Maya Custom Locator P1 from ryan griffin on Vimeo.

Walk To Run from ryan griffin on Vimeo.

Ryan_Griffin_ws2_reach from ryan griffin on Vimeo.

BP_Spline_V2

Instructions:

1. Open the BP_Spline scene.
2. Open the spline3.ms in your maxscript editor.
3. Select the entire contents of spline3.ms and hit ctrl + Enter to evaluate all.
4. In the max scene you can translate the SplineBone1 and SplineBone5.  Eventually I will layer control objects over those.

Hopefully you will get an idea of what I am going for.  All that is left to do is…

1. Create control objects.
2. Hook up the Swivel Angle of each IK handle to the control objects via an expression.
3. Clean up and comment my code.
4. Bask in the glory of a job well done.

SplineModule <— Download

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Thus far I have written some simple code that will find the children of the root template object.  I have hard coded the name of my root object for testing purposes, but later on I will identify the root by looking for it’s object properties.  I then find the child of each template object, and create pairs of parent and child object which are then stored in an array.  Using that array I can build sets of helper objects that are later used as the start and end joints for ik chains.  At this stage my code is messy and full of notes and comments, but I am ok with that.  In my time as a Technical Artist I have learned several important lessons, but I think these two lessons are of paramount importance when it comes to any endeavor.

1. Show your work often.
2. Quickly make your mistakes so you can get them out of the way.

Thanks again for reading my ramblings.  Before I log out, I leave you with my code.

--struct bp_info (bp_name, bpChild_name, bp_xform)

-- Function to get all the children of a defined object
fn addChildren obj hierarchy =
(
	-- add object to the array
	append hierarchy obj
	-- loop over children and recursively add their children
	for child in obj.children do
	addChildren child hierarchy
	hierarchy
)

fn addSubChild =
(
	bpData = #()
	c = addChildren  $BP_SplineRoot #()

	for i in c where i.children[1] != undefined do append bpData #(i, i.children[1])

	return bpData
)

fn drawBone =
(
local bpBones = #()

stuff = addSubChild()
for item in stuff do(
	parentBP = item[1]
	childBP = item[2]

	parentBoneName = substitutestring parentBP.name "BP" "Bone"
	childBoneName = substitutestring childBP.name "BP" "CapBone"
	parentPos = parentBP.transform
	childPos = childBP.transform

	new_ParentBone = point name:parentBoneName size:10 box:on cross:off
	new_ChildBone = point name:childBoneName size:5 box:on cross:off
	new_ChildBone.parent = new_ParentBone
	new_ParentBone.transform = parentPos
	new_ChildBone.transform = childPos
	new_ParentBone.wirecolor = color 140 88 225
	new_ChildBone.wirecolor = color 196 88 225

	append bpBones #(new_ParentBone, new_ChildBone)

	)

return bpBones

)

fn drawIKSpline bpBoneData  =
(
	-- Draw an HIK between each parent / child grp
	for ikBone in bpBoneData do(
		solverName = substitutestring ikBone[1].name "Bone" "IK"
		IKChain = IKSys.ikChain ikBone[1] ikBone[2] "IKHISolver"
		IKChain.name = solverName
	)
	-- Question: What is .count for?

)

fn mainFunction =
(
local bpBoneData = drawBone ()
local ikInfo = drawIKSpline bpBoneData

)

mainFunction()

-- These are some new concepts I got.  I will save them here for later.
--data = #()
--for node in helpers while data.count == 0 where node.children[1] != undefined do append data #(node, node.children[1])

--for node in helpers collect #(node, node.children[1])

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The Feet
A good foot rig is hard to come by, and I have spent a lot of time experimenting with different designs. Generally I prefer an attribute driven foot that uses an Ik solver to keep the ball and toe planted on the ground. The IK handles are grouped under dummies that are arranged like a reverse foot, and the rotation of those dummies are controlled by custom attributes on a main foot control. I don’t plan on creating a tutorial for this setup as hundreds probably exist by now. The tricky part of the foot setup is getting the mocap skeleton to drive the attributes without locking up the ability to create hand keyed animation later on. To be honest, I am still working on perfecting this part, but thanks to Brad over at RiggingDojo, I am very close to getting it just right.

I will get a couple images up showing the animation controls at work along side the motion capture data. I am away from my home machine ATM.

What needs to be done?
I think my rig is pretty solid, although I have yet to polish the skin weighting Next I want to work on creating a nice space switching system for the arms, legs, and weapon controls. I also want to go in and fine tune a few details, and make sure that everything is still working with animation layers. Lastly, I want to rebuild the whole rig, because I have been patching things together for the purposes of rapid prototyping. Now I need to clean up my mess. Rather than build everything from hand again, I intend to use Maxscript to do my work for me. Fortunately I have been scripting out parts of this process as I go, so this hopefully won’t be an enormous task… yea right.
In closing, I would like to thank everyone that helped me get this far. You know who you are, and you ROCK! I will like to give a special thank you to Denis Trofimov, with whom I have the honor of working with. Denis has been in the industry forever and has been using Max since the day it was born. You may even be using some of his tools without knowing it. Perhaps you have have a script that starts with LUX or DT? Anyhow, I am very grateful to have Denis as a constant resource, even though I feel like my brain is going to burst from the constant information dump. Funny enough, I am assisting Denis with some Max auto-rigging tools, which is perfect considering the nature of this project. I imagine my next post will be pretty Maxscipt heavy, but I do plan on doing a little side piece that delves into controllers and transforms in Max. I find that Max handles transforms and hierarchical relationships a little differently than Maya, and I would like to talk about some of my findings with the goal of making these concepts a little easier to understand.