Wednesday: Rigging box man
This week, Nick showed us how to create a basic character and rig it from scratch. I learnt about parenting, constraints, skeletons, IK handles.
We first created the block man using a Polygon Primitive Cube and duplicating and scaling the cubes to create different parts of the body.
After establishing the body parts we then had to parent them. For example the fingers and thumb were parented to the hand, the hand was then parented to the lower arm etc. This meant that the arm can move and the hand, fingers and thumb will follow. If the parenting is done correctly, the hips should be the highest in the hierarchy.
Once the parenting was complete, we were then shown how to create a control to start to move our box man. Each joint created controls using NURBS Primitives and selecting the circles. Each one was placed around a joints or the head (apart from the legs) and modified to make it easier to grab. Then we had to add Constraints.
By adding constraints between the NURBS and the body part, they were connected and controlled the body part it was connected to, therefore acting as a control.
For the leg we were taught a different approach. We created a Skeleton and created joints for the legs – parented the joints and then constrain the joints to the leg blocks. Then added IK handles for the legs, feet and toes. The IK handles were then children to the feet controls.
Pole vector was then added to the knees to give more range of movement
Thursday: Posing/ weight shift
This week George gave us two tasks to complete. He wanted us to chose a dynamic pose to recreate on the Bony Rig and we learnt about weight shifts.
Pose
I chose a pose to recreate on the bony rig
My feedback from George was to adjust the foot in the air so that there is a better silhouette. And potentially adjusting the arms so there is a continuation of the curve in the body.
Weight shift
This week we learnt how to animated a weight shift.
George showed us that it is important to have a balanced pose when animating a character. We want to ensure that there is the same amount of positive space either side of our characters pose. COG – Centre of Gravity
After filming myself side stepping, I drew out a rough plan of the character doing this.