Character rigging

 The rigging system of the character’s body is learnt from a tutorial series uploaded on YouTube by Autodesk’s Maya Learning Channel. Which included different rigging systems like IK/FK switching, stretch and squash on IK/FK, foot rolling attribute, palm raise and side bend, IK/FK matching scripts etc. It is a very robust rigging that can support me to animate all dynamics action of my character.

T-pose:

Stretching:

(The ball ankle/elbow will not deform)

Squashing:

Beyond from the tutorial, I also need to rig the skirts, jacket, and hair. As my character will be jumping over blocks from different angle in the floating city.  These objects will be incontrollable and have a bizarre motion if I only rely on physic simulation. 

Reference tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8hZ6hQCGHMXKqaX9Og4Ow52jsU_Y5veH

For skirt rigging, I combined all IK, FK, and muscle/bone collision system with some extra node linkage to achieve it.

For hair rigging, I used a plugin called “advanced skeleton 5” to achieve the effect where it can be controlled in FK way while still keeping some natural physical simulation effect.

Control curves hidden:

Control curves shown:

All rigging elements shown:

Rendered image: