Jackie put me in contact with Ethan Shilling, a post-graduate student renowned for creating complex and advanced rigs. I talked with him about the problems I might face when creating five rigs for five characters by January and he suggested that I rig only what's neccesarry, which makes sense.
For instance, Issac and Fat Cat most likely won't be needing any rigging on their legs since they never move them during the whole trailer. I will only be needing to fully rig the civilian and Kat it looks like, since the Shock Trooper model was based on the civilian model and will most likely not need a drastically different rig.
When making these rigs, I will also attempt to follow more advanced rigging tutorials online as well as the CG blog tutorials, taking parts from here and there; I would very much like to learn to create my own customized and personalized rigs.
Anyways, it looks like I'm in for the long haul over the next few weeks creating these rigs. I await a habit of sleepless nights and coffee drinking.
Hey Tom, really pleased you've been talking with Ethan. Stick close to him - he's a bit of a genius! :)
ReplyDeleteHey Tom, it's me, Ethan!
ReplyDeleteIt's great to see the first character under way!
Because your character has cat feet you may need to do a few quick test skin binds (literally just the default smooth bind) just to check that the foot joints pivot in the way you expect.
You may find that the ankle joint needs to be lowered slightly. More in line with the heel (since she is effectively standing on tip toes). Although it's difficult to judge with out a quick test.
Check the ball of the foot too.
Of course they may be spot on already, but it's better to find out now than when animating.
Good stuff!
By the way, I don't know whether you've visited my blog before, so here it is in case you're interested.
aflockofpixels.blogspot.co.uk