Set Up #5 IK Spline and Clusters

With the feet all set up, it was time to make my way up the body, I created a new set up joints. These joints were named: root, hips, back1, back2, back3, neck, headBase and head (Fig 1).

Fig 1: New joints added - they are highlighted in Green.

The Root Joint is located at the crouch area of the area - the this is the joint that will become the parent of the entire rig. I also created a hip joint so I could parent the Hip joints to it (Fig 2).

Fig 2: the Left and Right hip joints are now connected to the Hip Joints.

The next step was now to add a different kind of IK Handle, called a IK Spline from the hip joint to the neck joint (Fig 3). It creates a line from those joints and to move it I'd have select vertices that would be created through those points to position those. But with those points I can now create Clusters which will later on be used to help set up the controls for my where those clusters are placed.

Fig 3: IK Spline from the hip joint to the neck. The line that's highlighted in between the purple joints is the Spline.

Fig 4: A vertex that's used to move a point in the spline.

Once that was done I just had to create the clusters, which was just needing to select the vertex and then click on Create Deformers > Clusters. A little C should then appear, the last bit now just involved me moving all the clusters from in the middle of the spline to just out the spine area (Fig 5). 

Fig 5: The clusters in the new position, ready for their controls.

Naming conventions for these clusters:

• clusterNeck
• clusterChest
• clusterAbs
• clusterHips

The next step then was to create the controls for those clusters.