Character rigging - Part 1

                                                     
This is a character rig in progress. This post shows the leg rig of the character.

The below screenshots show the different stages of the rig

The above screenshot shows the joints inserted to the legs

This one shows the IK handles for the joints

Shows the controls for the legs and knees

And this final screenshot shows the rig in action

Thank you and feedbacks are welcome and appreciated

Cartoon tree

                                                          Rigging a cartoonic tree
This was a fairly simple rig compared to the previous ones(especially the book rig).

The Trunk was rigged first using joints and skinned and ik spline was used.

A volume preservation formula was used to maintain the volume of the trunk when it was bent or stretched

joint scale ratio = current length/default length

The current length of the trunk was calculated by the curve info node,which can be accessed by the script

arclen-ch-true   ('ch' is construction history)


The leaves were rigged using joints and ik spline was used. A curve was also created for each leaf
for adding the dynamic simulation using  ndynamics.

All the curves of the leaves were selected and were given dynamic simulation by going to
ndynamics -> nhair-> make selected curves dynamic

Master control as well as controls for the trunk and for  dynamic simulation of leaves were created.

  Here are some screenshots below
    

                                                                        

                                                            playblast

Thanks and comments are welcome and appreciated

Book Rig

Rigging a Book

This was a  challenging rig, as it had lots of steps to get it done. The rig procedure is as follows-

The first part, is to rig the cover of the book by placing joints and skinning them to the cover

Then, giving joints to the book and skinning them to the book

The third part was using corrective blendshapes to position the vertices of the book and correct its shape when the book is open or closed.

Then a loose page had to be rigged and page fanning had to be created. The loose page was rigged using blendshapes to get the different positions of a page when its turned.The rigged loose page was then imported into the file to get multiple pages for the page fanning.
The page fanning was done using the midpoint formula:-
                                     
(x2,y2,z2) = 𝑥1+𝑥3/2,𝑦1+𝑦3/2,𝑧1+𝑧3/2

I had imported and used 9 pages for the fanning.

The last step was to create controls for the book rig. Here are some of the screenshots of the rig below-
                              

playblast

                                         

                                    This video shows the controls created for the book rig.

            Thank you, comments are welcome and appreciated

                                     

Elephant Toy

                                                                        Wheel Rig
        
               The task was to rig the wheels of the elephant toy to turn when the model was moved.
                                                              
                                                                      State of rest

                                    

                                                                      Stretched position

 

                                                                   Squashed position

For this rig to work, an expression was required. Therefore a formula was used to make the wheels turn when the model was moved.

An auto wheel attribute was added to the master control of the model to control the on and off of the wheel movement.

Individual controls for each of the four wheels were created for individual movement.

Then a squash deformer was added to the model for the stretch and squash feature to get a  cartoonic  appeal.

The whole model was then parent and scale constrained to the master control.

           

Classic Warfare

                                                Rigging a Classic Bow and Arrow mechanism

 The task was to rig the bow and arrow according to the rig requirements. The requirements were
 1. The bow had to bend when the strings were pulled
 2.The Arrow had to have a space to function independently, stay with the bow and stay with the string
 3.A world control was necessary for the model
  Here are some of the screenshots below-

 

The Bow was rigged first. Then the components of the bow rig were grouped together and a master control was created for the Bow rig group, and the bow group was parent and scale constrained to the Bow master control.

the Arrow group containing the parts of the arrow were grouped three times to create a spin, adjustment and transform group for the arrow to be rigged convincingly. The  Arrow control was created and the spin, adjustment and space switch attributes were added to the control.

The space switch  attribute was necessary to enable the Arrow to move freely with  the Bow and the string.

Bow and Arrow animation

Wooden worm toy

                                             
               This was our 3rd rigging exercise. We had to rig a model of a wooden toy. Here are some of the screenshots below
                       
                                   

                                        

  This toy was based on the crank shaft mechanism
                                            
                                           
                                        

A Juicy Rig

                                                            Rigging a juice box
           This was our second rigging exercise. We were given a textured model of a juice box, and our
           task was to rig the juice box such that it could be stretched and squashed, twisted and turned.
           Here are some of the screenshots below
          
           

                                        

                                        

                                        

                                         

Stretch and Squash

                                                                   Bouncing ball rig
                
     This was our first rigging exercise. We had to create controls for stretching and squashing the ball.
      Here are some of the screenshots below