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Auto Rig Plug-in for an Ice Creature: 

 

​Capabilities of the rig:

  • Spine and neck system with twist attributes.

  • Global control to translate, rotate and scale the entire rig.

  • Main control to set the model and joints accessibility to reference, template and normal.

  • Spline IK tail rig.

  • IK based leg system with twist attributes built-in.

  • ball swivel and ball control with individual IK systems set up for movement of claws.

  • A wrap deformer built-in to integrate a hi-res mesh.

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Requirements from the rigging Artist:

  • A skeleton that has

  1.  Joints named as specified.

  2. A cubic cv curve for neck, spine and tail.

  3. Pole vectors for the legs to set up IK handles with twist attributes.

  • A low-res and high-res mesh of the same model.

  • A skin-weight file.

Dynamic Tail Rig Tool:

It has two systems with two different joint chains built in it:

  1. FK system - that allows the animator to control the orientation and pose the tail at his/her will.

  2. A dynamic system - which animates the tail automatically based on the animation of the hip.

 

FK System: 

  • A set of joints parent constrained by a set of controls in a which are organized in a hierarchy. 

 

Dynamic system: 

  • This system consists of an IK spline chain controlled by a curve which is made dynamic. 

  • A few parameters of the hair system such as drag, dampness, and gravity are changed to match the movement of the type of tail.

  • Attributes like Point lock and Damp for the follicle system are changed to mimic the actual movement of the tail.

  • To give the ability to the user to modify these parameters they have been implemented into the tool as well. 

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The UI:

  • Start point - gives a locator that allows you to set the start point of the tail.

  • Endpoint - gives a locator to set the end point of the tail.

  • Smooth slider - allows you to set the number of joints you want in your tail to move.

  • Create Rig button - Creates the rig for you with two systems.

  • Set follicle and Set curve - Allows the user to set the follicle and curve system based on which the tail moves.

  • Load button - to load the parameters of the dynamic system so that user can specify the way he/she wants the tail to move.

  • Gravity - set the gravitational pull of the tail according to the user’s requirements.

 

FK/IK Switcher Tool: 

I have Written a tool which creates an FK/IK switch for a Bi-ped Rig with a simple UI using Python in Maya.

 

This tool when used in a Bi-ped Rig creates a control system for the rig and using the UI you can select between FK and IK to move the joints in respective systems.

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