A problem I hadn't considered...

# 1 02-05-2006 , 02:49 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Sep 2004

Location: Queens, New York City

Posts: 367

After building and rigging a character, scaling becomes difficult (if not impossible), and as I usually work on one character at a time, it hadn't occurred to me that when two or more characters were imported into a scene, they might be of very conflicting size!

I imagine that there are "preventative measures", such as carefully considering grid units when constructing characters and objects, but I have always wondered if there is a simpler way of scaling a pre-rigged character after it has been imported/referenced into a scene.

I found this out the hard way yesterday, when two characters I wish to have in a scene turned out to be two different sizes! I couldn't scale either, and my only option was to delete the rig of one character, scale the meshes to match the size of the other character, and re-rig it. VERY time consuming!

My question is: "Can one scale a fully rigged character AFETR the fact, and if so, how?"

I am in the process of studying nodes, and perhaps there is a way to do this either in the hypergraph or via MEL, but I'm not quite there yet. Any help or tales of similar experiences would be appreciated! Otherwise, I will try and remember that an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure and pay more attention to grid squares...! :-)

Thanks in advance!

"Ad astra per aspera..."

Quote

# 2 02-05-2006 , 03:19 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Mar 2005

Location: London

Posts: 1,135

i think u can

make a nurbs cricle around the character and place it at its feet and name it masterControl

and i think u parent it to the joints (and mesh mayb) i cant quite remem

it will allow u to scale and move the whole character inc rig and locators ect around the scene

Now at SMU doing BSc 3D Computer Animation so its hard to get on here
My wire render tut https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...threadid=20973

Quote

# 3 02-05-2006 , 03:29 PM

The Maya Mountain
Join Date: Aug 2002

Location: Seattle, WA

Posts: 8,245

Yeah if you select the root joint, the IK handles (or IK groups depending on how it's set up), any aim constraint locators, etc etc and group them all, you should be able to scale it.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

Quote

# 4 02-05-2006 , 05:30 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Sep 2004

Location: Queens, New York City

Posts: 367

Thanks a lot, Mike and PB Man!

I thought that might be the solution. I guess my mistake was not parenting all the IK handles and constraints (I did parent the joints) to the control object. In the end, I've improved on the rigging of the character I had to rescale, but now (thanks to your replies) I know what to do!!!

Thankfully, I still have a saved copy of the character I'm redoing with his original rigging. I'm going to try reparenting everything to a control object.

Right, back to work!

Thanks again!

"Ad astra per aspera..."

Quote

A problem I hadn't considered...

Posting Rules Forum Rules

Similar Threads

Topics

Free Courses

Full Courses

VFX News