The Wolf MESH is probably what got the least attention.
I was not really interested in making a good model. The importance was in the rig.
But i did make a simple little thing and i did adjust the weighting a bit, but i really couldnt afford to spend much time on it.
It still works to show the movement created by the rig. i made him bark a bit in the test animation just to show that the jaw is working.
The mesh has a fair amount of polygons, but of course they would have to be weighted properly.
I was going to try playing around with the fur effect bulit into maya. If i can get fur on a mesh that is weighted properly and where the rig works even better than this one, that would be it basically.
Here id wolfie running again!
Wednesday 9 June 2010
About the rig...
The rig i have made is fairly simple.
All the legs have ONLY ikHandles. no FK ones. This seems to be the noral way of doing quadrupeds.
For the back feet, i just threw a normal ikHandle on. But with my particular leg dimensions, i can see that i will need an extra something to make the foot react more realisticly.
The feet have a heel, a ball and a toe joint. Like a human rig. In case i would need toe movement.
I only included that because it is simple to make, and though i doubt ill use it, it cant hurt.
The head has a neck, head, two ears and one jaw joint.
I should have made the neck a little bit longer considering the way dogs sway their head up and down to create extra momentum while running.
So if i had more joints in the neck the motion could have been made more fluent.
The ears should also get a bit more attention. A lot of a dog/wolfs emotion is displayed through the ears. So if i needed to fold them back and forth, it will need to look good!
Apart from the incredibly frustrating back leg setup, the spine and tail was the worst.
I struggled a good while before i understood how spline iks work.
The spine could also have been a bit more complex.
If this would have been an aim for a proper rig, the spine wouldnt be good enough. I only have one cluster in each end of both the spine and the tail. +the twst attribute.
This basically means limited movement in a place that might be important in making the dog look natural.
The tail itself isnt moving at all. I could not figure out how to make a good controller to make the tail swing from side to side AND up and down. The tail would also need a few more joints. At least make it bend in more areas.
The control curves i made are pretty standard. Most are made from nurbs curves so they dont show up on renders. For the pole vectors i used "invisible" polygon geometry that also can only be viewed within maya. And i made all four different, because i thought they would all be on the inside of the wolf's leg, and thereby easily end up on top of each other, making them harder to grab.
I made some original control curves as well.
For the jaw i created a jaw looking curve that u simply rotate in whatever axis you want, and the jawJOINT will react perfectly.
For the ears i made curves shaped like ears and a bit bigger that the mesh ears, just to make them easier to grab.
The foot control i made in the shape of a dog paw. The base controls the whole foot, while the little toe symbols control... just the toes.
I also added something i havent actually seen on any other quadrueds. Which is a parent to both sets of legs.
I made one controlcurve for both the front feet, and one for both the back feet.
I did this because when four legged creatures run, they roughly move the back feet the same, and the front feet the same. with a slight difference though.
I figured it would be easiler to animate if i made this curve that animates two at a time, get the timing right, and then adjust the difference with the individual foot controls.
I did not bother with a reverse foot control. Its easy to make, but i did not need to test anything out about it, because i know pretty well how they work, and im not even sure i will have any use for it on an imporved version of this rig.
All the legs have ONLY ikHandles. no FK ones. This seems to be the noral way of doing quadrupeds.
For the back feet, i just threw a normal ikHandle on. But with my particular leg dimensions, i can see that i will need an extra something to make the foot react more realisticly.
The feet have a heel, a ball and a toe joint. Like a human rig. In case i would need toe movement.
I only included that because it is simple to make, and though i doubt ill use it, it cant hurt.
The head has a neck, head, two ears and one jaw joint.
I should have made the neck a little bit longer considering the way dogs sway their head up and down to create extra momentum while running.
So if i had more joints in the neck the motion could have been made more fluent.
The ears should also get a bit more attention. A lot of a dog/wolfs emotion is displayed through the ears. So if i needed to fold them back and forth, it will need to look good!
Apart from the incredibly frustrating back leg setup, the spine and tail was the worst.
I struggled a good while before i understood how spline iks work.
The spine could also have been a bit more complex.
If this would have been an aim for a proper rig, the spine wouldnt be good enough. I only have one cluster in each end of both the spine and the tail. +the twst attribute.
This basically means limited movement in a place that might be important in making the dog look natural.
The tail itself isnt moving at all. I could not figure out how to make a good controller to make the tail swing from side to side AND up and down. The tail would also need a few more joints. At least make it bend in more areas.
The control curves i made are pretty standard. Most are made from nurbs curves so they dont show up on renders. For the pole vectors i used "invisible" polygon geometry that also can only be viewed within maya. And i made all four different, because i thought they would all be on the inside of the wolf's leg, and thereby easily end up on top of each other, making them harder to grab.
I made some original control curves as well.
For the jaw i created a jaw looking curve that u simply rotate in whatever axis you want, and the jawJOINT will react perfectly.
For the ears i made curves shaped like ears and a bit bigger that the mesh ears, just to make them easier to grab.
The foot control i made in the shape of a dog paw. The base controls the whole foot, while the little toe symbols control... just the toes.
I also added something i havent actually seen on any other quadrueds. Which is a parent to both sets of legs.
I made one controlcurve for both the front feet, and one for both the back feet.
I did this because when four legged creatures run, they roughly move the back feet the same, and the front feet the same. with a slight difference though.
I figured it would be easiler to animate if i made this curve that animates two at a time, get the timing right, and then adjust the difference with the individual foot controls.
I did not bother with a reverse foot control. Its easy to make, but i did not need to test anything out about it, because i know pretty well how they work, and im not even sure i will have any use for it on an imporved version of this rig.
Trouble with the feet
I had been studying the Great Dane model for at least a week, and followed a tutorial that explains how to make the back leg of a dog.
The trick about dog`s back feet are that they have one additional joint in their skeleton.
This means that i would need a different, more complex ikHandle to go from the hip to the foot.
After about a weeks struggle and both me and Georg scratching our heads, i came to the comclusion that the effect i would gain from the tutorials` technique was not worth spending this much time on, so i decided to stick to a normal ikHandle stretching across 3 joints, as opposed to the normal 2 joint.
The trick about dog`s back feet are that they have one additional joint in their skeleton.
This means that i would need a different, more complex ikHandle to go from the hip to the foot.
After about a weeks struggle and both me and Georg scratching our heads, i came to the comclusion that the effect i would gain from the tutorials` technique was not worth spending this much time on, so i decided to stick to a normal ikHandle stretching across 3 joints, as opposed to the normal 2 joint.
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