Monday, July 9, 2012

Character Rigging Assignment


An assignment I did while in 2nd term of my Digital Character Animation program from Vancouver Film School.

Step 1- Reverse Foot Control




Created Joints from Hip>Knee>Ankle>Ball>Toe
Used IK RPSolver from Hip To Ankle and created a Pole vector for in front of the knee for the control.
Used IK SC Solver from ankle to ball and ball to toe.
Created a reverse foot lock starting from heel >toe>ball>ankle
Parented IKhandle Ankle to RF Ankle, IKhandle Ball to RF ball and IKhandle Toe to RF Toe.
Created a Nurb Curve for the foot, changed the pivot to the heel and froze transformation.
Selected the Shape curve in Hypergraph and then the RF Heel  did a Parent-r-s.
Referenced the file for the other leg.

Step 2 - Spine



Created  a series of joints for the spine from COG and then spine1>spine2>spine3>neck base joint>neck joint> head base joint > head joint
I created an FK Spine. Created nurb curve for each and snapped them to COG, Spine1, spine 2 and spine3. And froze transformations on the nurb curve.
I selected Curve Shape and then the COG joint and did a parent-r-s.
I then selected another curve shape for spine1 and the spine1  used parent-r-s and repeated the same for spine 2 and spine 3.
Then parented spine1 joint to COG joint. Also parented left and right hip joints to the COG.

Step 3 - Arm 



Created Joints from Shoulder>arm>elbow>wrist
Created another set of joints from wrist>palm>middle finger joint 1> 2>3, wrist>thumb1>2,
Wrist>little finger1>2>3 and then from palm>index finger 1>2>3
Created an IKRPsolver from arm to wrist and a pole vector for the elbow.
Created FK controls for the fingers.
Created a nurb curve for the wrist and another for the controlling the arm
Did a parent-r-s on each then parented the wrist control to the arm control.
Referenced the file for the other arm.
Parent both left and right shoulder joints to spine 3 joints.

Step 4 - Neck and Head



Created a FK controls for the neck and Head.
Moved the controls away from each and the snapped the pivot to the Neck base joint and head base joint respectively.
Froze transformations on each and did a parent-r-s.

Step 5 - Placement Node



After rigging the character, I created a nurb curve at the base of the character and named it placement node. Froze transformations and parented all the character controls to the placement node.
This helps in positioning the character.



Kidamuck - Classically Animated Short




It is a classically animated short I did as my final project while at Vancouver Film School.
The story is about a young girl who tries her hand at pottery. When she sneaks into an art studio, little Pepe accidentally destroys a work-in-progress. Now she must recreate the piece before its artist comes back. Can she possibly succeed?

Animated and Directed by: Ruchika Rastogi
Vancouver Film School
Classical Animation - 2010