Monday, July 25, 2011

Rig Testing

So, we all need to be testing rigs, you can default skin a mesh (Use one you have or download one, I have the TF2 Meshes like the abAutoRig guy if you want them) to these, or just parent some primitive shapes to the bones, test them and edit this post with you tested animation bits.
Modular Character System
The MCS looks really promising (I'm a bit fan of the squash and stretch functionality), however it isn't released yet. I've sent email to the creator Jan Berger who replied
"I am currently preparing a release but can not give out details regarding pricing and license structure, yet."
On the very lucky chance it is released sometime in the next 3-4 weeks, I think it would be a very elegant solution for out rig.

-I can't figure out how to turn off the stretchy IK in this rig, which renders is useless. If you can figure out a way to turn it off let me know, otherwise we'll have to go with one of the other two.

Rig-O-Matic
-This builds upon a skeleton that you build, frankly I think building the skeleton is the hardest part (Orientation, Joint Order, etc.) so if I'm gonna go through building the skeleton, I'm just gonna build the rest of the rig.

-7/26 The proxy skeleton has the X axis translate locked out. I can only assume this is for a specific reason, but it means the character's legs must be modeled in a straight line.

-7/27 I put together the rig with Norman's mesh, abAutoRig_Norman.ma test it out!
I tossed together a walk, I didn't have any problems with it, I was worried about the knees, but I didn't have trouble with them in a walk.

-8/25 I'm working on a face rig right now, I'm hoping to have it done by the end of the week, I'll put it up when it's done and you can mess with it. I can see where changes would need to be made for a cinematic project (The basic bone structure was taken form someone talking about a game rigging pipline), but I think I have the general idea.

-8/31 Got everything except for the phonemes rigged on the face. It's dawned on me that you shouldn't need phoneme sliders, you should just position the lips the way you want them, unfortunately I didn't give enough control to do that without animate the joints themselves. I don't have a problem with animating straight to the joints (I actually find it easier), but there is no point in building half a rig, and then making you animate the joints for all the stuff that doesn't have a control. Put the face in dropbox (FaceTest01_Final.ma) if you want to mess with it, let me know if anything is terribly wrong.

-9/5 Suzanne said I should practice rigging on the farmer head, so I modified a head I found online, into the farmer, rigged, and skinned it. It was a LOT faster the second time around, I put it in dropbox (Farmerhead_Final.ma). Try it out, it would save a lot of time and hassle if we can get everyone comfortable with animating straight to the bones, and just keying selection sets, so I only made controls for the blendshapes.
Poked him with a pin:


Edit this Post with your feedback/ Pros & Cons for each rig, we'll decide on which on at the beginning of the semester.

1 comment:

  1. cool camp thanks for getting on this! I will start testing soon

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