So Papa's back bendy legs don't work properly when using the Dual Quaternion weight method. This method is usually better than classic linear because it tries to preserve volume during deformations like elbows and knees. Papa has a lot of skin to him, so this is ideal especially in his shoulder area. I don't know why papa's back legs freak out when DQ'd, but I figure it might be the thickness of the leg or the placements of the bones not being exactly centered around the mass.
I found out there is a way to use a combination of both. It is called Blend Skin Weights. This allows you to paint on a map signaling the mesh to use either DQ or Classic Linear binding methods. Make sure to click below to learn the way you can use it.
Blend Skin Weights in Maya Help
When you mirror skin weights, it also mirrors the Blend Weights map. So no need to worry about symmetry.
Rigging Fun and Documentation for BYU's Student Film for the Senior class of 2015.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Pixar Style Pickables
GREAT NEWS
Some really smart people have found ways to create an equivalent to Pixar's Pickable system in Maya. Often, too many controls floating around on a character can distract from the overall acting and can be annoying to grab and handle. Less visual complexity gives animators a better idea of the silhouettes the face shapes are making.
These videos show how we can allow our controls literally be part of the mesh. Want to move the lip? Grab the characters lip. Simple as that. So simple and intuitive!
Some really smart people have found ways to create an equivalent to Pixar's Pickable system in Maya. Often, too many controls floating around on a character can distract from the overall acting and can be annoying to grab and handle. Less visual complexity gives animators a better idea of the silhouettes the face shapes are making.
These videos show how we can allow our controls literally be part of the mesh. Want to move the lip? Grab the characters lip. Simple as that. So simple and intuitive!
and this one
Tool Demo- Deformable controls from Raveen Rajadorai on Vimeo.
By the way, if you copy-paste the call instructions for the script, you may end up copying some unintentional spaces, which will give you a syntax error. Simply delete the spaces to give python its valid syntax.
By the way, if you copy-paste the call instructions for the script, you may end up copying some unintentional spaces, which will give you a syntax error. Simply delete the spaces to give python its valid syntax.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Lattice Power
Here is a script to add an object to an existing lattice.
http://www.fuse-design.org/blog/tutorials-cg/how-to-maya-add-object-to-lattice-tutorial
http://www.fuse-design.org/blog/tutorials-cg/how-to-maya-add-object-to-lattice-tutorial
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Monday, June 9, 2014
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Spring Solver Global Problem/Solution
A problem that we didn't test up till this point was that if our quadrupeds were rotating on their global control, at times the pole vectors of the legs seemed to drift away from their targets at the knee. This could previously be compensated by animating the kneeAim but that was not an accurate portrayal of where the knee was pointing.
After a bit of research we found that Springsolvers inherit a hidden twist from their parents. Before our solution was to directly pump the Y Rotation of the Global Control into the Twist control of the Spring IK. This prevented weird twisting while the character was perpendicular to the ground, but as soon as you start rotating the global control in other ways, like forward and around, innappropriate twist would once again be introduced.
To fix this problem, the spring solver chain must be outside of the local heirarchy and point constrained to the place it needs to be. Keeping it in world space avoids a double transform, but behaves exactly the same. The solver doesn't inherit rotation from what is above it.
This posed another problem with our front legs. The spring solver chain starts in the middle of the leg. I separated the top joint from the rest of the chain. I put the SS chain in world space. I placed a locator where the top of the SS chain was. I made the locator a child of the original parent joint. This has seemed to fix all the problems, and I will report any side effects this has.
After a bit of research we found that Springsolvers inherit a hidden twist from their parents. Before our solution was to directly pump the Y Rotation of the Global Control into the Twist control of the Spring IK. This prevented weird twisting while the character was perpendicular to the ground, but as soon as you start rotating the global control in other ways, like forward and around, innappropriate twist would once again be introduced.
To fix this problem, the spring solver chain must be outside of the local heirarchy and point constrained to the place it needs to be. Keeping it in world space avoids a double transform, but behaves exactly the same. The solver doesn't inherit rotation from what is above it.
This posed another problem with our front legs. The spring solver chain starts in the middle of the leg. I separated the top joint from the rest of the chain. I put the SS chain in world space. I placed a locator where the top of the SS chain was. I made the locator a child of the original parent joint. This has seemed to fix all the problems, and I will report any side effects this has.
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