T0758 - Digital Tutors Animating Creatures in Maya Insects

Learn an artist-friendly workflow to creature rigging and a solution-based approach to building controls for faster animation in Maya. Contains over 6 hours of project-based training for setup artists learning new methods of rigging multi-limbed creatures.

Popular highlights include:

* Building Skeletons from Anatomy
* Painting Weights for Rigid Deformations
* Spring IK Solver
* No-Flip IK
* Innovative Broken Hierarchies
* MEL Scripting for Rigging and Animation
* Visual Limiter Controls
* Sculpt Deformer
* Blend Shapes
* Character Sets
* Smooth Binding

Lesson Outline:

1. Creating a MEL script to align objects to bones 9:52
2. Using MEL to snap objects 13:41
3. Preparing the scene for rigging 7:52
4. Beginning the skeleton based on insect anatomy 7:09
5. Creating joints for the insect’s head 7:04
6. Adding joints to the insect’s back legs 9:33
7. Finishing the chains for the insect’s legs 5:23
8. Creating an intuitive broken hierarchy set up 4:37
9. Adding broken hierarchy control to our rig 5:12
10. Applying Spring IK handles to the legs 7:37
11. Building a control object reservoir 11:33
12. Adding a control to the front left leg 9:16
13. Finishing the set up of the front left leg 10:39
14. Completing the back left leg and the right front leg 8:53
15. Wrapping up the insect’s limbs 7:45
16. Setting up the head control 9:23
17. Rigging the mandibles and antennas 11:35
18. Creating the gaster’s control 7:40
19. Avoiding flipping in IK chains 5:08
20. Adding a control for the petiole 2:51
21. Controlling the thorax 9:43
22. Setting up warning controls 9:35
23. Adding broken hierarchy control to the thorax and sting 6:31
24. Finishing the control rig 7:15
25. Working with Character sets 10:38
26. Binding the insect 11:54
27. Painting weights – Completing the gaster 6:54
28. Painting weights – Finishing the head 8:46
29. Painting weights – Working on the petiole 11:14
30. Painting weights – Starting the thorax 9:03
31. Painting weights – Finishing the thorax and the left front leg 7:57
32. Mirroring wieghts – Left legs to the right legs 3:17
33. Smoothing the weights of the sting and end of the gaster 9:03
34. Finishing the gaster 9:10
35. Completing the weights of the back left leg 11:15
36. Finishing the left middle legs weights 9:56
37. Correcting the weights of the front and mid throax 13:56
38. Smoothing the head and antenna deformations 9:51
39. Mirroring wieghts – Checking deformations 10:37
40. Controlling the insect’s smooth division level 4:36
41. Rigging the sting and gaster using deformers 12:32
42. Preparing the scene for animation 10:27
Total Run Time:6:09:40