This is my autorigger I wrote for the variable forward kinematic concept presented by Jeff Brodsky in this video: vimeo.com/72424469
This is my first maya scripting project of this size but since it would require a lot of manual steps to set this up all by hand I decided to write it as an autorigger right the beginning plus I thought it could be fun. It is the first time I used pymel and made an UI for a maya script so the code is probably pretty messy but it reliably does what it's supposed to do.
To run the script execute the following from the python command line in maya:
import jo_varFk
reload(jo_varFk)
jo_varFk.UI()
initial loading may take a few seconds
Variable FK is a bit more dynamic than normal FK controls because it adds the feature to move the controls along their jointchain while the influence of a control on a joint is determined by the distance between them. The moving along the joints part works similar to a ribbon rig and the distance-influence calculation is achieved with utility nodes.
This kind of rig works well for:
- tentacles
- tails
- plants (mainly ferns)
- belts
- adventure time style limbs
- elephant trunks
Features:
- rotate and scale fk output from controls
- fully scalable, rotatable and transformable
- inherits everything correctly hence can be parented into your rig as you wish
- minimal use of constrains (only 2! in the whole rig, no matter how many controls)
- clean jointchain without any other nodes inbetween
You may use this script in non commercial projects however you like, for commercial projects please contact me, in every case give credits.
If you create something worth seeing with it, show to me, I am curious :D
feedback appreciated, hf
(tested in Maya 2012, 2014, 2018, 2019 on Windows 7 / 8 / 10, Mac OS X 10.9.1 Maya 2014)
Please use the Feature Requests to give me ideas.
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