Hey Guys,
Here is a WIP of my Batman rig. I learned a lot from the minotuar rig that I did before. This time I wanted to take things a bit further and add in some muscles and build a UI in python. I still have a lot to do on all fronts, but it’s coming along.
TO DO
[ol]
[li]Finish UI[/li][li]Finish Muscles[/li][li]nCloth for Wings[/li][li]Facial Rig[/li][li]Correctives[/li][/ol]
Any and all crits welcome 
Awesome progress dude. You’ve got some real nice range of motion and deformation on the arms. There were a few points where the deformation of the muscles could use a bit of work- the butt muscle moved inward just a little too much when the leg was brought forward, and there was quite a big crease on the front of the hip too. Calf muscles did seem to noticeably change volume a bit too much. Overall it’s all looking great though.
One thing you should probably do a little more often in the demo video is blend on/off the effect of the muscles so that a potential employer could actually see the effect of the muscle system compared to just plain skinning.
The UI is awesome- animators love that kind of thing. Just make sure that it’s really obvious to the end user how to use it. That big block of blue buttons might be kind of confusing to some users- particularly the hardcore animator types which aren’t always from a technical background. One more thing I would advise- make sure the UI can work with multiple characters in the scene! Message attributes are your friend here, and namespaces will become a necessary evil so you might as well embrace them.
Hey Twiggy! Thanks so much for the critique! This was my first time using muscle and it was a bit of a process for me. I’m actually starting to realize that a lot of the results I was going for could have easily be done with more simple methods, but it’s ok, it was good to learn and it didn’t turn out to bad. I’m going to need to fix some areas though.
The UI is still being developed. I haven’t quite finished the wings, but I think you’re right. I’m going to need to have them more color coded.
Here’s an update of the UI. This actually shows multiple characters being used with the picker using namespaces.
[video=vimeo;134742403]https://vimeo.com/134742403[/video]
Thanks again Twiggy!
Hey AaronCarlisle,
Awesome rig and cool UI! I like how “unconventionally Batman” this Batman is. He sort of has this ‘edge’ to him, if that makes sense.
As far as your rig goes, I agree with Twiggy that most of the deformations are looking good thus far, just need a bit more work on the wings (both in terms of deformation and color coding things in the UI) and the calves could also use some refinement. Other than that, everything looks to be headed it the right direction and I can’t wait to see how this rig turns out. Great work so far man. Definitely not what I expected.
EDIT: Quick question if you don’t mind me asking—well two. Did you create the picker using Pymel or just regular maya.cmds? If Pymel, do you find there are any drawbacks in terms of speed, etc? Any noticeable benefits?
My other question is what are you using to paint weights on this rig? Are you using any custom tools or just the paint weights tool and component editor? Thanks.
-B
Hey bgodoy! Thanks for taking a look and thanks for the advice. 
I mostly use maya.cmds because the documentation is a lot easier to sift through. I do use Pymel, but mostly because of it’s python use. It handles objects a lot easier and has more ‘pythony’ syntax. Also, it handles objects as class, not just strings, like in maya.cmds or mel. (in all honesty, I should be using PySide lol)
Example:
// MEL //
string $myJoint = "joint";
// Result: joint //
# python
import maya.cmds as cmds
myJoint = cmds.joint()
// Result: u'joint1' //
import pymel.core as pm
myJoint = pm.joint()
// Result: nt.Joint(u'joint2') //
As for the weighting, I just used the basic paint weights tool. Though, that delta mush deformer is looking pretty useful and I have seen other tools that allow you to layer your weights. I guess I’m still kinda doing things old school. lol
[QUOTE=AaronCarlisle;28323]Hey bgodoy! Thanks for taking a look and thanks for the advice.
I mostly use maya.cmds because the documentation is a lot easier to sift through. I do use Pymel, but mostly because of it’s python use. It handles objects a lot easier and has more ‘pythony’ syntax. Also, it handles objects as class, not just strings, like in maya.cmds or mel. (in all honesty, I should be using PySide lol)
As for the weighting, I just used the basic paint weights tool. Though, that delta mush deformer is looking pretty useful and I have seen other tools that allow you to layer your weights. I guess I’m still kinda doing things old school. lol[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I know what you mean. I just started using pymel more and more myself and despite the docs, I’m definitely a lot more comfortable with the ‘pythonic’ syntax.
I’m just curious but since you do things “old school” (so do I) do you usually paint weights using interactive or post normalization? You have some pretty nice deformation happening around the arms and upperbody. I’m wondering if that has more to do with how you painted weights or if that’s the muscle system kicking in.
-Bryan
Update of Batman Rig:
Good Work AaronCarlisle!!! 
[QUOTE=Twiggy;28308]One more thing I would advise- make sure the UI can work with multiple characters in the scene! Message attributes are your friend here, and namespaces will become a necessary evil so you might as well embrace them.[/QUOTE]
I’m curious what you mean by this… do you mean most rig UIs should work with any rig in the scene? Or just multiple instances of Mr. Batman here? If so, why is that important? Genuine question.
And the rig looks great. Muscles themselves look rough but the deformations that result are legit. I also visited your website and picked up the hand rig and ik stretch tools 
[QUOTE=clamdragon;29192]I’m curious what you mean by this… do you mean most rig UIs should work with any rig in the scene? Or just multiple instances of Mr. Batman here? If so, why is that important? Genuine question.
[/QUOTE]
In a lot of pipelines there may be a single rig which is used for multiple characters throughout the entire project. Typically game pipelines will do this, where all characters must have the same height and limb lengths to prevent the need for runtime retargeting/inverse kinematics to fix things such as arm placement in ladder climbing, weapon holding etc. Other than that… yeah, batman might have an evil twin 