#RiggingInMaya | Part 19 | Final Adjustments

okay here we go this may be the final video but it could also be one of the most important with regards to making the rig animator friendly we have all the main controls in and working now but before we lock this down and add in the finishing touches we need to make sure the rig is scalable this may seem like it's a bit of a waste of time i mean why would anybody want to scale this character well it's useful in a number of instances it could be that the scene scale has changed so the character needs adjusting or perhaps the character needs to change scale in the game it could be that you're using the same rig on a number of different characters and you want to vary their scales as well so it is quite useful and it's become a fundamental part of rigging so it is expected and it's not difficult to set up so it will make our rig even more powerful really quick question for you now how would you like to help support the future of this channel and keep these videos free well there are a few options one would be to simply treat me to a coffee at my coffee page as a quick and easy thank you you could also grab something from the ant cgi store or one of my other online stores like cubebrush and gumroad this is where you will also find the course files that go with this course so you can download them and follow along however for as little as 99p a month you could join the ant cgi club there are a few ways you can join you could head over to my patreon or coffee pages or or alternatively simply hit that join button below this video in short the more support i get the more time i can dedicate to creating more high quality content just for you to get more information on how you can help follow the link on the screen or in the description below okay now that's out of the way let's get on with the video so when i talk about making the rig scalable i mean being able to select the root control and scale it like this so as you can see we have some issues to iron out the character is deforming and changing shape but we need him to maintain the same proportions first there are some basic things to check open the connection editor and make sure the root control is in the left side we want the scale attributes here basically everything underneath the root control is being scaled with it but the systems that are inside the do not touch group aren't now we can't just scale the main group itself because some of these systems already automatically scale with the controls so we will end up with a double transform if we adjust the skeleton group scale though you see that we can get back to the correct scale so we know we need to connect this to the root control so it scales with it load the skeleton group into the right side and connect scale to scale the character now snaps to the correct scale it's looking better already now one thing to point out is that if you're setting things to scale with the root control you ideally need them to have the same pivot point as the root control so everything scales from the same point now this should be the only group you need to connect but it's always worth trying the others to make sure okay so the next obvious issue is with the limbs and this is being caused by the stretchiness that we added in in the previous video if you remember we needed to use different nodes to calculate the scale and distance and these are being offset because of the overall scale so we need to add the scale values back into them to correct that offset let's jump into the node editor and move it here we have the spine stretch systems all set up in the tab i added in the previous video so we can quickly insert a new node here to help with the scale what we need to adjust is the scale factor node's values in particular the curve length value here as the rig scales the curve is getting longer but this value represents the curve at its default scale so this needs to adjust as the rig scales what we want is the curve length to multiply by the root control scale so this will then give us the correct value let's duplicate the scale factor node and rename it to spine global scale we have the base curve length here so let's copy this and put it into input 1x we also need to change the operation to multiply so this will multiply input 1 by input 2. let's open the connection editor and load the global scale node into the right side we need the input 2x attribute now because this is a single attribute we can't use the scale attribute instead we need to choose one because the height is usually associated with scaling connect scale y to input 2x so this is now multiplying the base length by the root scale of 1.24 let's connect this to the scale factor node now i'll just open it this is the value we want to replace so connect output x to input 2x and the torso snaps back into shape because it's now using the correct curve length to determine its length if we scale the rig the torso seems like it's fixed now but we do have another area to adjust let's find the spine systems if we select the fk joints you can see that they look okay and are already at the correct scale but if i select the ik joints you see they are much shorter because they aren't scaling with the rig so we need to update these too if we scale the first pelvis ik joint it doesn't affect the rest of the joints because of scale segment compensation if you're not sure what a joint's scale segment compensation is you can check out this video on my youtube channel where i discuss what it is and how it can be used in your rigs we also can't connect to the scale attribute because some of them are already driven by the stretch systems another option would be to simply scale the spine group but this doesn't work either although it will scale the joints for us so we could use a group press control and g to create an empty group because this is going to scale with the root control we need its pivot to be at the world root the same as the root control rename it to spine scale group and move this into the spine group now move the pelvis ik joint into the new group so we can use this group to scale the ik joints instead and it won't affect the rest of the spine systems okay let's connect this so the group in the right the root control in the left and simply connect scale to scale and the spine is