Rigging & Creature FX

Tentacle

In week 1 of Rigging & Creature FX we had an introduction to the key concepts within rigging.

-Joint creation

-Skinning

-Control creation

To practice the concepts above we created a tentacle to demonstrate what we learnt and applied it to the tentacle.

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Joint Creation - Robot

During this weeks lesson we continued on joint creation, moving joints and ensuring how to align the joints correctly parenting it to the mesh.

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Skinning - Arm

During this weeks lesson we went in depth into skinning,

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Rigging Controls Robot Pt 1

We were given a robot, which we created rigging controls to.

Rigging Controls Robot Pt 2

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Hydraulics

This week we had a look into hydraulics in pistons & springs, and the mechanics of how they operated.

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Topology

For this week we had a look into topology, going into depth seeing the difference between a good topology and bad.

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Assignment 1- Mechanical Rig

For Assignment 1, the task was to create a rig for a mechanical figure demonstrating what was learnt throughout the weekly lessons. I decided to create a robot as I'd be able to show good use of techniques of rigging I learnt.

Modelling

I used a cylinder and a sphere to create the head using half of the sphere and a cylinder together. For the antenna I used an extrude of the top of the sphere head. For the eyes i used another cylinder and applied a extrude for the centre. For the pupil I used a sphere with light mesh, and to create the neck I used a cylinder.

To create the body and the waist I only used cylinders and extrudes making the roles in the centre. I used the same concept to create the shoulder as I used to create the head and body.

For the arm I used a cube that I cut and extruded at both ends, cutting it again in the middle to create the forearm.

To create the hand and fingers I used a cube but for the joints of the fingers I used some gears.

For the gears I started of a cylinder and extruded half of the lateral faces 2 times 1 for making the base of the gear tooth and the second for make a curvature.

The leg is only 2 cylinders with an extrude

For the knee I used the same concept with a half cylinder to create a type of mechanism to emulate a joint between the thigh and the leg.

For the feet I used three cubes that I cut twice times to look like a shoe.

Final Model

Rigging

Control Foot: I Put a Rotate Plane Solver IK in the leg more 2 single chain Iinks in the foot for control de leg. I used a poli vector constrain to give direction for the knee and the 2 single chain is for pre-set movements to the foot. I put the 3 IKs in groups and use the pivot to control the movement for the extra attributes in the control. The pivots are put above the joins and each one have a specific movement connection with a attribute in the foot control.

Control Waist: This control is used to move the upper part of the body using a parent constrain.

Control Body: This is used to twist the robot's waist with a parent constrain.

Control Head: Twist the head with a a parent constrain.

Control Eyes: These 3 are used for move the light from the eyes, and 1 to move both together. I used an aim constrain for the eyes.

Control Hand: I put a Rotate plane Solver IK in the arm and binded with a Pole Vector constrain with the Elbow control. I put the Ik in the Hand Ctrl and binded the hand joint with a rotate constrain for the Ik lose control to rotate of the hand.

Control Finger: I put a parent constrain in the first part of the finger and used connection editor. With a new attribute of the control to move the axis of the second part of the finger.

Control Antenna: Here I used a Spline Handle IK And Put Cluster in the curve to control the antenna of the robot.

Robot Rigging Video

Robot Rig

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Assignment 2- Organic Rig

For assignment 2, the task was to further develop from what we did for assignment 1- Mechanical Rig. Demonstrating a range of techniques which have been taught in the second part of the course. A few of these techniques are:

Modelling for deformation.
Skinning and painting weights.
Blend shapes.
Mash elements added to a rig / applied to mocap from the Performance Animation Module.
Sub pivot controls for feet.
Custom Attributes.
Ik handles, Rotate plane solver and single chain solvers.
Squash and Stretch.
Fur.
Bifrost Graph.

Rendered Clips

I decided to carry on using the same model I created from assignment 1, I did a blend shape panel to control some facial expressions and deformations.

In the slider panel, I created 6 different attributes to control the expressions and deformations.

Inside the foot you have 3 Nulls for modify the pivot of movementation of the foot using 3 iks. A IK for the leg; One for the leg and the middle of the foot and more for the middle to the end of the foot. The leg is a rotate-plane solver ik who are with a poly vector with another control. And 2 single chain IKs for the middle and the end of the foot and have another rotate-plane ik for the arm.

Iks plane for the antenna

For animation I added a ball with squash & stretch. Very similar from what I did for assignment 1 of Character Animation.