Advanced Maya Rigging Tutorial

[ascottk]

It's a three part tutorial covering stuff I wished I had known when I started:

 

http://www.thirdfilms.com/darkwiki/index.p...aracter_rigging

 

It covers the basics as well as refining a rigged model. There's some tips & tricks I use when I'm working on a Dark Mod animated character. Which reminds me I should include a section on the export section in a def file . . . maybe later in the week :yawn:

 

Oh yeah, there's a trick to add new meshes after the fact & pointing your Maya materials to the mod textures. Just so I don't forget to add that stuff.

[Domarius]

Thankyou for sharing the details on this mysterious topic It seems like you've gone all out - that's a pretty detailed tutorial.

[Baddcog]

Looks like a great tut, I'm gonna read thru at home. Maybe it'll give me an idea waht to do in Max.

 

Domarius, are you using Max to rig?

[ascottk]

Looks like a great tut, I'm gonna read thru at home. Maybe it'll give me an idea waht to do in Max.

 

Domarius, are you using Max to rig?

I find the max exporters to be buggy I tried out max when I first started working on AI & the results were unpredictable. Maybe you'll have better luck though.

 

The best bet would be to export as an fbx so people can work with them in maya & motionbuilder too.

[Baddcog]

Need some rigging advice here:

 

OK, so I got the bot rigged, but I didn't use IK. I haven't messed with it for years but I'm reading thru the Max tuts again. I did it then so I know I can again.

 

My questions however have to deal with what is proper set-up to use for best results animating and using Dark Radiant.

I know I need to add some bones for IK to the knees so the ai (lantern bot) can use stairs.

 

But what would you guys recommend, starting over and using IK for all bones? A current problem is making the body wobble some during idle anim. I'd probably have to go thru and adjust all legs to the wobble, would it have nbeen easy if it was an IK setup to begin with?

 

I did read the maya tut and others at the Wiki, and all I could find on web, but most tuts are more of just program specific tuts and really don't go into much depth about best ways to set-up rigs for Doom3.

[ascottk]

Need some rigging advice here:

 

OK, so I got the bot rigged, but I didn't use IK. I haven't messed with it for years but I'm reading thru the Max tuts again. I did it then so I know I can again.

 

My questions however have to deal with what is proper set-up to use for best results animating and using Dark Radiant.

I know I need to add some bones for IK to the knees so the ai (lantern bot) can use stairs.

 

But what would you guys recommend, starting over and using IK for all bones? A current problem is making the body wobble some during idle anim. I'd probably have to go thru and adjust all legs to the wobble, would it have nbeen easy if it was an IK setup to begin with?

 

I did read the maya tut and others at the Wiki, and all I could find on web, but most tuts are more of just program specific tuts and really don't go into much depth about best ways to set-up rigs for Doom3.

Well, walk ik in doom & ik in max/maya are two different things. D3 doesn't use the ik information on a md5mesh/anim. D3 walk ik is defined in the def file. IK in max/maya are useful for animators because you don't need to animate every single joint.

 

It's best to look through the spider or the trite def file to see how walk ik is used.

[Springheel]

Just so you know, there are few team-members who have much rigging knowledge. Ascottk is our resident expert, and Squill, Solaris and Domarius all know what they're doing, but none of them are around a lot atm. So don't get too frustrated if you don't get an immediate response.

[Baddcog]

Yeah it's alright. I just figured I'd start fishing.

 

It seems to me the IK that book uses is almost just a reference to the ik bones, from what I've seen so far.

 

I don't expect anyone to teach me to rig either, I know that could be a pain.

 

I guess ascottk already answered my Q, not too important for D3. Currently I've realized that I can add IK to the rig I have, was having a hard time with that yesterday, just couldn't find that button

 

Now I'm just fine tuning the rig, I had a few bones at an angle and couldn't lock the rotation in 2 planes. Once I get those cleaned up I'll be back at messing with IK and looking a little deeper into the def files.