AutoRig 1

Primitive rig -- no colours were used to differentiate between right and left


Polygons are used as iconic controls (instead of nurbs curves as most commonly seen).


Details were left out: footrolls and toes, fingers, jaws, etc.


IK/FK switching options was not implemented. The arms was rigged with only FK controls (experts online says arms are better left FK for precision).

Been slow in implementing the primitive rig. There are many ways to go about doing it and i pretty much ended up trying out everyone of them. Had tried using constraints first, and then moved on to setting driven keys (and adding extra attributes then controlling them with slider bars) and then resorting to the connection editor and finally the expression editor. I have to say the expression editor should be the best way to go about it because the executed steps are clearly shown (hypergraphs can get rather confusing because of the way the nodes are being displayed). Still, there were bugs everywhere. In the end the primitive rig is a combination of all the methods stated above. I had also written a mel script for a simple user interface to select the controls but it seems my copy of maya could not source the script no matter which directory i placed it in. Next up would be procedural bone placement (to be done within the next week or 2) and then procedural skinning (notice my model did not go through proper skin weights painting and areas under the armpits and shoulders deformed unnaturally). So far the main area of concern is still the skin weights and my new concern is the rigging of the high-range-of-motions areas (shoulders and thighs). Forums and websites i have gone to have done things ranging from adding influence objects (muscles?) to actually constructing the entire shoulder girdle (5-bone structure http://www.animationartist.com/2003/08_aug/tutorials/rigging_anatomy.htm#, whereas im using a 2-bone girdle representing only the clavicle and the shoulder) to allow for more realistic influences over the shoulder area. Apparently, Maya does not have event handlers (such as onMouseDown commands in Actionscript).

To be done: procedural bone placement and skin weights painting, shoulder and thigh rigging research(1 week).
Edit: found out why i couldnt source my script.