It’s been a while since I had to do any actual rigging setup. I was looking into what’s available for demos and automatic rig setups. I notice most are still showing rigging hands and fingers from a top down view with the fingers extended parallel from the hand - basically the T-pose. Aren’t most models nowadays modelled in a more natural pose? How do people deal with fingers that are oriented in an arbitrary fashion and still expect them to rotate properly?
Any demos that take this into account. Or even automatic rigging systems?
You can rig fingers either in a natural pose or straight out. We usually rig them in a fairly natural pose. You want to make sure you orient the joints correctly so the joint orientations (handles) are aligned consistently. We always make the “X” oriented so it points to the child joint and y is pointed forward. There are some scripts available to assist orienting the joints, it’s not built into the new version of maya. Proper orientation is essential for good rotations. If you are using nurbs controls, you want to make sure they are oriented the same as the joints or parent their shape to the joint. If this is isn’t familiar, you may want to pick up a book that talks about this more in depth.
I think my post came across as a bit of a noob - which I most definately am not. Like I said, I’ve been looking at some tutorials and they all assume the character is in the T-pose. This is pretty unrealistic. I haven’t come across discussions of the overall issue of keeping joints coplanar and how to rig in more natural poses.
Hi “ME”, Peter answered you and Kees, well that is just funny but to be fare the Joint orient tools in Maya are fickle. The question is valid but the way it was asked and the tone or feeling , as goofy as it sounds, that your username, lack of real name and the " I am not a noob" attitude makes it hard to take it serious. maybe spend a sec. to update your profile…anyway on to the answer.
This issue comes up all the time and haunts many maya rigs. Here is one way to deal with it.
Fingers are easy enough to draw in a strait T pose to keep the orients aligned and then keep them that way as you edit them in to a natural position.
Lock the translate values for yz so you can only move in x down the joint length, then just rotate them in to position, freeze transforms and you should be fine.
All goes bad once you start moving the joints or pivots around to position them and yes you can use many scripts for orienting joints. Here is one that could be cool, orient joints to plane http://canyourigit.com/tools.php
The comet reorient script is great for very fine control over the orients as long as they are not skinned or rigged yet.
[QUOTE=bclark;11701]All goes bad once you start moving the joints or pivots around to position them and yes you can use many scripts for orienting joints. Here is one that could be cool, orient joints to plane http://canyourigit.com/tools.php
[/QUOTE]
Finally, somebody’s really dealing with the issue. The problem is the the link to the script is dead.
I prefer to eyeball it and tell the animators to suck it.
You said this is a joke but it is the attitude of many rigging demos. They say to eyeball the orientation “close enough”.
I’m interested to find out whether you tell the modellers to build fingers straight because of the difficulty in getting the orientation right? Or do the modellers do that themselves because it’s easier to model a character that way?
The problem is not that the link is dead, the problem is I gave you the answer and you still responded in a negitive manner, sigh.
I will try again.
Modelers build models how every they feel like, I would never tell a “good” modeler to flatten out the hand or fingers. I will tell them if they created some broken bone strange pose on a mesh and work with them to make the model animation ready but that does not include making ugly box flat hands.
Good luck with your project, re-read my first post a few times and take some action or don’t expect much actual help from the forum.
[QUOTE=bclark;11724]The problem is not that the link is dead, the problem is I gave you the answer and you still responded in a negitive manner, sigh.
[snip]
Good luck with your project, re-read my first post a few times and take some action or don’t expect much actual help from the forum.[/QUOTE]
Huh? Negative? I just pointed out the link was unavailable.
I’m trying to get a discussion started here for an issue I see is a problem at many, many studios. TA’s like to complain that animators are lazy. Well, if TA’s would provide “better” working rigs especially for one of the more expressive parts of the body, animators wouldn’t have to complain so much.
And by the way, did you want me to make a signature where I list my credentials like you have? I could put in there that I did rigging for Star Wars and Terminator3. I think I’ve earned my moniker and avatar.
We had a script that would convert the joints into locators, link them up with curves and chain aim constraints from one locator to the next, that ensured that we always got perfect orientation down X.
Then we had locators which were used as the up vector on the aim constraints that took care of the roll. It became really obvious and easy to see if you had jacked up orientations.
Depending on how dense your mesh is you also have to compensate on the bone position. Some people like to select an edge loop and then move the joint to the center of that loop, but I found that you have to move it up a bit to make it more of a natural pivot point.
The ideal model would be the perfect middle of the range of motion, so when the mesh deforms both ways, it never goes too far and stretches the textures out too much. Modeling it straight out is not the best since it’s an extreme pose.
But I will also agree with Brad and say that if the modeler is good, you don’t want to constrain them to your problems, let them do what will look best and offer some advice, and if they build something that’s just anatomically wrong and straight up won’t work, then you can ask them to fix it.
I’ve changed many models that needed some fudging to look right while animating.
But film people would just say, put the joints wherever and fix it with corrective blendshapes =)
“TA’s like to complain that animators are lazy. Well, if TA’s would provide “better” working rigs especially for one of the more expressive parts of the body, animators wouldn’t have to complain so much.”
Yes, this happens, I agree that the hands/fingers need to be taken care of and rigged well. Hands get overlooked when modeling and rigging. What would you consider a better working rig for the hand? One that is oriented correctly for more natural motion is one that I would chose but it takes a back and forth with modeling some times to get that. Bad edge flow on hands is also an issue that I find a problem much more than unnatural position and that just causes deformations to be extremely hard to get looking right what ever the pose.
that ensured that we always got perfect orientation down X.
That’s the attention to detail that I have seen lacking sometimes and in the tutorials I’ve been watching recently. Although, it’s not just that. Other than the method you just shared and the script that bclark linked to, I don’t think the tool set has been developed enough. The comet tool, while really helpful, still leaves it up to orienting by eye.
Then there’s the whole issue of modelling changes. Pretty much a redo with the lack of available tools.
but it takes a back and forth with modeling some times to get that
I would say that’s the case all the time. We could have a whole other conversation about the tendency of departments to not communicate with each other.