For Animators.

Evaluation settings.

We designed this rig to execute as quickly as possible. To achieve this, you need to use a GPU and parallel evaluation, so you need to turn on those in the settings.

Body Rig

In very simplified form this is how body rig works

Root Components

Contains four controllers:

• world_prim_cc - only for offsetting animation. Don’t animate that.
• world_sec_cc - The main rig controller. Use to move or scale the whole rig.
• cog_prim_cc - Main Center of Gravity control. Has all visibility switches.
• cog_sec_cc - Secondary Center of Gravity control.

Body Chain

Chain Settings :

• Arm, Leg, Finger, Spine, etc. - Are all Body Chains. Body chains can have components: IK, FK, Spline, JointControl
• Chain has a shape node that is instanced under every controller. This Shape has FK/IK switch attribute

Rest Len Crv

Normal curve length.

Uniform Crv

Uniform / Non Uniform Curve ( parameter distribution along curve )

Start P Cr

Start Curve parameter

Mid P Crv

Middle curve parameter

End P Crv

End Curve Parameter

Stretch Crv

Enable Stretch

Shrink Crv

Enable Shrink

Mnt Vol Crv

Volume preservation control.

FK Components

Forward kinematics chain controls. Every controller can be moved and rotated freely. Scales only in X axis(length) Rotate Order attribute allows to change rotate order without  going to attribute editor. The last FK controller has a “Reverse” Attribute, which reverses chain’s hierarchy.

Space Attributes

First FK controller has space switching attributes ( Follow * ) Tweak those attributes to switch space e.g. detach arm from clavicle. Space can be switched for translation and rotation separately.

IK Components

Main Attributes

Inverse kinematics component:

• Start and tip controls can be moved and rotated freely.
• Second Controller is a pole vector. Move it to orient chain.
• Third controller ( if chain has 4 ) is second a knee rotator.
• Last controller is an ik effector.
• IK chain can have a footroll controller. It is next to effector controller. Rotate it to control footroll.

Space Attributes

• All IK controllers have Space attributes ( Follow * )
• Tweak those attributes to switch space e.g. orient chain with start controller.

Extra Attributes

Soft IK

Anti knee pop.

Stretch

Stretch toggle.

Max Stretch

maximum stretch. Relative to normal chain length.

Tip Orient

orients child chain to ik handle. E.g. foot to ik handle of leg.

Spline Components

Main Attributes

• To enable spline controls turn them on in cog_prim_cc
• All spline controls can be moved , rotated and scaled freely.
• Try to maintain orientation of chain (controls X axis should look roughly one direction and X twist difference should be less than 180 degrees between neighbour controls), or it can flip.

Control Attributes

Tgl

Attributes toggles controller.

Back Tg Tgl

Attribute toggles controller according to the back of the tangent. (tangents are just extra cv’s of main curve. )

Fwrd Tg Tgl

Attribute toggles controller according to the beginning of the tangent

Tangent Len

Attribute controls length of tangents.

Tangent Aim

If equals 1 - tangents aim to neighbour controllers, if 0 – to +-X axis of current controller.

Tgl Twist

If enabled, corresponding controller will control twist of the chain.

Sine Attributes

Mag Pos Sin

Position Sine wave Magnitude**

Off Pos Sin

Position Sine wave Offset**

Frq Pos Sin

Position Sine wave Frequency**

Mag Wave Sin

Twist Sine wave Magnitude**

Off Wave Sin

Twist Sine wave Offset**

Frq Wave Sin

Twist Sine wave Frequency

Lattice Components

Main Attributes

• To enable lattice controls turn them on in cog_prim_cc
• All lattice controls can be moved , rotated and scaled freely.

Face RIG

Head Controls

These are used to bend face. Control underlying lattice.

• Can be moved, scaled and rotated freely.
• Bend the whole face to exaggerate pose and/or give more organic look.
• You can tweak these controls to sculpt a bit different face ( for quick secondary character or sth )

Main Controls

These controls trigger face ”poses”.

• Move controls to trigger face expressions.
• If you need to push pose a bit further, then tweak Min Limit or Max Limit attributes ( Note that it might look broken. )

Part Controls

These controls are used to tweak face parts( eye, mouth, ear etc. )

• Can be moved, rotated and scaled freely.

Secondary controls

These controls are used to manually tweak the face pose if other methods don’t work.

• Can be moved, rotated and scaled freely.
• If controls are hidden, they are controlled by other. F.E. lip area controls are driven by lip controls. But you can turn those on, if you need. Visibility controls are under faceroot_cc
• Also these controls can be hidden for optimization purposes. Select other type of face controller and these will show up. Or use picker.

Picker

Installation

1. Create an animation scene, reference the rig in there.
2. Execute ps_animatorsUI.py in script editor tab(python)
3. Select the folder containing the picker settings (pickerdata, pickerImage and rigstructure).
4. Reload the picker window if needed.
5. Picker should fetch compatible rigs in your scene.

General

This is what the typical picker looks like :

Different types of icons :

COG : the outer icon selects the main COG controller, the inner icon selects the secondary COG controller

IK/FK : squares represent FK controllers, circles represent IK

Spline : The spline pickers are represented with the following icon. Only active when spline ctrls are enabled.

Joint : represented with the following icon.

Lattice Ctrls pickers : The lattice pickers are represented with the following icon. Only active when lattice ctrls are enabled.

Useful buttons:

IK/FK

Will switch selected chain from IK To FK mode and backwards. If Match checkbox is checked will also match chains pose.

Mirror

Will mirror selected controls to other side. If Full Chain Checkbox is active will mirror the full chain. If Affect Children Checkbox is active will mirror all childten chains as well. If you try to mirror center chain such as spine along with children chains, then side of the second controller in selection will tell script to which side to mirror.

Reset

Symply resets selected components to default state. Same rules as above apply, except for mirror side.

Symm

Makes pose symmetrical on selected components. Same rules as in mirror apply.

Space combo boxes

pFollow…, rFollow… change parent space of current controller. If Match checkbox is checked will also preserve position in world space.

Add space

If you dont have anough parent spaces on your controller you can add them by selecting a child object, then parent object and hitting that button.

Main

Toggles visibility of main controls.

scnd

Toggles visibility of secondary body controls(Spline, joint)

face

Toggles visibility on all face controls.

latt

Toggles lattice controls.

pxmt

Toggles proximity visibility mode on all controllers.

hide

Toggles hide on playback mode on all controllers.