Maya Rigging and Animation Tips

Create custom control

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpE97Lm-sW8
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9vJ51YRGRk

Parent vs. Parent constraint

• Parent constraint doesn’t constrain scale (it constrains translate and rotate).

  http://beginnerrigger.blogspot.com/2012/10/lesson-1-parenting-vs-parent-constraint.html

• Parent constraint can be blended with keyframe animation. The pairBlend node is automatically generated when both keyframe animation and a constraint are applied to an object. Once the animation and constraint are linked to the pairBlend node, you can modify the weight of the Animation-Constraint blend to generate various effects. See Blend Weights in the Channel Box.

  http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2014/en_us/index.html?url=files/CSN_pairBlend.htm,topicNumber=d30e336256

Parent constraint + parent

https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse459/14au/tutorials/object_interaction/

Solve the animation case where:

1. A ball is in hand at first, move with hand
2. The ball roll around the palm
3. The ball leaves hand and fall

The rig will have a locator parent constrainted to hand joint, and the ball parented under the locator.

To animate:

1. keyframe the hand control to move hand
2. keyframe the ball to animate ball roll in palm
3. keyframe the locator to animate the ball leaving hand and fall freely, keyframe “Blend Parent 1” to 0 – which means constraint is no longer driving the animation, instead keyframe is.
4. just before the ball falls out of hand, keyframe “Blend Parent 1” to 1 – which means using the constraint in previous animation

Stretching IK

• Stretching spine: http://www.darksuit.com/tutorials/StretchSpine.html
• Elastic foot : http://www.rigging101.com/free/elasticfoot/elasticfoot_nodes.htm

Joint attribute: limit information

• Understanding the attributes of a joint: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/Maya/files/GUID-5A8BB621-96E0-4CE8-9792-085EC8F07164-htm.html