cgindia » bones

Stretchy joints in MAYA

Vikas Gupta — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:59:28 +0000

Sterch your joints

Software – Maya

Difficulty – Intermediate

Time –: 00:16

Command - : Animation menu – skeleton – joint tool

Description -: Create joints with the help of joints tool (make your joints in any other view then perspective).

Time –: 00:25

Command - : Animation menu – skeleton – IK handle tool

Description -: Create IK from joint1 to joint3

Time –: 00:40

Command - : Create– Measure Tools – Distance tool

Description -: Click near joint1 and Ik handle. This tool tell us the distance between two points.

Time –: 00:58

Command - : Animation – Constrain - point

Description -: now select joints first and then locator and then constrain them same thing with lower joint also. By doing this we are able to move distance tool with IK handle

Time –: 01:27

Command - : N/A

Description -: we have to find the distance from where our joints get stretch; here it comes out to be 13.62

Time –: 02:07

Command - : N/A

Description -: Change the name of distance node (optional but remember the name of that node)

Time –: 02:24

Command - : Window - Animation Editor – Expression Editor

Description -: Now we are going to write a small script on joints.

Time –: 04:55

Command - : N/A

Description -: After typing script just click create.

Script -:

if (distShape.distance >= 13.62)

{

joint1.scaleX = distShape.distance/13.62;

joint2.scaleX = distShape.distance/13.62;

}

else

{

joint1.scaleX = 1;

joint2.scaleX = 1;

}

I hope you understand how we can create stretchy joints in Maya if you any problem feel free to contact me

High res video is here

Reverse Foot

Vikas Gupta — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:03:29 +0000

Reverse foot help us to make our foot animation very easy. It is created with the help of another bone setup beside leg bone setup, we create in reverse direction of actual leg bone and that is why it is named as reverse foot.
In this technique I create leg bones and attach IK to them and make reverse bone till ankle joint. Make IK handle child and reverse bone parent as shown in video.
Now you can make parameter on one external controller so that animator can easily select and animate all possible movement of leg setup.

High res video is here

Maya Rigging

Vikas Gupta — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:40:07 +0000

http://www.rigging101.com/

“Rigging is the process of preparing a character (or object) for animation. It involves setting up an internal skeleton that affects where your character's joints are and how they move.”

This is what this site teach Rigging, if you want to learn rigging in Maya then this site is good for you, it has some nice tutorial about simple as well as complex rigging. You will find some useful Mel script also.
Very famous rig character Package Man is available for download with others, which actually help you to understand rigging, I also find helpful in practicing my animation skill.