Sunday, December 22, 2013

rigging a manta ray day 1


i created this manta ray back in my modeling 2 term, textured/shaded it a few months ago, and will finally be rigging it for a compositing project due early january. 


i started by creating a quick skeleton, trying not to create too many extra joints i'll have to worry about.


as the ray's wings are positioned in such a way for the model to appear dynamic, a muscle spline going across the wingspan was proving to be a little difficult to wrestle with. i ended up just applying a spline set up down the spine of the ray.


the muscle spline set up will allow for some quick and easy posing of the ray, easier than an FK system where i'd need to rotate each control to get a pose.


after completing the muscle spline system down the spine, i created controls for an FK system for each rotating point of the wings.


i included 2 additional controls along each wing to allow for simple layered control for quick posing. each of these controls will affect 1/2 of each wing.

i will be completing the rig after winter break concludes.