Critq - Student Rig

[ithuriel2004]

Hey yall,
im a current student, and am working on a class group project, i've been given the glorious task of rigging (no one else wanted to do it)

I said, sure i'll give it a bash

If anyone has a spare moment could i ask that you have a quick looksie at my work and see if there is anything that you could recommend that i should fix, perhaps any work arounds that could create faster node feedback on the rig, or just perhaps. better ways to approach things.

I haven't completed any set driven keys on the hand/fingers or feet yet.

Download Here

Cheers
Krs

Programs used: Maya 5 - Assci Format

[joojaa]

looks fine however the ankle joint i somehow strangely attached to the rig.

Ok firstoff the base selectors shape should follow the pelvis, otherwise if someone makes a walkk cycle it will get left behind your chraracter, in wich case a visualizer for it is just waste of time.

Ankle is somehow bound to the leg ik, it might be a good thing or it might not.

Toe wiggle should be part of the base!! Or the foot to be exact.

Also the hand ik could be more easily selectable. at that bone scale but it easily fixed. Ut if there s geo on top it becomes a bit non handy.

What i would do is make all the bones become proxy shapes so the one could work directly witha bone porxy. You can make any shape a bone by insatancing a poly shape (using mel only) under your bones transform and then hide the bones... Thisway it would be better for animation. One could use the proxy rig for animation even if the chracter itself is complex.

Maybe ik fk switching! you should be able to manualy set the ik fk selector visible, bacause you may want to key a position for them before you start to manipuleta the switch, alough you can allways set the swich highe enough and then set it back but still a bit of extra effort.

Aou might want to add a panel thats designed to easily acces all tohhes commonly used values Maybe replace the layer palette with it or just add it between channelbox and layer opart of it... Thats what i do.

Aslo you might add a cutsom selection modifer that only selects those things in your rig that are meant to be selected.

Some places llige the neck and shoulders might benefit form a extra transform that can be keyed in a event of gimbal lock.

Also for face manipulators and others, use channel controll to hide the channels that are locked and meant not to unlock.

MAKE CHARACTER SETS!

[ithuriel2004]

Cheers Joojaa
thanks for the advice,
im a bit confused what you mean here:

"What i would do is make all the bones become proxy shapes so the one could work directly witha bone porxy. You can make any shape a bone by insatancing a poly shape (using mel only) under your bones transform and then hide the bones... Thisway it would be better for animation. One could use the proxy rig for animation even if the chracter itself is complex. "

but the rest im working on now, haha and i've just then made the character sets.

I've got a low poly body mesh (no head, yet) how would i do as you said above and proxy that to the bones? Would parenting do the trick, or did you mean something...bit confused

But yeah thanks heaps taken all that onboard, and giving her a burl now.

[joojaa]

PArenting linkage is fine if you only select bones but if you parent and choose the prxy shape then the bone isnt selected.

But if you instace a shape under the bone it is because it is teh same transform (note you msut understand that a object is realy only a combination of a shape and a transform, and many shapes can sahree a transform without grouping)

you can do this for example like this

parent -add -shape polySurfaceShape1 joint1;

then possibbly delete the original... Now the joint and the object si tha same transform so selecting the geo selects actualy the bone... Thsiway you can have cutom bones. Use otliner with shapes on to get whats actualy going on!