Rigging is the process of creating a digital skeleton that allows animators to control the movement and deformation of characters, creatures, and other 3D objects.
The rigging is a preparing 3D model of a character for animation, in which a set of virtual joints and bones – a rig – is placed inside a pre-drawn blank, and patterns of functioning and possible transformations are also established.
Body rigging is the process of creating a skeleton and control system for 3D models, allowing them to move and animate. It involves establishing the bone structure of a three-dimensional object, using joints, controls, and skinning.
Rigging with blend shapes
Editor – Animation editors – Pose Edit. Select the Geometry: Create a blend shape. Add target.
Tool settings – Symmetry settings: Select the object that we want to change. Symmetry.
After have sculpted the emotion, exit edit mode and move the slider.
Deform – Blend shape – Add: Check the mark next to specify the node. Apply and close.
Flip target.
Expression Editor. Selected object and attribute.
Name the location chosen.
Write a comment (Expression).
Creating control curves to the eye.
Creating the blend parent attribute for the eye.
Creating IK handles for the eyes.
Mechanical rigging in Maya involves rigging mechanical objects such as pistons, cams, rocker arms, gears, pulleys, and conveyor belts.
To explore mechanical rigging has to start by learning about parenting, modifying the pivot of an object, working with groups, joints, inverse kinematics, and control objects. Which can help a lot while doing mechanical rigging objects.
Auto rigging in Maya refers to the process of automatically creating a character rig for an empty mesh1. It involves analyzing the mesh and creating interlinking parts to make animation more manageable.
This semester's study mainly focuses on body rigging and some self-study similar to mechanical rigging. I feel that the logic of rigging is roughly similar, and you need to understand the model and be proficient in rigging to make better rigs.
Skinning is the process of binding a modeled surface to a skeleton. You can bind any model to its skeleton using skinning, or you can model over a pre-existing skeleton to create its skin. When a model is bound to a skeleton using skinning, it then follows or reacts to the transformations of the skeleton’s joints and bones. For example, if you bind a model’s arm to its underlying skeleton using skinning, rotating the elbow joints causes the skin at the elbow to crease and pucker.
With smooth skinning, you can create smooth, articulated deformation effects. Smooth skinning specifies that multiple joints and other influence objects can have varying influences on the same points (CVs, vertices, or lattice points) on a model.
Smooth skinning provides smooth, articulated deformation effects by enabling several joints to influence the same deformable object points. The smoothing effects around joints are automatically set up when you bind skin.
With indirect skinning, you can bind lattice or wrap deformers as skins to a skeleton. When a character is indirectly skinned, posing its skeleton causes the bound deformers to transform the model’s skin.
In lattice skinning, you skin the influence lattices of lattice deformers. These influence lattices in turn influence other deformable objects (for example, NURBS surfaces or polygonal meshes). An advantage of lattice skinning is that you can easily make adjustments to the deformation by tweaking influence lattice points.
In wrap skinning, you skin the wrap influence objects of wrap deformers. These wrap influence objects in turn influence other deformable objects. An advantage of wrap skinning is that you can skin low-res objects and use them as the character’s low-res model, then later introduce the high-res model and deform its objects with the low-res objects.
I mainly use smooth skinning when making rigs, mainly because most of my models have smooth and soft modeling surfaces without too many obvious joints. Smooth skinning is more suitable for me, but indirect skinning can also bring a lot of help. I will try to use some indirect skinning in the future rig making and learning.