Some Insight to the Industry

This is just some insight to how things work as a TD in the field, and this comes with permission from an amazing TD named Jay Grenier. This is in response to a comment I made about how it seems the community is kind of "hush-hush" when it comes to learning about TD-ing. He said:

"I wouldn't say there's anything hush-hush about the topic of the best ways to give control over a character. It's more that it's just a difficult subject in general to discuss and people have different opinions and experiences on the matter. Every animator has their own workflow and prefers different types of controls and it's rare to find someone who knows exactly what they want. I've worked with animators that will ask for a rig built and setup a certain way then when it's complete they change their minds and realize they liked the old setup better. Artists with a large amount of experience generally will know what they want which can make it easier, but for the most part it's an ever-changing process. All that coupled with the fact that TDs are usually working with game engine restrictions and other technical limitations means it's not always as easy as just giving them what they want or finding the "best" setup. It's an evolving process and there is no one right way to do it. That's why I think it's not the most talked about subject on public forums, too much philosophy involved. :)".

I'm no expert but I have to say I agree with him after doing some more research, this stuff can be really freakin' hard to mash into your brain. Being able to understand the concepts behind rigging/setup has to go across multiple softwares with different naming conventions, so it could be a tad confusing and hard to say "This is the right way to do this." cause you can't say that. That's why I hope this blog can help some people out by showing many ways of accomplishing what should be the main goal of setting up the most efficient and effective character rigs.

Tech Artists.ORG

Here is a great resource site that has a ton of industry professionals discussing what techniques, problems, ideas, scripts and all sorts of stuff they come across. Check it out and get involved!

http://www.tech-artists.org/

Stretchy Limb Tutorial

I just made these tutorials to show the method I use setup the stretchy system when I rig. The next step I am still trying to account for is matching the FK and IK stretch to be the same without having to use any scripting, as well as add elbow locking, ribbon pull offs and the IK/FK snap. I have seen some new methods that have the arm always in FK but it is IK at the same time....boggles my mind and I think the person made their own plug in for it. I will post more about that later. If anyone knows more about this do tell, or if you know a better way to setup the stretch let me know!

Part 1

Rigging a Stretchy Limb in Maya Part01 from Matt Murray on Vimeo.

Part 2

Rigging a Stretchy Limb in Maya Part02 from Matt Murray on Vimeo.