3D Rigging Systems: Wk9: Rigging with Bone, controllers and IK Handles

When starting work on the character it quickly became apparent that this task was far more complicated than initially anticipated. It required a keen eye and a general sense for anatomy, who skills that I struggled with initially. Luckily enough the model was provided for us and the exaggerated proportions made identifying the locations for certain joints far easier. While theoretically complicated, practically the task of assigning bones was rather simple and required naught more than simple clicks in places that joints should go using the Joint Tool within Maya.

Soon enough I had a decently rigged arm and it was time to add an IK handle and a controller. The IK handle is designed to allow joints to have influence other other joints, for example in the arm the IK handle links the shoulder joint to the wrist and allows the wrist to have influence over the position of the elbow and shoulder joints. A controller was added and were point and orient constrained to the IK node in the wrist to give a full range of motion for the wrist and the arm joints. Finally a locator was added with a pole vector constraint to the elbow, which in essence controls the position of the elbow.