now correct we can scale the rig and the spine stays where it should be but adjusts with the scale we can also oppose the spine like this and it stays in position as the rig scales okay that's the spine so let's now look at the arm and this is the same approach really we just need to add in the offset so it adjusts the arm length value as the rig scales so let's go back to the node editor and into the left arm tab again we already have the stretch systems here for us to use where's the scale factor node here you are hiding under the arm control okay duplicate the node open it and rename it to arm left global scale again we have the base arm length value here so copy it to input 1x above and change the operation to multiply let's go to the connection editor and load the global scale node so we need the input 2x attribute here and load the root control into the left and connect scale y again to input 2x that's updated now so it will multiply the arm length by the riggs scale which is currently 1.6 now all we need to do is replace the input 2x value in the scale factor node so connect output x to input 2x did you see the arm snapped back it's now back at its natural scale so we compose it and if we scale the rig the arm stays in that pose and doesn't deform in a weird way okay so that's the left arm done let's now look at the leg and again this is just repeating the same steps all we need is the base scale value multiplied by the riggs scale so we need the left leg tab and the scale factor node again we have the base leg length here so duplicate the node and rename it to leg left global scale open it up now copy the input 2x value up to input 1x and change the operation to multiply next we need to connect the root control to the global scale nodes input 2x attribute so bring this in and connect scale y to input 2x okay that's updated now we just connect this to the scale factor node to replace the base leg length value here with the one which will adjust with the rigs scale take output x and connect it to input 2x and the leg snaps back so it's the correct scale now if we scale the rig the torso left arm and left leg all look fine now so now we need to update the right side i'm just going to speed things up here so this part of the video doesn't get too repetitive for you but it's exactly the same process okay done and we can now scale the rig without any issues we can also move it and rotate it too perfect so the rig is now scalable so it's time to start thinking about locking it down we already have some attributes which will do this to a certain degree we can hide the rigged systems and the skeleton so the animator can't see or select them we can also lock the geometry again so the animator is unable to select it the problems come when we select everything else in the scene which is what an animator could do to quickly add a key on every control as you can see here we also selected the end position locators for the stretchiness which has all its attributes available to edit as you can imagine if an animator accidentally animated these locators it would break the stretch systems so this needs addressing let's look in the outliner we also have these groups which could easily be selected and animated again breaking the rig and these locators here what i've known many animators do in the past is simply select the root control and then select its hierarchy to then set a key on the whole character but as you can see we have groups and ik handles and all sorts in here which would then have keyframes on them so in short we now need to go through and lock everything the animators shouldn't be able to touch or be able to add a keyframe onto before we do that though we're going to create a few selection sets just like we did with the bind joints here so the animator can instead use these to select all the controls quickly and easily plus this will only have the nodes in that they are allowed to touch let's filter just the controls which all have underscore control on the end of their names so now we can see all the controls let's select the main body controls so ignore the tools for now and the fingers okay now go to create set quick selection set and call it body controls now create another for the left toes and the right and now the fingers having different sets for each side okay clear this so now we have these lists one for the body and one for the fingers and toes we can select all those now and right click and go to select set members to quickly select all the controls let's add another set now call this all controls this now selects all the controls but it misses the root controls here so we need to include these let's find them and simply use the middle mouse button to add them to the all controls list now we have the main controls selected we can do something else go to control tag as controller this adds a new node to each control let's take a look here it is so these nodes help meyer in many ways firstly the telmeier these are animation controllers which means that they will then use gpu acceleration so they can speed up your workflow and the playback you can also use them to set up custom pick walking too plus under the visibility mode drop down box you will see that you can set each control so it's always visible or it inherits its parent's visibility you can also set it to be invisible unless your mouse pointer is close to it like this which is a great option for complex rigs with lots of controls okay let's start locking things down now select all the body controls so all these attributes are currently available but we don't want the animator to scale any of them for this particular rig we didn't add in any specific scale options on these controls so it's safe for us to simply lock and hide the scale and visibility attributes i'll do it over here so you can see so all that's left are the attributes the animator is allowed to use with the root control we need the scale attributes but we only need the translate and rotate attributes on the other controls let's select the finger and tour controls next again we can probably lock the scale and visibility attributes on these just leaving the translations and rotations should be fine okay what's next let's switch to fk and check those controls option would be to restrict how the joints rotate in these areas so the arm