2022 Rigging Projects

Updated reguarly with finished or in-progress rigs throughout the 2022 year along with any notes

Python coding || 12/15

It was the last week on finals and though I didn't get much rigging done I did get to experiment with python coding! I used to do computer science back in high school and I didn't realize how much I missed it until I created Fred the sphere using code, which then immediately broke and threw at least 20 errors. Fred later turned into my debugging sphere because I couldn't get the print function to work. Oh how I missed coding! I am following a tutorial created by Arturo Coso on how to make a zipper mouth created using solely code. I was only able to get the locators to work after a bit of fiddling with the PyCharm and the code, and though it's not much I'm very excited for the end product and learning more Python.

Finals Recap || 11/13 - 12/8

Most of my time these weeks were dedicated to finishing finals for my classes - but I still got a lot of rig time in. I worked more on my plant monster and did research on creating a really cool spline that I am implementing in the Plant Monster Rig for the tentacles. My goal is to have the tentacles move like snakes in a way that's not a pain to animate. I also got the opportunity to work on a book rig for an upcoming project. I wanted to make it as easy to animate as well. The hardest part by far was figuring out a way to have the pages curl when they 'fall'. I figured out how to do this with locators and a system inspired by the back in/bank out functionality of feet. I also built in a system which allows animators to close the covers of the book. I also rigged a bull for the same project. All that's left is to finish weight painting the rigs!

Semester Recap || 9/19 - 11/12

We hit the ground running this semester. As I write this, we are in the last few weeks before the short is officially done! Less then four weeks now. Super excited to see all of the rigs in motion! That said - most of the rigging done this semester was rig fixes, which I wasn't sure how to show. Most of what I did was skin fixing, shown with the clown rig. The monster with the mouth in his chest, or rude monster for short, had to be completely reskinned and I had to re-rig his neck and back but most of the rig was done by Julia Welsh. I was also asked to help with a capstone early this semester and did the full rig for the short's main character, the Exterminator. Super excited for the short to come out as well! Along with all of this work, I have begun working on a plant monster rig and am super excited to be experimenting with.

Summer hiatus: 4/30 - 6/28

Freddie Face Rough Rig & Chunky Grim Final || 4/26/22

This was the last week of rigs for the school year. I tried a new facial rig system using Freddie, a character in the short I and other students are working on. I used joints instead of blend shapes to give the animators more freedom with the expressions, and they really enjoyed it. This version works more or less as a sketch and gives me a really good idea for the complexities I can add to the face. Chunky Grim's final rig was published this day as well, I'm decently satisfied with him though I want to revisit his scythe. Right now it only follows the hand selected, and it's up to the animator to physically move the scythe to the other side of the body. I worked on a solution for this with this rig and the rig for the Trouble Makers, but maybe I have finals brain because I can't seem to find a solution that doesn't flip the geometry upside down. Defiantly will have to revisit once I get some rest.

Clown Doll Proxy Clean Up & Tongue Tree Prop || 4/18/22

This week was lighter on the rigs, which is nice with finals right around the corner. I address some issues with the clown doll proxy, such as the hand and feet moving with the pole vectors and the neck and head not being translatable. I also rigged the Tongue Tree, a prop for the short the clown doll is in. I was hoping to give it a very flowy and easy to use rig, and I may have gone overboard and added to much detail. Oops. A lesson for next time.

Ghost Main Final pt 2 & Troublemaker proxy || 4/12/22

Finalized the Ghost Main rig this week as well as created the troublemaker proxy rig. Both characters are for a short done with other students. For Ghost Main, I mainly touched up on smaller aspects of the rig, such as turning the robes on and off and adding more face and necklace movement. There was an issue where the face puff controls for the cheeks would effect the arms, but I was able to fix it after a bunch of googling. The troublemaker was easier to create and rig, though I need to contact the animators and see which way they want to leg to bend. As of right now, the knee is facing out, but it's weighted so the animator can rotate the hips forward and use the rig from there. The weight painting doesn't look the best from the side, but it'll be touched up as soon as I hear back from the animators. Beyond that, simple character to rig, and I loved making the IK/FK squiggly arms.

