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Friday 7 May 2010

Rig layout - Crane

I've had a quick think about Eddie's Crane's skeleton and these are my initial thoughts.

As Ed's experience with animating in Maya is pretty limited the salient factor here is to keep it as simple and easy to use as possible - so he can become acquainted with it asap (times a tickin!)

Another consideration to bear in mind is the animation style of the 2d stuff. This will eventually be composited on an after effects animation (2d) and as far as I know it will be animated in a cut out origami style. So whilst the Crane's animations should be consistent with the rest of the piece (so as not to look out of place), it should also be anatomically accurate in order to mimmick the creatures real movements.

This initial rig (minus the wings) uses a spline ik to control the neck - Cranes have a lot of articulation in this area, and I was considering using a dynamic chain to control its body (at least in flight) to reduce controls. 

The legs will be controlled by a standard ik rp solver with non-flip polevector controller for when the bird is walking around.


There will also need to be some sort of hand/finger setup as birds use their feet to grip like humans do with their hands. Because the shot we are after is fairly static in this area, nothing fancy is required, a set driven key allowing a clenching ability will suffice.

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Testing

I've tested this setup and it doesn't achieve the correct articulation - the head will not remain locked - independant of the body and the neck could do with more joints to achieve tighter arcs.

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