Wee Monsters Rigs

For the Wee Monsters project, I created 4 rigs- 3 of which I finished, one I am still working on in hopes of including it in my showreel by the Degree Show.

The Boy (Sam)
The Girl (Ellie)
Monster 1 (Grumbles)
Monster 2 (Waddles) unfinished
Sam and Ellie's rigs are almost identical, with the exception of Ellie's hair being movable. These were the first rigs I created, and while they took a big effort and a long time at the start of the year, they are my simplest most straight-forward rigs.

They use a typical joint set-up, and have fully rigged faces. The animator is able to pose them using nurbs curves controllers, and the faces have the option of a "control panel", and additional interface I have created to make facial-animation more straight forward.

Sam/Ellie

• Foot ctrl with foot roll
• IK legs with knee aim control
• hip control (with additional attributes)
• Center of Gravity Control
• Spine controls
• Chest Control
• Shoulder controls
• IK arms with elbow aim control
• hand control (with "fist" and "spread" attributes)
• individual finger controls
• Neck control
• head control
• move-able jaw
• rigged mouth
• rigged eyebrows
• moveable eyes
• closseable eyelids
• Facial Control Pad

A feature I am particularly happy with on these rigs in their spine- it is a typical FK spine, but one of the controls gives the animator a few attributes which make moving the spine quick and easy. 

Monster 1 (Grumbles)

Monster 1 has been rigged several times as my skills have progressed, below is a demonstration of his final set-up.

Grumbles

• Foot controls
• Toe controls
• IK leg controls with aim knee control
• hip control
• COG control
• spine controls
• FK arm controls with elbow aim control
• "flex" controls
• hand controls
• "forearm twist" expression.
• finger controls
• neck ctrl
• head ctrl
• fully rigged face 
• eyebrow controls
• moving eyes
• closing eyelids
• moving jaw
• mouth controls

Grumbles was particularly tricky, because of the fact he has 6 arms, and the  way in which these are laid out. Each arm has an additional upper-arm section, which meant I had to adapt the usual methods used on a typical arm. 

After struggling for a while I got an IK set-up working, but in order to have the arm move correctly, it had to be animated using 1 particular procedure- start at the top of the arm and work down. This was because unlike a typical arm, I was using 2 IK handles, basically treating the additional section as an extra shoulder. Although it worked, I was unhappy with its "animator-friendliness", so I ditched the idea and set up FK arms- which actually gave way to much easier animation. 

Another point of note on his arms is his bicep muscles. I had initially resigned to the fact I would have no time to learn how to create realistic muscle deformations, learning Maya Muscle etc, but after a brainstorm I decided to try something out. 

I added an extra joint in the middle of his bicep (on it's own, not part of a chain) and make it influence the top of his bicep. After adding a control to this joint, the animator was able to pull the bicep upwards, creating a "bulge". When I was happy with how this worked, I then linked this control to the elbow, so that when his elbow bent in, the bulge would move out, creating a flexing muscle. I am very happy with the results! 

The rest of his body is pretty typical. Rather than using a foot-roll, his feet have an additional control for positioning the toes- just something I wanted to try out, and it worked fine.

Below is a video of myself painting his skin weights.