Friday and Saturday Rigging Events

Ok - so I was supposed to go out Friday night - get my head away from the project a bit. I didn't manage that one. I felt it would be more worth while spent doing the project. Clym Smith, our second year rigger has really come through for us this weekend. Not only did he meet the 2 and a half week deadline (he said it would take him 2 weeks ... 3 weeks maximum) he originally gave us a rig with a few problems. After pointing out some of these flaws we, as a group managed to work through it. It involved a few conversations on the phone between Sam and myself - Sam keeping a cool head and myself getting a little frantic as we need to start animating ASAP - or at least familiarise ourselves with the RIGs. On the team Blog we posted up a few of the issues we were having - Hands and Neck Cracks, eyes popping out, no head turn and no wrist turns being the main ones - not to mention the lack of hand animation that was possible. We mentioned all this to Clym upon the team blog and he has now, like a true professional finished what he had started to an appropriate state for him to hand over to us. There are a couple of points on the mesh that could be sorted out with the influence of the bones on the mesh - painting weights (Lower back as you put him in a seated position and it would appear his left wrist) however this may well be just a flaw in my version of Maya.

I have learnt that different versions of Maya have allowed for different bits to go wrong on each others machine. I hope we only find this THIS once and not again as I know that everyone is working on a variety of versions.

Clym, anyway, came back to us and altered the bits and bobs we pointed out within the next day and by the time I came home on Saturday night the rig was at the state we have it now so I'm very thankful for him for that and have mentioned to him if he wishes to animate on any shots he's very welcome to - just give us a shout and we'll work one out for him.

The rig itself works well for what we need. Clyms blend shapes are top notch allowing for some very free animation expressions. The stretchy body Clym managed to incorporate in the end, after some ups and downs I'm sure. I think he had to learn it from scratch so good on him there - he's done a great job... hopefully all the animators working with the rig can find it comfortable to use... I think they will though.... but only time will tell. We'll see tomorrow I guess. :s