pauldron rig approach

[ibra]

Hello i want to rig these shoulder pieces with either chains or belts.
Does anybody have a nice approach for these to make them animation-friendly?

[EricTRocks]

I'd create a curve object ("envelope curve") that has its points cluster centered to ctrl nulls. I'd make sure to orient those nulls with the Y axis pointing away from the body and their X axis down the path of the curve. Will be more intuitive for the animator. Create parent nulls on those ctrl nulls and constrain the parent nulls into the rig where necessary. This gives you the ability to offset the ctrl nulls if needed to help fix collisions.

You'll then need to duplicate that curve but offset it away from the original curve away from the center of the character. This curve will again be cluster centered to the ctrl nulls. This will be your up vector curve.

Then you'll create a bunch of other envelope nulls and path constrain to the envelope curve and evenly space them.You can simple select them all and constrain > path constrain. Then in the path % type in "l((100/10)*9)". That will distribute 10 nulls evenly along the curve. If you have 20 objects, replace the 10 with 20 and the 9 with 19. Next create a bunch of upV nulls and path constrain the same way to the up vector curve and distribute the same way.

NOTE: One thing many people might miss on the path constraint PPG is the "Lock to Path on Interaction". It makes sure the null stays on the curve even if you select the null and translate it.

Without scripting you'll need to go back to each envelope null's path constraint and make sure in the Tangency tab that it is active. 1 in X is good by default. Then in the up vector tab, select the coinciding up vector null to stabilize it. No need to set tangency or up vectors for the up vector objects as their orientation doesn't matter.

Then envelope the belt to the env nulls and check the control setup. When you rotate a null ctrl it'll rotate the up Vector and cause roll on along the belt. See how that goes.

[ibra]

Hello Eric! thanks for the reply! ill need time to process what you have sent me and try it out hopefully i wont mess it up!
thanks for the tips i really appreciate your help!

[ibra]

Hey Eric!
what do you mean exactly by "I'd create a curve object ("envelope curve") that has its points cluster centered to ctrl nulls"
i put control nulls with normals facing away from the body and then i draw a curve with its points snapped to those control nulls?

[EricTRocks]

Yes, but after the curve is drawn out, select each point and go to Modeling > Modify > Deform > Cluster Center and pick the null that coincides with the point. This will make the point follow the null. Note that you should switch to "Animation Construction Mode" when applying the cluster center operators to make sure the operators go into that part of the stack so they won't be frozen by accident.

[ibra]

what kind of curve do i draw out?
its a very interesting method btw

[EricTRocks]

Standard Cubic. Modeling > Create > Curve > Draw Cubic by CVs.

[ibra]

how would you rig the dreadlocks?

[ibra]

My friend said: "The dreadlocks are a much more difficult situation.. first, they need to be modeled not inter woven and not interpenetrating.. that makes them very difficult to rig. For them tho, I would use a FK/dynamic rig. I would most likely use a hair for the dynamics, then a standard FK rig to animate also.. The simplest solution for that is to have a total of 3 sets of geometry for each dreadlock. You rig one as regular dynamic, one as standard FK (can even be any standard FK/IK system), then you take those 2 and feed them into the 3rd "render" geometry as blendshapes. That way you can switch and fade between the simmed version and the FK/IK version."

he uses Maya, is there any way i can do the three geometry combination into one in softimage? the render geometry as blendshapes?

Or maybe there is a different approach?

[ibra]

how should i do the cape? is it possible to envelope the top of it and syflex the bottom ?

[EricTRocks]

You should listen to your friend for the most part. It's going to be a more complex setup if you want it to automatically collide with the rest of the body. It's not easy to explain this setup honestly and takes a good amount of rigging / simulation experience.

The cape should be done with a cloth simulation like Syflex or maybe the Verlet Integration using ICE. With Syflex you can use pins to stick the top to the closest meshes.