Can you rig something thats already posed?

carrottoptw

Hey, just a quick question.  I've posed a character in zbrush and am rendering/lookdev in Maya.  I wanted to create a little eye rig to test some eye positions, however because the character is no longer in a t-pose including the eyes, would that be difficult to do? 

Obviously its not ideal and I wanted to learn how to fully rig but didn't get the time on this project/it was only for a still

Thanks

Dihemi

It's obviously possible but you already know that.

If it's only the eye you want to rig it might actually not be that difficult. You just have to find the centre of both eyes (so you know the pivot on which it rotates. Use the eye's outer bounds). If you create a plane that crosses both eye's pivots you actually have your head axis/angle reference and can work from there to align all other bones (eyelids and whatever). Use your software's snap tools to make sure the plane actually align with the eye's centres. EDIT: I use mostly 3ds max, you could use a "LookAt constraint" to actually fix a box/plane to lock it from one eye to another, providing you've found the eye's centre's, thus the plane/box gives you the proper head's angle/axis. Most 3D softwares will have something like it (definitely Maya).

Don't know if it's worth the trouble though. If you just want to practice I don't even know if it's even a good exercise, because it most likely wont ever be practical as a real life example. So, if it's just for practice (or even first time?); I'd say just stick with an unposed model.

Hope it helps.

carrottoptw

Hey @Dihemi.  Thank you so much for the insanely helpful tips.  I started realising it would turn into a bit of a mission for just a simple rotate and even though its good practice you're right, doing it on an unposed model would be far easier to grasp properly! Thanks again though, just thought id ask before I get myself into unneeded hassle.  Nice artstation work btw