6 axis robot arm rig

[freejonah]

I'm looking for a good solution for creating an IK rig that behaves like a 6 axis robot arm like one would see in a modern car factory. This means each rotation axis would be heavily constrained to it's own rotation axis. 

My target that the rig will follow is a matchmove so it needs to follow it exactly. In theory a six degree robot should be able to follow any point in space, but the math escapes me right now. Have any of you done something like this? Curious to see what's been done in the community. 

 

Thanks in advance,

Jonah

[Jason]

Where is Matthew Lamb when you need him?  (Hololens, I believe is the correct answer)

[edward]

Sounds like an interesting challenge, if only I had the time! ... Have you tried using bone chain solved using IK w/Constraints and then setting up the constraints to mimic it? Probably won't work but perhaps a starting point.

[Guest mantragora]

It's 5-axis, if I count right, and I've done it like 4-5 years ago, so I barely remember anything. Bone setup was quite complicated. I didn't used IK with Constraints because I didn't liked the results. At that time I developed small technique that really nicely solved many problems with rigging mechanic arms that were easy to pin later on to the master IK bone chain, that was used as a manipulator.

EDIT: Actually I used bones with constraints too, but those were not master bones, only some local solutions that I used to drive other bones later. I remember that just constraints didn't worked to good, so I had to do double bone system for constraining mesh properly, and when I had solved each of axes I pinned it to master bone system.

EDIT2: The upper arm is 10-axis monster (not counting fingers), but this one I failed to make whole driven by one master IK bone chain

http://www.mediafire.com/view/zzzukttpcjvutsx/rig.gif

Edited May 9, 2015 by mantragora

[rafaelfs]

Wait... that looks like Cain's mech from Robocop2... nah, I must be tripping!

 

It's 5-axis, if I count right, and I've done it like 4-5 years ago, so I barely remember anything. Bone setup was quite complicated. I didn't used IK with Constraints because I didn't liked the results. At that time I developed small technique that really nicely solved many problems with rigging mechanic arms that were easy to pin later on to the master IK bone chain, that was used as a manipulator.

EDIT: Actually I used bones with constraints too, but those were not master bones, only some local solutions that I used to drive other bones later. I remember that just constraints didn't worked to good, so I had to do double bone system for constraining mesh properly, and when I had solved each of axes I pinned it to master bone system.

EDIT2: The upper arm is 10-axis monster (not counting fingers), but this one I failed to make whole driven by one master IK bone chain

http://www.mediafire.com/view/zzzukttpcjvutsx/rig.gif

[Guest mantragora]

Wait... that looks like Cain's mech from Robocop2... nah, I must be tripping!

Hehe, yup, it was one of my two models that I made to learn rigging. Everybody make simple stuff, I decided that I need something that will kick my ass. And it did.

Legs were even bigger problem. And then there was hydrualic system + other things.

Sadly, couple years ago I had HDD failure and I lost part of the model + (most) rig files. The second model I made (mech spider) still kinda works. A little worse in H14, but in H13 I think everything is OK.

Edited May 14, 2015 by mantragora