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Chapter List
Page Two
Spine Placement
Page Three
Neck and Head
Page Four
Attaching Neck/Spine
Page Five
Begin Orient Constraints
Page Six
Orients Continued
Page Seven
Pelvis, Leg, and Foot
Page Nine
Arm, and Hand continued
Page Ten
Keeping Things Organized
Page Eleven
Character Skinning, Part One
Page Twelve
Character Skinning, Part Two
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Starting with the clavicle usually yeilds the best results for a humanoid character.
Since this a poly model, it is easily done by using the point snap hotkey when placing
the clavicle.
Start at the "near" center and make one more point roughly where
the shoulder meets the clavicle.
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Here is an inside view of the model, sometimes it helps to use every angle possible
when placing joints properly. I am moving the end position of the clavicle by
rotating the joint orient of the parent.
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A quick trick for making joint placement easier in the drawing stages is to
duplicate the origin joint from the chain above. You then unparent it and
click on it with your joint drawing tool and then continue drawing otward
from there.
If you are having trouble seeing the pic, I made an "extra" joint
about midway down the forearm. This is entirely optional, I have just found
it useful for making the forearm rotation easier.
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I draw the bones straight out, usually the bend in the elbow is more pronounced
in characters. Mine isn't, so I have to work around that by orienting the elbow
back a bit and putting in a noticable bend.
Make sure that forearm ends back up in the center of the wrist area.
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After making the necessary arm bones, it's a good idea to check the
rotations of all of them.
I like the clavicle to rotate UP in the positive Y-axis.
The same with the shoulder, UP in the positive Y-axis.
The forearm, should bend forward in the positive Z-axis.
And the rotation of the forearm joint on the X-axis.
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In yet another attempt to solve the "Gimbal Lock" problem that
everyone, eventually, runs into. I propose stacking multiple shoulder joints
on top of one another.
Duplicate the shoulder joint and delete the chain below it.
Repeat the process again, and rename all three shoulder joints,
making an XROT or Xrot at the top, then Y, then Z.
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I attach the clavicle to the top of the spine by duplicating the spine end
(don't forget to unparent it after duplicating) and renaming it. Then parent
the rest of the clavicle to this new joint. I make the clavicle stick into place by another
point constraint to the spine end.
Since this part of the clavicle doesn't move, but it needs to follow the spine,
add an orient constraint as well.
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Just to repeat myself, the image to the right shows all of the arm and
the clavicle that you can move. The extra bone attached to the spine is
really just a placeholder for the rest of the arm. It should never have
to be rotated.
You need to, once again, create the orient constraint for the shoulder.
You should have a JCon at the top of your chain. As well as a JOri
located at the end of the clavicle chain. Then make the empty group and rename
it corresponding to whatever side you are working on (ex. armOrientGrpLfN_1).
Parent the group to the JCon and zero out the rotates of the group. Unparent
the group and lock all of the attributes. Then add the orient constraint, selecting
the group first then the JOri then the JCon.
Now is also a good time to make the set driven key setup on the configN_1 node.
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Mirroring things to the other side ends up being relatively easy with the
Mirror Joint option Maya has. Just make sure you have the correct options
selected, and that you have the very top joint selected. Otherwise you will
get strange results.
Unfortunately when you do the mirroring, the constraints need to be reset, as
well as making new orient groups for the opposite side. This takes some in the
beginning, but after you make a couple of complete skeletons, you'll barely
notice the extra effort.
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