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Chapter List
Page Two
Spine Placement
Page Four
Attaching Neck/Spine
Page Five
Begin Orient Constraints
Page Six
Orients Continued
Page Seven
Pelvis, Leg, and Foot
Page Eight
Clavicle, Arm, and Hand
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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The drawing of the neck is exactly the same as the spine. As with all other
drawing tools in Maya, remember to use the Backspace key and not the delete
key if you don't like where you have placed the joint.
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A quick way to make the joints exactly the same distance away in Translate X
is to use the trusty mel command "select -hi;" again. Select the second joint,
then select the heirarchy and adjust the number in the channel box to where you
think it looks good.
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Again we do the rotation test. Using the mel command "select -hi;"
I also want to make this rotate on the Z axis. I had to modify
two joints again in the Attribute Editor, flipping their Orient
Axis, to get them to rotate correctly.
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Use a point snap (hotkey V) to snap the neckJA_1 to the spineJEnd_1.
Remember that all of these chains of bones need to remain seperate.
We will use Point Constraints and other animation controls to hold
the whole skeleton together.
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My version on the head will be very simple for now. The jaw is a seperate
bone, parented to the headJA_1 joint. The headJA_1 joint is also only
point snapped to the neck joints for now.
For movement of the jaw I chose the Z axis (-Z close; +Z open)
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Next I will start connecting things with Point Constraints. Just make
that you point snap everything into place. (neck to spine, and, head to neck)
In the picture the spineJA_ 1 chain is visible but not opened yet.
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