rigging a manta ray day 2

while weight painting the manta ray, i learned that i hadn't modeled it in an optimum way for animation. the muscle spline system i created for it's spine and tail was working, but distorted the mesh too much. i decided to just use a simple FK set up for the back and spine, as i am on a deadline. next time, i will definitely learn how to exploit blend shapes to get the animation i want. for now, this will do.

after wrestling with the rig, i finally got it into animation. the poor modeling on my part creates some nasty distortion so i resorted to moving the rig as little as possible.

it took an evening to troubleshoot the rig, redo parts of that rig, and animate the manta ray flying around a tree trunk:



manta ray comp animation pass 1 from towncg on Vimeo.

manta ray sculpt

a few progress shots of my manta ray, modeled in maya and sculpted in mudbox. only normal maps were used in the final render.

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.