artist toolkit 3d - week 17

Rigging a Model - Legs

This week in class, we discussed and learnt how to start creating a rig for a model. Rigs are what are used to make models move, most commonly for posing characters, games or making general animations. Depending on how a rig is made, it can change the model moves and shapes to create fluid and stretchy poses and animation, or if the rig is very simplistic the movement will be more more limited. For example, a manually rigged model could rig each of the fingers to move uniquely creating very detailed animation. The more complex a rig, the more fluid and flexible it is but the more time it will take to create.

Quick Helpful Notes from Class:

- P = shortcut for parent child joint connection

- skeleton - mirror joints - settings 

- Search for, replace with + swap L and R

- for legs, group and sticky

- for singular, single and non-sticky

We began creating a simple rig, starting with the legs. To start, we change maya to Rigging mode in the top panel. Then, press Skeleton > Create IK Deformer.

To make sure my joints where in the correct places, I constantly checked in the 4 perspective window to make sure everything was aligned correctly.

After creating one rigged leg, we can mirror it over the the other side of our hip joint area. To do this, select all the joints created and press Skeleton > Mirror Joints. this will mirror them over to the other side of the hip joint. 

Rigging still confuses me a lot. I'd like to go a lot more in depth with this but my entire rig broke and I lose everything. If I have the chance, I'd like to practice this again and get a better understanding on it.