Set Up #7 Neck Control

This short post will be about the neck control I set up that will allow me to move the neck joint on the rig.

Fig 1: Original joints unparented, new joint now in between.

First thing I did was unparent the original neck joint (Fig 1) and renamed that back4 and in it's place I create a new joint called neck (Fig 2).

Fig 2: new joint now parented - complete with IK Rotate-Plan Solver

The next step was now creating the neck control, for this I created a NURB circle and positioned it about the chin.

Fig 3: Neck Control positioned around the chin.

I then zeroed out the curve by freezing the transformations on it thereby making the position in the image above (Fig 3).

Fig 4: Point Constraint added, there is movement for when I move the curve.

Neck is to create a point constraint on the curve to the joint, which then allows me to have some sort of head movement at the moment (Fig 4). A problem I face now is that when I move the curve for the chest - the head and neck rotate with it, I then selected the joint and then the curve and added an Orient Constraint. What this now does is not only keep the head in check when I rotate the chest curve - but I can also rotate the head up and down (Figs 5 and 6).

Fig 5: The Orient Constraint rotate the chestControl now means the head joint no longer rotates with it.

Fig 6: The Orient Constraint also allows me to rotate the curve to make the head joint rotate.