hi

anyone know how / the best way to rig a character so that you can get nice squash and stretch animation?
I've looked at a couple of the rigs in the alias extras cd that came with my maya package but i'm not convinced they're very intuitive to animate.

The Nino rig (for those who have seen it) does a good job of squash and stretch but you can't rotate the spine (bones), and have to MOVE the handle instead to pose the spine. Not sure if i'd like to animate in that way...

Can anyone tell me if squash and stretch should generally be applied to the bones (joints) themselves in a rig?

Here's a list of all the methods I've tried so far:

1.
Simply moving a joint in the skeleton – will stretch but won’t retain volume (ie. stretch but no squash)

2.
SDK scale axis of a bone inversely proportional to other 2 axes (of the bone). Problem: the scale of the bones itself seems to work ok but does not translate well to the skin. (Get funny boxy deformation in the shape of the joint)

3.
Cannot apply Squash deformer to a bone.

4.
Use SDK to make stomach bulge as bones are scaled down – but this is not really “squash and stretch animation” - surely there must be a more intuitive way of doing it?

5.
Tried to turn Off scale compensate for just a few bones (eg) in the spine and not the whole chain… But can't seem to do that. Once you turn it on for 1 bone, you can't stop the effect from transmitting to the rest of the hierarchy below (even if you turn if off again on the other bones)??!!

any comments?

LisaC