Rigging a ball with Cartoon Funtionality
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 at 6:58PM In this four part video we discuss the process of making a squishy squashy bouncing ball rig. The topics cover adding deformers such as lattices and clusters with custom controls, attributes, and hierarchy. We go through using measuring tools to control deformation and break down the process of normalizing values to make our rigs scale properly. We also look at how to use the connection editor to make direct links between attributes from node to node. The techniques involved can be used for many rigging solutions beyond a simple bouncing ball.
Part 1: Basic Controls
at about 3:50 the pre-made curve control objects that are used were created with Javier Solsona and Lluis Llobera's wire controller script (rigging101.com/free/melscripts/rig101wireControllers.zip)
Part 2: Advnaced Controls
Part 3: Connections
At 1:05 off camera distanceDimention1.distance is connected to multiplyDivide1.input2
Part 4: Final Tweaks
Update 4.3.2010 -
1. Using the relationship editor, disassociate the ffd1Set from the roll_ctrl.
2. Parent the ball_ctrl_grp (the group above the roll_ctrl) to the placement_ctrl.
The roll_ctrl will act a bit more predictable. The only issue with this is that the roll_ctrl will not visually deform with the squash controls. Both ways will work, it just depends which way you like better.
Happy Bouncing!
If you find this video tutorial benefitial and want to see more, please let me know.
Reader Comments (5)
Awesomely helpful. Thanks so much for doing this.
Hi, i can't find the distance in distanceDimention1, were do you find it?
I'm using Autodesk Maya 2010
You have to make sure you have the shape node of the distanceDimention1 selected. An easy way to do this is to select distanceDimention1 and press the down arrow key to select the shape node. If you open that node in the connection editor you will see distance at the bottom of the list.
Cheers
-j
This is just what I was looking for! A nice ball rig video tutorial. Continue the good work of posting new tutorials for beginners and professionals.
Thanks for the great tutorial. I really enjoyed it.