Hello. This is my first time posting and have really liked the information I have gathered from other threads and other members. I graduated last December from Ex’pression College with a focus on character rigging and while applying for jobs and after a few interviews, I have realized that I need to work on my facial set ups, advanced deformations, and tool writing the most.
I have acquired many dvds on rigging techniques but have not found many that explore the area on advanced deformations or go into complex facial set ups besides the basic blendshape set up. I know there is a set up process for making corrective facial blendshapes to fix multiple shapes being driven at once but have not found a good guide on this process. Any suggestions on this process or information on it would be greatly appreciated. Also, joint driven set ups are something I am curious about as I would like to work in either video games or film.
I have not found too many tutorials on advanced deformation techniques and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
My rigging speed I feel needs to be faster and a lot of it I know will come with time and experience, but also with scripted tools. I have been teaching myself Mel and trying to pick up python as well, but I do not have too much scripting background so it is taking me a while to understand everything. I find my best way to learn it so far is to pick apart other peoples scripts and then rewrite them for what I need them for, but suggestions on understanding how to write them efficiently would be greatly appreciated especially with python.
Before I even read the last paragraph, I was going to respond ‘you need to learn how to program.’ Forget that you’re using a 3D app, and just learn basic python programming for a couple weeks- write system tools, smooth UI’s, whatever. Just don’t worry about Maya.
Then once you’re comfortable, go back to writing python with Maya. You need to learn solid fundamentals in a environment suitable to learning.
You wouldn’t learn to drive by shuttling a limousine around Beijing.
Echoing what Rob said for python… in order to understand deformations, you’ll need to understand anatomy. Get away from Maya for a while and do some paint overs of where you think the skeletal structure is in some animals. Google image search some animals and find side views you can then paint over. Joint Placement is the foundation of deformations.
Then grab a mesh and experiment with placing joints and default binds. Place the joints one way, do a default bind, then dup it all move the joints to a different position and redo the default bind. Do this a bunch of times and see where the most ideal joint placement is for that particular mesh. Next pick a couple different meshes and repeat the process.
The point is see how far the default tools and simple joint placement gets you. Then worry about the advanced stuff.
"There is a compelling tendency among novices developing any skill or art, whether learning to play the violin, write poetry, or compete in gymnastics, to quickly move past the fundamentals and on to more elaborate, more sophisticated movements, skills, or techniques.
What will inevitably doom a physical training program and dilute a coach’s efficacy is a lack of commitment to fundamentals. "
There is no end to learning and perfecting the core of your art, there is always something more to learn, detail to observe and vert weight to tweak. A fancy rig can’t fix bad skinning or poor joint placement.