WEEK 1 - RIGGING OVERVIEW : TENTACLE

MODEL A BASIC TENTACLE

To create a basic tentacle, bring the Cube Poly and scale up and add more subdivisions. When it's done, make this poly more circular with each corner Vertex scaling up and down and using Soft selection mode.

CREATE A JOINT CHAIN

When the view move to front view, draw the Joints chain through the Tentacle model. And name on each Joint hierarchy to avoid being confused in the future.

SKIN MESH TO JOINTS

Select Joint chains and hold down 'Shift' select Mesh, and apply Bind Skin to pair between Mesh and Joint Chains.

ADD CONTROLS TO THE JOINTS

Bring the three NURBS Circles and put the each Circles on the each Joint. To put each Circle Control back to 'zero' position, apply Freeze Transformation on each Circle Control. When it's done, Constraint Joints to Circles Controls.

ADD EXPRESSION TO THE CONTROLLERS

Expressions are instructions to give the Tentacle random movement.

ADD MESH NETWORK

To make a more looking good Tentacle, bring the PlatonicShape and input the Mesh Distribution.

ANORLD RENDER

WEEK 2 - JOINT CREATION - ROBOT

CREATE JOINT

When you create joints, the radii of the joints are determined by the length of their bones. This means that when you draw a joint chain, the radius of all the joints in the chain automatically adjust to the length of their bones. For example, short bones like those in the human hand generate small joints and long bones like those in the human leg generate much larger joints than those in the hand.
Local Rotation Axes : Meshs or Joints' local axes are displayed.

PARENTS MESH

With a parent constraint, you can relate the position—translation and rotation—of one object to another, so that they behave as if part of a parent-child relationship.
An object’s movement can also be constrained by the average position of multiple objects.
When a parent constraint is applied to an object, the constrained object does not become part of the constraining object’s hierarchy or group, but remains independent and behaves as if it is the child of its targets.

I created Joints on the Robot model and parents the Joints to each Meshes.

ARNOLD AITOON RENDER

All Meshes are assigned with 'aiToon' Material and created 'ramp' Render node into the 'Tonemap' to make the Robot Mesh look Cartoon Character.

WEEK 3 - SKINNING - ARM

PAINT SKIN WEIGHTS

The Paint Skin Weights Tool lets you paint weight intensity values on the current smooth skin.

This video is how to select the skin points with using vertices and paint weights.

RENDER WITH AITOON

WEEK 4 - RIGGING CONTROLS ROBOT

CONSTRAINTS

An orient constraint matches the orientation of one object to one or more other objects. This constraint is useful for making several objects orient simultaneously.
A point constraint causes an object to move to and follow the position of an object, or the average position of several objects. This is useful for having an object match the motion of other objects.
A pole vector constraint causes the end of a pole vector to move to and follow the position of an object, or the average position of several objects.

I put curbs on the each left arm joints and applied 'Freeze Transformation' and 'Orient Constraints'

CREATE IK HANDLE

POINT CONSTRAINT

pole vector CONSTRAINT

After I created IK Handle on the Right arm, I put 2 curbs on each Wrist and Elbow and Point and Pole Vector constraints.

SET DRIVEN KEYS

With keyframe animation, you key an attribute value to a time in the Time Slider. You repeat this process with different values at different times to animate the object. When you need to animate multiple objects or attributes that interrelate, setting keyframes can quickly become a complex task.

CLAW CONTROL SET DRIVEN KEY

On the Attribute Editor Panel, I added extra controller 'CLAW OPEN' and set driven keys to make the Robot's Claw open and close.

ADD ANIMATION

I imported the 'Dance' Animation and applied on the Robot Character through 'Human IK' panel by assigning each joints.

The IK handle displays on the joint chain, connecting the start and end joints you selected.

WEEK 5 - MASH SMILEY FACE

ADD MASH NODES

In this week, we created Smile Emoji Face with using Mesh in Maya.

I imported Cube and Sphere Model and created 'Mesh', and I put Sphere mesh into 'Input Mesh' section on the Mesh Distribute Node. After that, I added 'Offset', 'Random' and 'Signal' nodes into the Mesh.

