Character Rigs

:THE GENTLEMAN:

The gentleman posed the biggest learning curve of the film, as this was the first rig I undertook. Completely rigged from scratch, my original estimation for completion was just under two weeks, when in fact the Gent took just over 2 months to fully rig.

LOCOSHOW_GentDemo from Antony M anley on Vimeo.

On reflection I threw myself in at the deep end with the main character of the film, as he had to be finished before any other character as his scenes had to begin straight away. This "jump in" attitude is what has really benefited me on this film concerning the rigging stages. Because our course has little to no tutoring in advanced character rigging or character setup, I was literally on my own when any problem occured with the rigs, both in building and finishing.

This self dependance to learn what has broken and why, without the assistance of tutors has led me to become quite profficient in my chosen career path.

The gent rig has the following features:

-IK/FK switching on both the arms and the legs
-IK stretch on both the arms and the legs (Controlled through an expression)
-FK spine
-Joint based facial controls
-Trouser controls
-Hair quiff control
-IK Shoulder follow influence (Shoulder can rotate with the body, or act independantly)
-IK influence (Can follow either the world, head or chest)
-Reverse foot lock with toewag control
-Teeth Controls
-Attachable/Detachable Cravat with its own controls
-Custom floating eye setup
-3 levels of smooth LowPoly, MidPoly, Highpoly

-----------------------------------

:THE COWBOY:

LOCOSHOW_CowboyDemo from Antony Manley on Vimeo.

The cowboy was the most hassle free rig to undertake on the film, the lack of arms on the character made for a fast rigging workflow, the facial weights did pose a big challenge, as I wanted to make the weights very muddy, so when his mouth is deformed its likes quite monstrous and I think I achieved it quite well.

The Cowboy Rig Includes:

-IK/FK Switch on the legs/dress
-Cigar follow influence (Follows jaw, keyed otherwise)
-Hat controls
-Arm stump controls
-Reverse foot lock feet, with heel raise, heel pivot, toe pivot, etc.
-Teeth controls
-FK Spine
-3 levels of smooth LowPoly, MidPoly, Highpoly
-Custom floating eye setup

-----------------------------------

:THE YOUNG LADY:

LOCOSHOW_YoungLadyDemo from An to ny Manley on Vimeo.

The young lady was by far our most problematic rig on the film. If you take a look at James Daly's blog, concerning the original lady rig she was originally rigged using setup machine, while I was busy working in the early stages of the gent rig. But after we brought her into our production pipeline the setup machine rig was pretty much useless within our scenes, so I had to re-rig the young lady in 3 days flat. This was only achievable through my intensive work on the other rigs.

The Young lady features:

-IK/FK Switch on the arms
-IK/FK Switch on the legs/dress
-IK influence on the hands (Head, chest or world)
-Ponytail control
-Hair strand control
-Apron control
-FK spine
-Joint based facial setup
-Ik arm stretch (Controlled through expression)
-Reverse foot lock feet, with heel raise, heel pivot, toe pivot, etc.
-Custom floating eye setup
-Slider driven tongue controls, curl, wag and stretch
-Teeth controls
-Necklace control
-3 levels of smooth LowPoly, MidPoly, Highpoly

-----------------------------------

:THE OLD LADY:

Modelling for the old lady proved more difficult than the Gent character, as the skin had to look extremely saggy and very grotesque to say the least. But it took just under 2 days to model and UV ready for texturing and rigging. The old lady rig is very similiar to the young lady rig, as she has very limited movement in the film and she's extremely old, so we had a lot of liscence with how versatile the rig needed to be.

LOCOSHOW_OldLady from Antony Manley on Vimeo.

The main problem for the rig was the dress, James requested that the dress had the ability to billow and move much like a ballgown, like that worn by charlotte in Disneys Princess and the Frog. So through 4 joint chains around the dress, there are set driven key controls on the dress control, which means all layers of the dress can be manipulated at once, but aswell there are individual joint control curves for variation.

-IK/FK Switch on the arms
-IK influence on the hands (Head, chest or world)
-Top Bonnet Control
-Breast Controls
-Bow Controls
-FK spine
-Joint based facial setup
-Ik arm stretch (Controlled through expression)
-Custom floating eye setup
-Slider driven tongue controls, curl, wag and stretch
-Teeth controls
-Necklace control
-Earring controls
-3 levels of smooth LowPoly, MidPoly, Highpoly

-----------------------------------

:THE TRAIN:

LOCOSHOW_TrainDemo from Antony Manley on Vimeo.

The train posed a big problem in rigging, mainly because I wanted to achieve an automatic animation to the rig, so once the train was keyed on the translate X there would be set driven animation on the parts of the train, BUT this animation had to be turned off to also alow for hand animation on the various parts of the train, say for example the animator wishes to make one of the carriages rattle violently etc.

So this was done through keying the set driven key weights of the driven key nodes for the objects. Using the Main carriage as an example:

This method allows for desirable, staggered automatic animation on the train to show the impression of mechanisms affecting each other independantly, but with the keyeable switch to turn off the animation, you can mix in hand animation with the automatic keys.

-----------------------------------

:THE YOUNG OLD LADY:

The young old lady mesh will only be used in silhouette so the rig didn't need to be as complex as the main character rigs, so I simply took the young lady rig and bound it to a combined version of the young lady and the old lady mesh. This rig includes very basic features:

-IK/FK Switch on the arms
-IK influence on the hands (Head, chest or world)
-FK spine
-Ik arm stretch (Controlled through expression)
-Custom floating eye setup
-3 levels of smooth LowPoly, MidPoly, Highpoly

-----------------------------------

:CHARACTER EYE SETUP:

The eye setup for our characters was a tricky feature, as the eyes had to float on the eye cavity of the character, but be constrained to that cavity so our characters eyes wouldn't float around independant of the characters face. But also they had to follow the characters head aswell.