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!

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...