The Robo Rig is Nearly Done!
Added 2021-03-12 04:51:33 +0000 UTCSo, this guy has been a tricky one to rig. I had to come up with a way to make the legs detachable, but also allow them to seamlessly act as part of his main body up until the point where they may need to be detached.
My solution was to create two separate rigs for each leg, and to use constraints and expressions to control which rig the joints will follow at any point in time. One rig is integrated as part of the full body skeleton which allows for motion capture or procedural animations like walk cycles, and the other is a completely independent set of controls that isn't effected at all by the body's motion.
In the image where Tobur (Gaussly) is holding the detached leg, it's using the independent controls. And in the images where he's walking, it's using the main body rig. This is the same scene BTW. Just different inputs driving the motion.
The only thing left for me to do at this stage is to fine-tune some weight painting on the torso, and then I'll be ready to move on to fur!
Enjoy!
-Taurin Fox
PS I have no idea what's up with that weird nose ridge he has going on. From what I can tell, it's just an artifact that popped up while I was setting up the walk cycle. Sometimes Maya just do weird things...