MAKE EYES AND MOUTH

To make Yellow Face Emoji and Black Smile, I added another two Color nodes and made them Black color in the Yellow color.
After adding Color node, I brought and placed two Sphere and Cube meshes on the Yellow face to make eyes and mouth.

I deformed the 'Mouth Mesh' shape to bent shape.

FALLOFF OBJECT

'Falloff Object' Creates and controls a falloff volume using an input object for its shape.

MOUTH SMILE CONTROLS

I made Controls to animate Smile Face and I Set Driven Keys.

ANORLD RENDER

Because the mesh's vertex colors need to export to Arnold Render, it has to be turned on.
To get this vertex color information into the color channel of the mesh's shade, I imported 'aiUserDataColor' and connected to Base Color.

ASSIGNMENT 01 - MECHANICAL RIG

For the first Assignment, I created model and rig a mechanical machine with using Autodesk Maya. The Mechanical Rig should be demonstrated techniques of rigging that we have been explored during the module.

MODELLING ROBOT

RIGGING AND CREATING JOINT

RENDERING

WEEK 9 - BLENDSHAPES

When you create a Blend Shape deformer for a base object, it creates a blendShape node, which blends in specified amounts of each target shape to the base shape on that object.
Specifies whether the blend shape is relative to the base object shape’s position, rotation, and scale, or is directly specified by you. Select from the following options.

MOUTH BLENDSHAPES

BASIC SMILE POSE (SHAPE EDITOR)

After creating blend Shape, I added Target shapes which are the individual "poses" that you create in order to deform the base object.
Add Combination Target creates a target shape that is driven by one or more other target shapes.

MOUTH OPEN POSE (POSE EDITOR)

I selected 2 lower lip joint and created Pose Interpolator, and then I added Pose when the mouth opened (rotate the Joints).

MOUTH CONTROLLERS

I created curbs (Controllers) and IKhandles

EYES BLENDSHAPES

WEEK 10 - MASH NETWORKS MOCAP

In this week, we applied Mash networks to Man Walking MoCap Rigs.

APPLYING MASH TO WALKING MAN

I brought the man walking MoCap into the scene and created MASH networks.

DYNAMICS MASH

DYNAMICS applies dynamic forces to the MASH network including gravity, friction, collision.
Via a MASH Channel Randomizer node, 'Per Points Adjustments' allows to add variability to specific attribute channels on a per point basis.
I created Falloff Node and put cube.

COLOR SET

MASH’s color node is based on the color per vertex of Maya’s particle system and can display nicely in the viewport but it’ll take a couple steps for it to appear in a software render of your choice. One, to export the vertex colors from the shape node of the reproMesh, and then to assign a utility node for your renderer to read the vertex color information.

How to use MASH color node in Arnold

FINAL

WEEK 11 - SPLINE IK

ADDING SPLINE IK

On a Cat mesh, I created IK handle on splines.

CREATING CONTROLS

I created controls on the splines and parented with mesh.

CREATING TAILS JOINTS

WEEK 12 - XGEN FUR

XGen is an instancing tool most commonly used for creating hair or populating a scene with instanced geometry.
It is easier to use the XGen – Interactive Groom workspace.

FUR SET UP

I brought rigged Mesh into the scene and created 'interactive groom hairs' on the mesh's body.

DENSITY MASK

The Density brush acts as a local multiplier for hair density, which updates as you drag the brush across the surface of the mesh
I brushed head, hands and feet to mask out.

XGen Interactive Grooming Tools

I added more Sculpt Layers and edited the furs with using XGen Interactive Grooming Tools.
I used "comb", "length" and "part" tool.

CLUMP & NOISE EFFECT

Clump sets the strength of the clumping effect applied to the hairs
Noise generates tree-dimensional noise along the length of each hair strand.

RENDER

I mapped some textures on the fur.

WEEK 13 - SUB PIVOT CONTROLS

ASSIGNMENT_02 - ORGANIC RIG

For the second assessment, I will be required to demonstrate a range of the techniques which I have been taught in the second part of the course. I created a little rounded monster and added some techniques on it such as IK handles, Skin weight and Fur.