Cartoon Character Rigging in Maya
Learn a production workflow to create advanced character rigs with an emphasis on toon, squash, and stretch rigging techniques, and the principles of building solution-based rigs. Software required: Maya 8 and up (Maya 2008 required for project files).
What you'll learn
Learn a production workflow to create advanced character rigs with an emphasis on toon, squash and stretch rigging techniques, and the principles of building solution-based rigs. Contains over 7 hours of project-based training for animators and setup artists learning the processes of creating stylized toon rigs with animator-friendly controls. Perfect for experienced artists. Popular highlights include: Creating Squash and Stretch Spine; Creating Stretchy Legs with On/Off Feature; Globally Scaling a Squash and Stretch Rig; Animator-Friendly Facial Setup; Parent Scripts for Clean Controls; Animatable Squash/Stretch GUI; Multi-parent Control Objects; Elbow and Knee Preservation Techniques; Pinning Accessories to Bound Characters; Object Pivot Manipulation; Working with Expressions; User-Friendly and Efficient Body Controls; Rotation Order; Gimbal Lock Prevention Assistant; Enhanced Foot Bank Setup; Enhanced Shoulder Concept; Improved Finger Setup for Added Control. Software required: Maya 8 and up (Maya 2008 required for project files).
Table of contents
- Discussing the Scene 8m
- Using the MEL Window to Easily Access Controls 11m
- Finishing the Setup of the Custom Window 6m
- Starting the Construction of the Rig - Rigging the Feet 9m
- Setting up the Reverse Lock Feature 7m
- Using a Unique Concept for a Foot Control 10m
- Finishing the Setup of the Foot Control 11m
- Connecting the Custom Attributes for the Feet 10m
- Creating an Improved Foot Bank Rig 10m
- Adding a Stretchy Feature to the Legs 12m
- Continuing the Stretchy Limb Setup 8m
- Finishing the Legs 12m
- Starting on the Spine 10m
- Using an Advanced Twist Setup for the Upper Body 10m
- Utlizing a Concept for Natural Spine Performance 7m
- Creating an Extendible Spine 12m
- Adding Volume as the Spine Squashes and Stretches 10m
- Connecting the Volume Interface Controls to Influence the Spine 11m
- Completing the Volume User Interface 6m
- Utilizing a Concept for Multi-parent Control Objects 8m
- The Head Control 11m
- Rigging the Eyes 8m
- Wrapping up the Control for the Eyes 9m
- Setting up the Hat 10m
- Starting on the Arms 9m
- Creating the Arm Controls 12m
- Basic Connections of the Left Arm 5m
- Basic Connections of the Right Arm 6m
- Adding a Stretchy Arm Feature 14m
- The Arm Follow Switch 8m
- Rigging the Fingers for a Wide Range of Control 11m
- Finishing the Fingers 5m
- Establishing Good Rotation Orders for Control Objects 6m
- Modeling Blend Shapes 9m
- Seamlessly Mirroring Blend Shapes 12m
- Efficient User-friendly Control for Blend Shapes 10m
- Finishing the Setup of the Facial Control 6m
- Pinning the Loose Assets to a Bound Mesh 8m
- Continuing the Pinning Process of Assets on the Watchman's Shirt 9m
- Completing the Pinning Process for the Shirt 6m
- Pinning for the Lower Body and Preparing the Setup of the Flashlight and Keys 14m
- Creating a Control for the Flashlight and Attaching It to the Watchman 12m
- Controlling and Animating the Control of an Object's Pivot 8m
- Finishing the Flashlight 4m
- Beginning Our Work on the Keys 6m
- Adding Custom Attributes to Manipulate the Keys 8m
- Continuing the Connections Between Keys and the Custom Attributes 12m
- Wrapping up the Keys and Creating Character Sets 9m
- Creating a MEL Window to Quickly Switch Between Each Character Set 14m
- Finalizing the Rig of the Watchman 10m
- Conclusion 2m
- Project Overview 1m
- Adding Display Layers to Organize the Scene 7m
- Building the Leg Chains 10m
- Creating the Spine, Neck, Head, and Jaw Chains 4m
- Creating the Left Shoulder and Arm Chain 6m
- Building Joints for the Left Hand 9m
- Mirroring the Left Arm and Parenting Assets 5m
- Binding and Editing the Weights of Belt, Pants, and Shoes 10m
- Refining the Deformations of the Pants 5m
- Binding and Weighting the Neck, Head, and Jaw 5m
- Finalizing the Jaw's Deformations 5m
- Skinning the Upper Body and Blocking in Its Weights 12m
- Fine-tuning the Deformations of the Torso 10m
- Fixing the Undershirt's Deformations with Corrective Shapes 12m
- Tweaking the Forearm Twist 7m
- Completing the Shoulder's Weights 12m
- Binding and Weighting the Left Hand 9m
- Modifying the Deformations of the Fingers 11m
- Finishing the Fingers and Mirroring the Hand's Weights 6m
- Setting up an Influence Object for the Neck 5m
- Creating Character Sets 5m
- Utilizing the Move Skinned Joints Tool 3m
About the author
Delano works avidly as an animation author at Pluralsight. Starting his career at animation studios like Shilo, Delano has developed a strong passion for his talents. His animation and rigging background help him teach and create some of the most-watched training on Pluralsight. A few of his favorite projects that he has contributed to include: Character Interaction in Maya and in Softimage, Rigging the Human Face in Maya, Rigging Sea Creatures in Maya, and Rigging and Animating Transforming... more