Rapid Rig Email

If you want to get in touch with me, I have a shiny new email address for all your rigging questions:

dustin(at)rapidrig(dot)com

Trying to do my part

For the months of March and April, I will be donating 10% of every sale to the Red Cross's disaster relief efforts in Japan. It's not much, but I am sure every bit helps!

Rapid Rig is #1!

My Rapid Rig: Advanced for Maya has made it to the top spot on the Creative Crash marketplace! For something that started out as a bit of code to assist rigging for a short film, it has come a long way. Thanks to Joel MacMillan for inspiring me to want to rig characters based on your awesome concepts!

New Spiney Goodness!

With the latest update to Rapid Rig: Advanced, the user has the option to set the number of joints they want in the spine from 2-10 vertebrae.

Momentum!

Rapid Rig: Advanced is gaining traction. Easiest way to tell is the number of people trying to pirate it. Oh well, updates are free to those who purchase it, and I update it so frequently that a pirated version becomes outdated pretty quick.

Rapid Poser

To improve the use of the Rapid Rig: Advanced, I have introduced Rapid Poser. It is an add-on that some users without an animation tool set may find incredibly powerful and useful. It is an interface to quickly select and control the Rapid Rig, check it out!

The Anthology Project II

So for my zero readers out there, I figured I would use my vast influence around the globe to get the word out on some of my good friends' work, called The Anthology Project. The first book is amazing, and I highly recommend you check it out. You will support some very talented artists and at the same time, get to read a diverse range of beautifully illustrated comics.

If you have already picked it up, then you will be excited to know that they are working on a second book. However, they need your help! The team is currently raising money through pledges. These pledges will get you some pretty sweet stuff. For more info, CLICK HERE!

New Tutorial Videos

Spent my friday night (yes, I am THAT cool!) making tutorial videos for the Rapid Rig. If you are interested in the rig, here's the link: http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/marketplace/scripts-plugins/character/c/-rapid-rig-advanced-auto-rig-for-maya--2

Semi-Monthly Update

Been working on the rig a lot, and finally have what feels like more of a complete update in version 1.2.2. I have moved the IK/FK matching out of the channel box and into an interface. The interface also includes pose mirroring and control selection.

The other big thing with this update is rig naming. Now, rigs require a name, which is prefixed to all nodes of the rig. This makes it easier to set up scenes with multiple characters and makes using an interface much easier. To have the UI run the scripts on the desired character, the user needs to select one or more controls off that character, and the scripts will run on that character.

Best Seller!

I guess my rig sales are going well enough, I got an email from creativecrash telling me I have the best selling script on their site right now! I am pretty happy with that!

Billboards!

Found a bug I have been meaning to fix on my rig. Constraints are such a pain to control sometimes. This time, it's with wrist flipping.

I haven't been able to get around to it, because I picked up a bit of freelance work doing some 3d renderings for billboards. Pulled an all-nighter and the night before that, got less than 3 hours of shut-eye. But now they are done, and I got a good sleep last night, so I can get back to my rig again!

I am trying out this Empire Avenue thing... Get me some eaves!
EAVB_YEZHCKNOSH

Rapid Rig Update!

Rapid Rig 1.0.2 is up! Has a bunch of cool features, here is where you can pick up a copy! creativecrash

Here is the latest demo of it!

These are the new features:
-optional toon limbs
-optional geometry
-tabbed interface
-ik/fk matching
-increased stability all around with more error-checking
-confirm dialogs to prevent accidental button clicks
-joint radius smaller on fingers to see controllers better
-improved eye controls
-improved geometry, including eyes with eyelids
-channels for adjusting the size of most geometry
-palm control for hand cupping

Website?

So now with my reel done, and my rig mostly complete, I am going to try and switch gears and build a website. Time will tell how it goes.http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1770080731445468692#

2010 Reel

Just posted my reel, haven't done one in some time, but it was fun! Might need to get myself a faster computer if I keep doing all this 1080p rendering!

Rapid Rig 1.0.0

Been a while... but this is the fruits of my labour. I have been building an auto-rigging tool for a full character. After using my cartoony arms and legs, I realized that they are not conducive for a normal bi-ped. Just too many joints to have to paint weights for in the arms and legs. Also, they are so complicated that they could really only be posed completely straight when setting up the rig.

That being said, I have created my first full character auto rig. IK/FK switch, squash and stretch and orientation controls in the arms and legs, layered ik under fk for the spine, fully scaleable rig, with a few other bells and whistles.

It is available for purchase here! It makes the perfect gift for that special animator!

You can see a quick demo of just how the rig works here!

Leg Rig

Alright, so I am taking a break from my landscaping to give a quick update.

So I started building a leg rig, and right away, I knew I couldn't use everything from my arm rig, due to the direction it was built, etc. etc. But it gave me a great starting point. Also, while building the leg I found a lot of problems that I never noticed in the arm, so it gave me a chance to test out all aspects of the rig. But aside from fixing bugs, I also added some new features, some of which wound up in my old arm rig. The biggest one being volume control for the squash and stretch to give more control over how the volume changes when the joint chain squashes or stretches.

My tidbit of advice for this blog? Don't try to make the most complicated thing all in one pass. You will almost always fail and get frustrated. Chew off bits at a time, get one thing working properly, test it. Start adding more features to that. And just keep layering. If you do it this way, you will have more luck and more fun with it.

Here's a link!

Creating Controls Off-Axis

So... Some more really dull stuff, how to control joints that are at different angles. Woohoo!
Part 1
Part 2
Basically, this is 3 different ways of setting up control for joints where you can have the control angled, but still have zeroed rotations. This is so much more exciting than all that non-technical, artistic stuff...

And as an added bonus, I show how to parent shape nodes to transform nodes, oh joy!

Overthinking...

Alright, so one of the things I seem to do is overthink things when it comes to the technical rigging stuff. Trying to come up with something overly complicated to do a simple task. But that usually ends up becoming too complicated to rig, not to mention too complicated to use the damned thing.

But I still have to explore these options and test things and be creative. And if I keep plugging at it, eventually I can come up with something elegant and simple. And then just add levels of control to that.

That being said, I think I have come up with the best solution for the spine. It will be FK, but I may add in that extra level for IK. More to come...

Curvy, Stretchy IK/FK Arm

Ok, so... this is something that has been eating up a fair amount of my time. I was inspired by Horton Hears a Who to build an arm that has a nice curvy ability, and can stretch, and switch between inverse kinematics and forward kinematics.

I wrote a script that automates all the setup. The script just requires the joints. Now, right now, it only works for an arm that is built straight, and parallel to grid, and the character has to be facing in the +Z axis. I know not everyone builds characters like this, but it's the way I do it, so it works for me.

I am by no means an expert at scripting. I pretty much just copy and paste out of the script editor as I do the work, and tweak it.

Quality is pretty poor, so I have uploaded a higher quality one to Youtube


Any comments and suggestions are appreciated!