can't break like this and it only rotates around the x-axis let's select the other controls and double check yep rotate x so let's lock and hide rotate y and z now the elbow will only bend around this axis so the arm can't be broken or put into an unnatural pose let's look at the hierarchy now as mentioned earlier the animator may just select the route and then the hierarchy and set a keyframe on everything so we need to ensure that everything in here is locked so groups like this need to be locked down let's work our way through and see what else we need to lock so the main groups and we also want to lock down the reverse foot groups too and also its joints if these have keyframes added to them the foot controls won't work and these also the other reverse foot okay i think that's everything so just select all the attributes and then lock and hide them good now the world space groups we added these can be locked too actually let's find them all unlock those ah we have these locators the space swapping ones let's show them all and switch back to ik okay so let's work on these next i'll just filter them so we can see them ah some still have translation values on them so we need to clean those first remember that these can be animated if needed so they all need to be zeroed out we just want to move the values down to the transform offset parent matrix section here or use the script there we go nice and clean i'll just check the others okay now let's select them all and lock and hide the scale and visibility attributes okay what else is the end position locators let's filter those this is why naming is so important so you can easily find things later we only have four one for each limp so let's select those and lock everything the animator doesn't need to touch these let's go back to the ik there are some stray attributes here which we should also lock again let's filter them and then lock those okay i think that's everything but it doesn't hurt to double check and even though we locked and hid the attributes everything still works ah yes the main leg and arm controls here need updating they currently have values on them but that's not a problem as we don't need to move them instead what we want is for them to follow the limb as it moves let's bring back the skeleton and all we are going to do is point constrain them to the hand joint we use the hand joint so it will follow regardless of if the animator is working in ik or fk and as you can see the point constraint means it moves with the arm but doesn't rotate too let's update the others and constrain those to the foot joints so now those are done we can lock off the attributes so they can't be animated that's better okay one more step and that is to create a character set select all the controls and go to control create character set and open the options we just need to give it a name so creature underscore char is fine and because we already locked off all the attributes we don't need we can leave these options here and let's just create that so here it is and this stores all the animation channels it's really useful for the animators so they can create animation clips which can be shared between characters and played around with using the tracks and time editors there is one more step i would recommend you doing and this is something you could probably do as you're building the rig if we look at the foot roll attribute here when it goes beyond a certain point the leg breaks which isn't great so it makes sense to instead limit this attribute so the animator never gets to this point all we need to do is go to modify edit attribute and select footroll let's move it back so about there we can set this to have a minimum and maximum value so let's set the minimum to minus 40. ah just turn that off so the maximum should be around here let's say 80. we can scrub that now and it won't get to those breaking points we can do the same with the foot bank attributes too so this is too far maybe there switch to foot bank and set these to minus 60 and 60. that's better okay good just update the opposite foot okay good all limited so now we have a rig which is fully built and made animator safe so there shouldn't be any breakages with that said though there's always something that gets missed so it's worth giving everything another once over just to be sure as you can see there is more work we need to do we spent all this time working on the main body and there's lots of other meshes which need rigging too by now though i'm sure you could add these yourself they only need simple joints and controls to make them follow as the character moves in fact just to simplify things i've just used the main joints and simply skin these models to them apart from these extra joints i added here which could be used for animating the sash you will notice though that these don't have controls and that's because these joints will be animated using unreal's physics engine so will essentially be automated so we have come to the end of this workshop we have covered so much but i'm hoping that you now have a greater understanding of the rigging process and feel confident you can move on and rig your own characters and creatures from here on thanks for watching right to the end and make sure you also check out some of the other free videos and courses that i have available you can find links to all these on the screen now and in the description below remember to help support future content and keep these videos free visit the ant cgi store or join the ant cgi club alternatively if you would just like to show your appreciation for these videos why not treat me to a coffee at my coffee page again the link is on the screen now and in the description below thanks again for watching this is ant cgi signing off and i will see you on the next one you

Channel: antCGi

Views: 386

Keywords: rigging, maya, autodesk, maya3d, rigging in maya, utility nodes, rig, node editor, nodes, Build Controls, Spine, Head, Pelvis, Waist, Abdomen, Sternum, Shoulders, gamedev, game art, game development, game rig, 2022, maya 2022, rig scale, character set, tag as controller, tag, mouse proximity, parent, lock, lock down, lock attributes, multiply divide, selection sets, finish rig

Id: DO6RztqbwzA

Length: 27min 45sec (1665 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2021