Tutorial 02 - Car rigging 01 - Groups, Curves, Constraints and Pivots

The first step is to find a car that is usable for rigging and animation

Step 01 

The first step in the process for the car rig is to check the model -obviously it has to be a car so 4 wheels, 2 or more doors a boot and bonnet and lights. 

Front of car (bonnet) is facing the front (use the view cube)

Wheels are sitting on the grid (as accurately as possible)

Mesh is separated so you can group it.

Step 2 - Naming Conventions and Grouping

The first part is to name the Mesh - Name it logically using the drop down bar and option rename at the end of the shelf

Then start grouping your mesh 

:-Doors - As you group the doors its important to keep naming the parts of the mesh you are grouping with similar naming conventions to the door

- Boot

- Bonnet

-wheels

Naming conventions and groups, how to use them?

naming conventions -

It up to how you rig as to how you name your naming conventions, in my case I like to abbreviate and shorten words so

frnt_rght_wheel_mesh - front_right_wheel_mesh - either way its right its just up to your preference

doing this will help to keep your organised, its also important to logical , so name the items position, what it is, what it doe, and if its a mesh, GUI, Controller etc

Grouping -

Its important to group your meshes for a few reasons

1 - Groups can have a group pivot

2 - Items in groups can have individual pivots

3 - Helps to stop confusion later on and keep your rig 'organised'

its also important to mention group grouping, which is what I have done with the wheels and doors, because there are more than one but identical items.

Curves, Deformers and constraints - as well as pivots

its up to you how you go about the next step but you need to create a controller for the axis of movement on the rig.

Creating an EP curve

Using the crate - EP Curve tool you want to create a controller for the rig - When you create this you want to make sure there are enough points in the curve for when you add the deformation later

Adding a Deformer to create the actual curve

Using the animation tool bar, you can find the create deformers, non linear and Bend, and add it to the EP curve. From here you need to rotate it so that the straight part of the deformer is following the X axis, and the curve is lying flay on axis.

Its up to you how much you set up the curvature of the EP curve, I prefer something in the middle of so bent the arrow heads line up with the car wheels and to flat that its not noticeable

WHEN DONE DELETE ALL BY TYPE - History - This will delete the bend deformer.

Reposition the pivots for the wheels if you have not already - This is what I said earlier - Items within groups can have individual pivot information as well as one for the overall group

Contraints

Constreaints work similar to parenting, however you select the item you want to be the 'controller' first and then the items you want to folow the 'controller' second

So, select the currve first then. right_front_wheel_mesh followed by left_front_wheel_mesh and go to Constraint - Orient and click the Options box next to it, and set it up for what you want, in this case we are just con-straining to the Y axis (Left and Right movement)

From there the next step is to create a group and naming convention for the controller. From the Image belowe you can get an idea of my naming conventions and how I use them - Its also good practice as a 3d modeller to using naming and naming conventions if you do not already.

As you can see my naming convention for the Left and Right movement of the wheels is

Y_Movement_Left_Right_CTRL

I chose Y because the movement is constrained to the Y axis,

Movement because it moves (orient may have been a better choice or ratation)

Left and Right (because thats what the Controller controls (maybe angle would of been a better option)

CTRL - To indicate its a controller - CTRL is also short for Control on keyboard so it made sense

Another year another new Blog ;) this time its for 3D rigging.

Lecture One - Introduction to Rigging

Basic Parenting

Parenting is a system in Maya by which you set up a control system where one object is Parent to a Child object. In the image below you can see a 3 point Bone or Joint, Start, Middle,End or Shoulder, Elbow and Wrist.

Step 01 - Create the Bone or Joint

I first create the Bone or Joint - Which can be found in Skeleton - Joint Tool - It does not matter which shape or size the object is.

As you can see in the outliner there is already a hierarchy of a parent child system present by creating the joint we will be replacing this default parent child situation with control objects.

Step 02 - Creating the Control Objects

I decided that I would create an example of a basic arm joint with simple control objects - using NURBS Primitives

Step 03 - Parenting the control objects

Using the P Hot key I parent the objects in order of which i want them to be parent Child - Obviously if this was a human arm it would be  Shoulder - Elbow - Wrist -Hand - Fingers, I am only showing a joint chain with shoulder, Elbow and Wrist so it does not matter about hand and fingers.

The sign that the Joint has become parent or a child is that the joint has become invisible, which can be sorted by Un-parenting the selected objects - You can also parent objects in Maya that are not parts of joint

What I learnt

I learnt how the parent child hierarchy works properly in Maya and what you have to do to create a properly working parent child situation - I also learnt how the parent child system affects bones and joints in Maya and how I can control them, There advantages being simplicity and ease of use, and there many disadvantages

Constraints an equivalent to Parent/Child

Again for this i am going to start with a Bone/Joint in Maya - I did not want to change the item i was using as I wanted to show the advantages and disadvantages of both

Step One

Step One again was to create the physical Bone/Joint system - again in the Shoulder, Elbow and Wrist format - Or 3 Joint System

Step Two - Creating the Constrain Objects

Similar to the parenting part i want to create and object to point constrain the Joint to, Im going to use NURBS spheres again to show the same advantages and disadvantages as previously stated

Step Three - Adding the Constraint to the Bone/Joint


Using the constrain Point Tool 

The constrain point tool has an options menu, Similar to many tolls in Maya  By default it should be set up as below with a value of 0.0000 in all offset, Animation later set to non.

Then Below are the physical constrain option - Which are X, Y and Z axis  - This is the main constrain (from my knowledge and opinions) You can fiddle with these options - Each one locks to an axis essentially.