Hey Iker,
That’s interesting… I’m actually in a very similar situation where I am working now.
I seem to be picking up the very basics of MaxScript fairly well. (Though I’m sure some may disagree.) As I dig deeper… I find myself hitting walls rather quickly. Is there any chance you could post some stripped down samples of the kind of script you use for creating bone hierarchies, adding IK, wiring things up, etc. I realize you may not be able to due to company policy… I’m in a similar position. But if there’s anything you can offer to help guide me in the right direction I would be grateful.
Also, if you’re interested I am experimenting with a suggestion from Paul Neale; using helper nodes to drive the frozen position/rotation of the bones. It’s not fully working yet, but I’m hoping to get it working soon. I’ll post something here if/when I do. The details are on a thread in the Max forum.
Thank you again.
- Dave
I’ll try to strip down the scripts, so I can make a very rough plot on how the system is working. It would be interesting to see other approaches as well In fact, I’m thinking of recording a video…
That would be great, thank you.
I’m still experimenting with some possible solutions; though nothing is working completely that way I would like it to yet. I’ll keep at it and continue to post updates as I make headway. Thanks again.
Cheers,
Dave
Sort of doing the same here, but rather using a modular rigging system that hooks ‘systems’ onto a base skeleton framework.
I love the idea of a modular approach. If possible I would like to have a modular rig solution where the character/creature is sectioned into predefined components; such as lower-body, torso, arms, head, head-extras, etc.
What determines which module(s) gets created by the rig building script(s)? Are you parsing through the names of helper objects? Can you discuss the order of operations? (i.e. user manually defines locators for character/creature, run “create base skeleton” script, user makes manual adjustments if any, run “generate expressions” script, etc…)
Cheers,
Dave
For modular rigging I just have a seperate script for each module. I can call them as needed and I haven’t bothered trying to get them to inteligently link up to the other parts, I just do that manual. That way I can just build and arm, link it to what ever it needs to be linked to. I had to go this way as I never know what my clients want, if it is a stand rig that I have working parts for already then I can just run the script but others might ask for something that I have not written into script yet. I can build that part seperate and link it in.
My approach is sort of different to a lot of things – its sort of a hybrid method to ILMs block rigging method. Im approaching it in terms of a skeleton framework, each part leg, arm, hand foot gets multiple systems applied. The first system governs the puppets and the hooks for the other systems to work off. ILM used strings to define what could and couldnt connect – im thinking similiar but a little more simple and rule based.
Just really busy atm with production, tools and mocap – so its on the back burner.