My Rigging journey

[phrenzy84]

Hey guys.

Just wanted to share what i have been doing with Houdini for the past 2-3 weeks.

Although i have yet to purcahse the 3dbuzz suite of rigging tutorials i want to get stuck in and make something move.
I bought Jason Schliefer friendly rigging series ages ago and want to implemnt some of the funcitonality of his rigs which are a joy to use into Houdini.

So here is a screenshot of something i have cooked up with the help of said tutorials and a video demo. (please forgive the first 2 minutes of mumbling hehe )




Torso IK demo (Vimeo)
plus if you are a member of vimeo (which is free) you can download the original quicktime file.


I will add further developments to this thread and look out for new updates on the blog, where i can get into some detail.

hopefully i can bring together my journey of fur and riggin' together with this and other characters. Especially the bee.


-andrew

[sanostol]

I like it! Well done. Do You want to implement the complete Schleifer rig?

[phrenzy84]

thanks, even though i hit a few hurdles, it wasn't the hardest thing to implement, but putting it altogether might be a bigger feat.

As for a complete translation of the JS rig? I don't think so.
There are many things which are beyond my current knowledge level and also there are a few things i wouldn't want in the rig.

ie, I don't think the back would benefit much from an FK solution (it pretty easy to create arcs) plus if i did want FK there is no way i would use the one in the video. (too many rules)

but i'm gonna be doing the neck and head, and there is alot of "space" switching that is gonna be difficult to tackle, since im not a rigger.

One thing that would be awesome is if i could translate this setup into autorig assets. But the best thing about this setup is its extremely light and very responses.

[geneome]

phrenzy84, on Jan 26 2009, 07:38 PM, said:

One thing that would be awesome is if i could translate this setup into autorig assets.

Yes, yes, yes I would be first in line to download it!

[michael]

space switching can be done through the use of Blend objects...but it can be a bit of a pain...

I'd stay clear of using HDAs in an auto rig...adding another level of channel references will slow the rig down...

[old school]

Fantastic vid!

Thank-you Andrew. Keep on going.

I'd also echo Michael for now about the performance hit with channel referencing and nesting assets. Something we need to address but no biggie as most riggers come from Maya/Max/XSI where large character node networks are expected.

Now you "can" use subnets to collapse various parts of your network in your rig.
You can also use Fetch Objects in place of directly parenting objects together as they add very little overhead if any.

[michael]

if it's just a question of network readability then yeah, subnets and netboxes (my preference) are a good option...

adamJ and I have been talking about ways to get around the performance hit with channel referencing and nesting assets...I guess we'll post something about it when we have a chance....

[phrenzy84]

geneome: cheers mate. If someone else created i would be there too.

michael: yeah i guess it would. Could you not have it setup so once its created and your sure everything is correct, it deletes all the setup nodes? Just leaving the rig behind? If that doesn't work then a bunch of scripts to speed up the rigging process. ie add, stretchy IK.

oh and don't forget to show us all what you and adamJ have been upto.

old school: cheers mate, hopefully this will go all the way. Nice tip about the fetch OBJ, thats one of the nodes that i totally forgot about.

Ok so another little development.

Been working on getting the head and neck to work properly and also been refining the torso setup.





Torso / Head and Neck demo (Vimeo)

(you can download the source video from vimeo, when you sign up)


Enjoy

[phrenzy84]

oh and I forgot.

Here is the Torso Rig to play with.

its not the neatest in the world, but play with it, improve it, let me know how to make it better.


-andrew

Attached File(s)

•  Torso_Rig.rar (108.73K)
  Number of downloads: 121

This post has been edited by phrenzy84: 31 January 2009 - 12:34 PM