Here is the Maya completed rig using the joint system. As with the 3ds Max 'bones' rig, I also intend to use Maya's skinning tools to bind the rig to the model as I believe that a rig's true capabilities can only be measured when taken to this stage. I found the joint system of creating a rig extremely flexible and intuitive. The ability to alter the pivot orientation, position and other attributes after it has been created only adds to its appeal and allows for mistakes and issues to be addressed rather than ignored or limiting the animator. The rig is in fully working order, from the toe and finger manipulators, to the hips, IK solvers and pole vectors. There is a huge range of real world and industry applications for this method of rigging as there is so much flexibility; it is very evident when using these systems that a quick turnover and production work-flow has been taken into consideration. This has resulted in an array of tools for adding, editing attributes and connecting them. This was a main disadvantage of 3ds Max. As it stands, creating custom attributes either means that they cannot be edited, or would require knowledge of MaxScript (both options which take time). These rigging techniques can be applied to both film and games.
In addition, many driven key and connection tools can be used not just of joints but any other vectors and manipulators, which needed this type of relational transformation.
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| Maya Final Rig |
Customisation is key to this tool set, and with it the learning curve is very gentile. Joints can even be used to rig animals, such as a birds wings or a fish's bone system. The amount of time taken to rig in Maya was significantly less than 3ds Max. However, a couple of negative areas I came up against are as follows:
Orientation confusion.
Manipulators need to have zeroed out attributes. This is done by freezing the transformations. However, when this is done the orientation is reset (a problem I had with the wrist manipulator). Not all manipulators are perfectly positioned in 3d space and it depends on the mesh. As I researched this problem many other people were also stumped at this issue. I did find a work around but was rather tedious and seemed to me that it could of been foreseen by the developers (involved grouping, parenting and un-grouping). I can see that these sort of issues would potentially stop a project in its tracks and create a hazardous and erratic work-flow.
Grouping and multiple views
Another area which for someone starting out in Maya was the grouping and multiple views of the scene. There are an array of schematic views and each serve a different purpose. Some include the Outliner, Hierarchy Hypergraph, Connection Hypergraph, Connection Viewer and son on. It is true that they are useful in being able to pick certain items which may be lost in a mesh or hidden from the main viewport, but there was a period for me that they just all became a bit confusing. One or two panel, with tabs for switching views would possibly be better and lass cluttered. Grouping and un-grouping items in a scene was also touch a go for a bit. It makes perfect sense to me now, but when I was in the middle of the project, you had to be very careful when dealing with joints and ik solvers. Un-grouping the wrong thing and the whole of the arm's hierarchy (example) would detach from the main hierarchy and become its own entity in the Hypergraph. However, as it is a flexible system, there are ways of re-introducing it into the chain. may benefit from having warnings when detecting major changes to the operation the user is about to perform.
None the less, very happy with this Maya rig; joints are definitely an improvement on 3ds Max's bones as it provides to flexibility after they have been created. Also, the custom tools creators speed up the process and does not require scripting. As this was the first time I used Maya, I found the process to be a good start.
Next stage is to skin it. This process will also be evaluated against 3ds Max and in relation to industry usage.
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