than other peoples. You should probably have a good overview over various rigging tools (scripts) that others provided.
Scripting comes handy when you want to start automatizing stuff, (which will incredibly boost your productivity). But for the beginning, as Jason Schleifer said, test out stuff quickly and over again, without the fear of breaking something

Skella

antweiler wrote: »

So you want to move your hip and want the IK leg to follow, but the knee bends incorrectly, even though the foot follows the hip correctly. Do you use a Polevector contraint?
Is the pole vector following the hip as well by parenting or point constraint?

There is no need to learn MEL (or better python) to be a beginner or advancing rigger. You simply need to dive more into specific rigging tech and learn how Maya works on a deeper level than other peoples. You should probably have a good overview over various rigging tools (scripts) that others provided.
Scripting comes handy when you want to start automatizing stuff, (which will incredibly boost your productivity). But for the beginning, as Jason Schleifer said, test out stuff quickly and over again, without the fear of breaking something

I completely and entirely forgot about pole vectors. Thank you so much dude. I can't believe I made that mistake.