Notes 1-22-2014

Rigging Notes

Wed, Jan 15-

1.  As we rig our characters for articulation we need to wear many, many hats. We think as artists, animators, modellers, and riggers. We cannot limit our characters!

2.  Think of the struggles the animation guys went through on Jeff and Abbie in Owned. How could a better facial rig improved the emotional quality of our film?

3.  We are trying to create appeal in movement, and our job is crucial to the success of the animation. Keep fleshiness in mind, but also remember skeletal structure so we don’t feel like jello.

4.  Don't think you can fix something later. Test every control as you make it.

There are a lot of assets that will need rigged/deformed. We watched several looney tunes shorts by real fx and watched for all of the movement in the objects, not just the characters.

Consistency

Orientation of Objects, joints, etc

Scale

Hierarchies

Avoid intrusive controls. Make em easy to select, and not in the way.

Stuff to look up.

Cenk - If anyone can figure out how to preserve the volume while stretching and how he kept the face from penetrating below the lowest control, kudos!

Jill - This is epic stuff. Preset Animations, or Alibs, are epic!

Stop Staring 3 by Jason Osipa

Hippydrome.com

Rigging Dojo

Cano Vincent Demo Reel

K, that is all I can think of. If I missed anything, let me know. Friday at 9:00 am we will be meeting to watch some vids and stir the brain juices.

Wed, Jan 22-

1. Our rigs need to be modular. The control sets on each character should be uniform. This will allow us to transfer animation data from one character to another, greatly speeding animation.

2. Topology. Model for articulation! We reviewed the hippydrome videos and discussed different methods of creating light topology without defects.

Guerrilla CG has a great tutorial on removing extraneous topology.

4. The football shape is key when rigging the mouth!!!

Potential projects include:

How to switch from FK to IK seamlessly.
StudioLibrary script. EPIC.
Soft-select weight painting.