How do I Rig / Animate a rolling egg in Maya?

CMPearce

Hello, 

Basically I'm trying to create an animation of an egg rolling around across a surface. 

I'm inexperienced when it comes to rigging and so far my research has come up short. I would appreciate and advise, or at least a point in the right direction. 

Regards, 

monster

Personally I would use physics or dynamics to roll an egg across a surface. Then then just hand animate the few frames at the end to get it into the correct location. You can look up some simple physics setups on YouTube.

throttlekitty

+1 for physics.

A sphere/ball rig would give you exact control, but AFAIK those are complicated rigs. We had a thread like a year ago and I can't find it at the moment, it was mostly references to some similar setups in 3dsmax if you decide to go down that route. From here, you'd probably take such a rig and add ramps to move the egg up and down as it rolls to cover the odd shape, but I don't know how to approach wobble in any kind of smart way.