New Video Showing My Rigging "Hack"

[monsterzero]

I just uploaded a new video that shows how I use my rigging hack to pose a model. I haven't even posted about it in my blog! The SketchUp Community comes first!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vU2MMc-woM

If you haven't seen my posts before, reading these might bring you up to speed. Here is one of my first blog posts about the subject:

http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=110

And here are a few on the character in the video:

http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=359
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=364

[solo]

Great to see your amazing work again Justin.

Could you please explain more about your rigging process, I see bones and splines, yet I see you rigging with SU protractor...I was under the impression you rigged in Maya. I bone-up in Max and export to BVH to rig, your way looks much better (I hesitate to say easier until i try)

Thanks.

[boofredlay]

Awesome!

I was wondering, like solo, your process. I am seeing you switch between the "bones" and the character itself but don't see anything going "hidden" on the outliner.

[monsterzero]

Solo, and Boo,

Gee I thought all that was obvious

For this character I rigged him in both Maya and in SketchUp. I made the Maya version because I thought I'd better align interacting characters (i.e., this quadruped fighting with a biped) that I already needed to pose in Maya (soft body geometry). In the end I found that the export process was way too taxing on my SketchUp and my aging machine. I found that I could do the posing in SU almost just as fast as Maya. But when you add the export process, and the hardening and softening the appropriate poly-lines I found that just doing it SU was the way to go.

This is the best link to read to understand how I set up a rig:
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=110

This rig was much more complicated than any of the vehicles I worked on.

The blue and beige "intersections" indicate where it's safe to rotate (and will not break the model).

My posing process really breaks down to this:

• all my objects are organized with layers. i use this to hide and show the model, the rig and the scene that I'm creating.
• i create a scene that just as the rig, one for the model, and one for the actual scene. you can see that i create a scene in the video.
• i click through these scenes to edit the rig, and see how it looks in the view i'm trying to create.
• all the parts you see above are specially grouped in a hierarchy that relates to how they should rotate.
• all the parts above (the raw geometry) are on the "rigging layer" and can be hidden and shown when I switch the layer on or off.
• the hierarchy of those rigging groups above are on "layer0" and that's why they do not "grey out" when layers are hidden.
• those groups also use the naming convention, "CN_nameOfgroup"
• the CN allows me to use the filter in the outliner to show only the items i want to rotate, no matter what layer is being shown.

Does this help?

[boofredlay]

Thanks Justin, this does help tremendously.
I hardly ever work in layers, ever since the outliner was introduced so I got confused when the model and rig were switching back and forth.

What a cool model too. I bet you have a blast.

[solo]

Ah!

Thanks for taking the time to explain, it's one heck of a workflow that must have taken time to get comfortable with. Your work is mind blowing in it's detail, thanks once again for sharing...