Constraint Problems

So, from the last post, I spoke about that I will dedicate a few blog posts to talking about how I found setting up the rig for the group game as well as how I am finding doing the animations for those. While this isn't dissertation - it's still stuff that will help me learn from the mistakes I have made during this process, and this also explains my long absence from the blog, it's given me time to talk about with you.

First thing I am going to talk about is the various constraints I have gotten familiar with. According to the Maya User Guide website, A constraint 'let you constrain the position, orientation, or scale of an object to other objects. Further, with constraints you can impose specific limits on objects and automate animation processes.' (http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2014/en_us/index.html?url=files/CSCo_What_are_constraints.htm,topicNumber=d30e315748)

The contraints used for this character (and ones I have used for the character for dissertation) are: Point, Parent, Orient, Pole Vector and Scale.

Group Game Character Rigged + Skinned complete with controls

The above screenshot shows you the rig for the group game, and I explained in a previous post that the shapes you see around the model are what are called Controls - which were created using NURB curves because when you go to batch render the animations, they don't show up. These controls were made as a way to move the limbs using them instead of selecting the joints within the model, the beauty of using controls means I won't accidentally mess up the mesh. 

One thing that I have read up and always tried to remember was that the key of having good animations was to have a really good Character Set-Up: that includes (in this instance anyway) the character rigged properly. While it all looks nice and ready to go, there were a few problems I did have with this but didn't properly realize it until I was too late - the restraints.

An example of a mistake for the Character in the Game Project Module

The screenshot above shows one of the arms for the character in the Game Project module I am working on. In the image you can see that the control on the wrist that is coloured in light blue means it is selected, and the control at the elbow that is coloured in purple is the elbow control which would be effected as the child of the blue coloured control. This is an example of an error I made when adding in the parent constraints from one control to the other. The problem with an error like this means that instead of going down the chain of the arm (which is in FK) to simply click the control of the elbow to move it - I have to click on this wrist to position it and this in turn will position the elbow.

Main lesson I am taking away from this is to make sure that I constrain everything correctly so this doesn't happen again, this will also make for smoother animations.