Week 10: Rigging Styxx

I have finished texturing Styxx! Transitioning the textures correctly from MudBox to Maya was a challenge. I tried the automatic approach by creating a live bridge between the two programs, but the default materials and lighting in Maya was too different from Mudbox's and 'weakened' some of my texture maps.

Instead I applied Arnold friendly materials to my model in Maya then manually plugged in all the textures I saved out from Mudbox (I observed the node tree Mudbox previously automated and used this as a guide). I had to adjust the settings for some of the textures to enhance them.

Normal map for hair in Mudbox:

Normal Map Node in Maya:

Same Normal map for hair in Maya:

I also had a hard time applying the necessary opacity to my model; it took me hours trying different approaches to figure out why it wasn't working. It turns out the black and white alpha map input was working, but there was one small attribute in the mesh's material node that needed changing (see below):

Arnold renderer 'opaque' setting on:

Arnold 'opaque' setting off:

I also love how her eye glows! It matches the guitar.

Finally I was happy with the texture and render settings.

The next step was rigging; I decided to create the skeleton, curves and IK systems first, then create facial expressions with Blend shapes (if I had time), before binding the skeleton to the mesh. We had covered the rigging process in class, but I needed an extensive refresher. If one detail is wrong in the rig in the beginning, everything goes wrong in the end, so I had to get every detail right from the start.

Due to limited time I decided to try the 'cheat' way; Advanced Skeleton 5 is a plugin that I've used in past to create a basic, automatic rig for biped characters (see left column in image below). I installed the script and followed an online tutorial by one of the lecturers at SAE on setting it up. The first step was to make sure your mesh was clean. The next step was to set up one half of the joints and assign a name/function to them (root, right hip, right knee etc).

With one click 'Build,' the plugin in mirrored the joints, set up IK/FK blend systems for the feet and hands, set up pole vectors for the elbows/knees, then set up control curves. As you can see in the outliner below, the node system was extensive, but the rig seemed to work quite well and scaled nicely.

The next step was skinning the joints to the mesh. Advanced Skelton 5 had an advanced feature 'Delta Mush' (left column above); it's a one-click option that automatically painted weights in a way that nicely imitated how an organic biped character contracts and stretches. It needed very little manual adjustment afterwards.

One of the setbacks I couldn't get around was rigging the eye; the control curve for the eye didn't work and I was unsuccessful in adding an aim constraint manually. After sifting through all the nodes trying to find the appropriate constraints/parenting hierarchy, I simply couldn't isolate the issue and therefore couldn't rig the eye.

Another problem I had was that I couldn't isolate the control curves to animate, either in a layer or in the node hierarchy, therefore I couldn't set keys on the curves without keying an IK system or something else! (a very messy practise). Ultimately I couldn't use this rig for the movement I wanted to achieve. If I had more time to explore the plugin settings, I'm sure I could've gotten around these issues, but the wisest thing to do at this stage was to set up a rig automatically.

This tutorial by James Taylor was super helpful when setting up the joints correctly and skinning later on:

The joints were a bit too complex for my character, so I simplified it. I also found this course by George Maestri on LYNDA.com, that covers rigging from start to finish. At first I was concerned that it was outdated (2012), but it actually turned out to be extremely helpful:

Although it took longer, I was able to gain more experience and beocme familiar with the structure of all my joints, constraints, hierarchy etc. I was able to rig the eye properly. Using set driven keys, I also created extra key-able attributes in the hand control's channel box, to curl and spread the fingers.

During class this week we pitched our animation. I had gone ahead and sketched out a basic animation in Adobe Animate CC of Styxx playing her guitar, splitting it in half then killing a monster, to the audio Elly provided. From the feedback I received, it was too long and complex, so I decided I would only use the first 10 seconds. One of my classmates shared his rigged gorilla-like character with me to use as the monster. When I have time I would love to animate the entire scene!

We were also introduced to dynamic rigging (used for tentacles, hair, tails, etc); this would come super handy to rigging Styxx's hair later on. We also explored After Effects in preparation for setting up our showreels. I often use After Effects for the freelance work I do for the urban planning business. Speaking of which, currently they have no projects for me to be working on which means less money, but more time to focus on my showreel.

See you next week!