Rigging Shoulders

[oldchina]

Hi, I'm skinning and rigging a stylized character with MASSIVE muscular shoulders. He's a boxer so his arms will be twisting into all sorts of positions in a fight.

Which means that his shoulders keep collapsing. An upper cut is especially problematic. I'm not used to shoulders of this size and I've tried cheating in order to keep the volume of the mesh round the shoulder - influence objects under the mesh, that kind of thing. But I know, deep down, that the only real way of beating the problem is to rig it properly!

So, does anyone either have any tips on what to do or can anyone point in me in the direction of some recommended tutorials, free or otherwise. I'm a pretty low-end rigger (I don't know MEL) and tend to do most things with constraints, the connection editor and simple expressions.

Many thanks!

[joojaa]

do you have a adjustable collar bone? As shoulder movement starts at the collarbone. And shoulder blade but the movement is similliar so it can be guesstimated with one bone.

[oldchina]

I have both a clavicle and scapular in the rig. They do help the torso but not with collapsing mesh on the shoulder. I'm guessing I need some kind of secondary helper joints that follow the shoulder to keep the form as it moves about. Unless anyone else knows of any other method?

I've tried using the pose deformer plug in to keep the shape, but the deformation is really too bad and needs to be solved in the rigging.

[joojaa]

No then its probably just beceus your skinning is either too spread or too local.

[lizardj]

hi oldchina, maybe this tutorial is what you are looking for