Ghost Main Final pt 1 || 4/6/22

Done over the week back from the break and this week. I was finalizing the rig for Ghost Main and ran into an issue with the arm that set me back a week. There was also an issue with facial blend shapes, as the eye shape of the model weren't working with my normal way of doing eyes. Really struggled with this rig, but got the chance to think outside the box to fix those issues, which was nice.

Chunky Grim Proxy || 3/29/22

Did this after spring break, and was another rig done for the short I am working on. This proxy was rather simple and was a fun warm up after the break. I'll have to think of a better way to show him walking, since the singular IK leg isn't doing it for me.

Clown Doll Rig || 3/11/22

Did this before spring break, and was another rig done for the short I am working on with other students. I challenged myself to complete the rig in one go, from placing the joints to weight painting, and this one took me 8 hours in total. Each geometry part is it's own separate piece of geometry except for the body, which helped speed up the weight painting process, and give the character a really articulated look which I really enjoy. Since the rig itself was a bit more simple this time around, I made sure to watch where things were being parented and I noticed a few mistakes in my layout of the rig and was able to fix them. Overall, a nice rig to review the basics with and I'm excited with how it moves!

Retro owl Rig || 3/6/22

It was midterms week last week, so I didn't get to terribly much done, but I was able to experiment with animating with simulated cloth; and model, rig, and animate this retro owl that was inspired by https://bubblebaath.tumblr.com' s id owl model. Most of the week was spent trying to figure out how to rig the wing correctly so it could fold in as well as flap. My main concern was having too many joints and not being able to weight paint it properly. I need to go and rethink the wings on this one, though to get the wings to be the best they can, since the wing look really wavy at the moment when only using IK. The long eyebrows were something I was very excited to make, and I feel that they came out decently well. The entire thing is a spine chain, and I wanted to make sure it could be moved and animated easily. The weight painting in the eyebrows are very blocked out because I wanted it to lean more into a animated fire/retro look. It looks a bit distracting in the final rig, so I might go in and smooth that out later.

2d limited rig || 2/17/22

Inspired by https://bubblebaath.tumblr.com/ 's creepy style of rigs and model's, I wanted to create a 2D style character with a limited rig to see how to recreate that retro-esk style while still being expressive. I did this by creating a character completely out of planes and creating a world with buildings also made from singular planes. I tried to create more detailed buildings to make the character seem out of place even though everything is still 2D. Along a similar route I made the character a different color then the world to try and to try and separate the two, and went for a an overall dark pastel color palette to still have some harmony in the finished piece. I think the pastel works against the over all piece, however, and is something I'll have to fiddle with later.

Ghost Proxy || 2/7/22

A proxy rig of a main character for a short I am working on with other students. The main focus for this proxy was working on the clothes for the character, since we're trying to decide wither the robes should be done with CFX or rigging. The hair will most likely be modeled, which is another challenge. I've rigged it using a ribbon spine at the moment, but I'll have to look into other ways of rigging the hair since I'm not quite sure I like it. Another challenge is the necklace and trying to figure out how it should move. Right now, I'm thinking of having it be another ribbon spine since FK is a little limiting to the movement I want it to have, and I'm not sure if you can make an IK controller for a necklace.

Shiba Rig || 2/1/22

A small rig of a cute dog model found on SketchFab created by zixisun02. It started as an experiment on how quadruped rigs worked and how fast I complete a rig. Overall, I'm not very happy with it and will definitely have to study these types of rigs more in the future. I struggled with finding a model that wasn't sitting down and thought I could rig it to stand up. I realize now that, that is not the best course of action, oh well. Overall, fun experiment with a cute model. I completed the rig in about 15 hours spread across 3 days.
Check out zixisun02's work on SkecthFab for more of their models.