Help / Suggestion - Character Rigging & Walk Cycle in Maya
 

Hello there,

I'm trying to learn Rigging / Animation and tried the Surfing with the Alien Vol.3. However, after watching the first few videos, I am just not in that level yet since the training was made for Intermediate users and I'm a complete newbie in this ;)

I'm glad to find the Character Rigging & Walk Cycle in Maya training here that is aimed for complete beginners. Just one problem though, the video training starts with a character free from riggs / bones / joints, etc, and when I opened the file that came with the training, the mesh is all rigged and has no materials applied as you can see in the picture below.

http://i41.tinypic.com/2r6gw8j.jpg

In the blind side, I deleted "all" the joints as I am aware of and selected all Translate / Rotate / Scale in the Layer Editor and unlock the gray pivot. It took me sometime to figure that one out.

Just a suggestion, could Simplymaya provide a clean mesh with textures as shown in the videos of this training? So whoever download this tutorial doesn't find the same problem I had.

Thank you :) Appreciated for any help guys / girls.

Dude we should be able to sort that once David is back. He is currently AOM.....but I will let him know.

Yeah intermediate on Volume 3 not beginner

Jay

Hey Jay,

Thanks mate.

No hard feelings mate, I am just a complete noob when it comes to rigging / animation. You are a good Trainer as you did with vol.1 and 2, but I just need to understand more about the whys, ins and outs of grouping joints and Vol.3 is towards for intermediate that requires some already understanding about rigging. Yiap, I found it hard :confused: :redcarded: ! :P:D:D

I might take this chance to ask, why do you group and re-group then regroup again, then re-group again the joints? Okay, this is a complete noob question, someone who know nothing about rig and starting. :running:

Don't get me wrong, I think vol.3 is packed with awesome information even for my little understanding about rigging and I'm sure will get back to it once I know more the foundation stuff.

Thanks mate.
Miguel

I havent seen the Alien one yet...watched parts of it....I followed it ok..though I wasnt actually doing it. Kurts is a lot less taxing on the brain for sure....LOL at least you have a choice mate...I have to do Jays whether I like it or not...boy its going to hurt. Good luck with it man!

cheers bullet

Hi bullet,

Go with the Surfing vol.1 and vol.2. I loved it and paved me with tons of info that helped create my latest Alien Nano. Jay has really done an awesome job. But the vol.3 is some how a bit hardcore for someone who never rigged anything! :P I will for sure go back to Vol.3 once I get the foundation sorted.
I love the Surfing with the Alien serie. Hope Jay will come up with more tuts similar to that.

Oh no hard feelings with that at all. We just felt the need to give you everything to finsih a character off.

Its not actually that hard when you break it down slowly. If you have do go through it slowly, rewind and do it again.

Groups on groups on groups.....yeah depends sometimes you can use them for controlling rotations independent to the actual joints. If its not explained in the tute why he has done it then that worries me...because you arent learning from it. My rig is pure joint chain hierachies....joint to joint and then control handles added after.

The next tute will be out soon...I'm working long days at the moment so motivation is hard coming home 9 -10 at night and then doing the tute. So it takes longer. However after its finished there'll be another on its way.........which is awsome...Ive already started prep work

Jay

LOL dont worry cg I had NEVER doen any rigging..trust me on that one. As Jay said...slow and easy mate....forget a bit..rewind. I have got into the habit of modelling AND writing it down...sadly I left my book in Perth...1800 km away LOL. You will get there mate...doesnt happen in an instant.

cheers bullet

Hey bullet,

Perth??? I lived there for 4 years while I was attending Curtin University around year 2000.
Ahhh you just brought back some long forgotten memories... damn good.
Well I guess we are together on this one mate! Oz oz oz Oi Oi Oi! :D

Hey Jay, any chance to spill some beans out and sneak peak? You are killing me with all this secrecy!!
Is it a Character work? Interior work? Magic bloody Wizard raising a magic wand? Kick ass looking Sword?
Man.... spill some beans please... :smoke: Damn it, I need a cigarette.

hahahahaa

go have a ciggy...Im not telling you anything....you'll have to wait like everyone else

J

:furious: Bugger :mad::furious:

:D

A new issue with Maya 2012
 

I don't seem to be able to rotate the axis with the rotate pivot on.
This is the last step before working with the weights painting...

Video showing the problem at http://www.mduque.com/maya/qs/q1/issue.html

Jay or any expert out there who can help out?

Thank you.

LOL yeh Perth is probably the cleanest and prettiest city in Australia...its supposedly boring too LOL not upbeat like Sydney or Melbourne..not that us West Aussies give a shit about the Eastern states.

There is a little trick to getting that to point up in the Y axis...I will go through Kurts tut and post soon mate.

cheers bullet

Ok mate....its in the Character Rigging ans Walk Cycle tutorial by Kurt...Part 2 and about the 5 minute mark

cheers bullet

here's a good tut i used to help with rigging my characters, might help you till they can get everything sorted out. The vids are out of order so #1 is like video 14 or something then they go backwards to 1. 15-18 are in order though

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...B&feature=plcp

Modeling Rigging and Animating a Character in Maya [Part1 Creating the Skeleton] - YouTube

one thing i've found when rigging though is that its good to use a double joint for the knees and elbows as it helps deformations when you actually animate.

Hi bullet,

That's exactly the video I am following and got stuck when it came to turn the axis.
Tried many forms, but nada. One thing though, Today it moved for a second, but then when I tried to rotate it again, it was stuck, it didn't want to rotate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, I've been trying over and over again............ I seriously think this is a bug more than anything.

Hi MamoruK,

Thank you for the video, will look at it later. I got sick this morning, most probably from food last night. Taking a break. Will get back to you all once I'm good.

thats the root joint isnt it...that should be straight.

When I create the leg joints I usually have the joint orientation on the joint tool set to none, but on the root and all the way up the back I have it set to xyz. The pelvis joints are also set to xyz...then I simply parent the hip to the pelvis and then the pelvis to the root on both left and right sides of the skeleton. The roots orientation is perfectly straight and doesnt require any edting of the rotational axis

hope this helps
Jay

Thanks Jay. That certainly helps.
When I try the same way, it rotates, then when I try again, it doesn't.
Now it's fixed, but still is weird.

So my way fixed it?

J

quick question how come when i delete history it for some reason no longer binds the bones to the skin?

As far as I understand it, history is about incoming connections to geo, and that includes a bound skin. So delete history before you bind, but not after.

right already did that

yeah dont be deleting the history on a skinned character...LOL

J

Hi Jay,

Actually is how Kurt has it set too. From the root, Y is pointing all the way up!
After some frustrations and stubbornness, managed to figure why. I needed to check the Display > Transform Display > Local Rotation Axes .
Kurt did show that, but I couldn't get it to work somehow. It's just weird sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.
Don't try Rigging or anything IF YOU ARE SICK!!! That's the best advise everyone! :)


Hi stwert,

Will keep that in mind too.

Cheers everyone and thank you for the help.
Nice tips overall ;)