“Basic Guy” v 1.0 User`s Manual Hello, and thanks for downloading
Contents
1. m having so much fun adding images I Il add a few more to demonstrate how easy it really is to swap fk and ik Once again select the left hand control BG_arm_ctrl_L By default I leave the arm in ik mode so go ahead and right click and highlight switch to fk Curve Point Object Mode Edit Point BG arm ctrl L Select Select Hierarchy switch to FE switch to IK select all arm contrals hide show Fingers select all fingers parent to Bis world parent to BS Root ctrl parent to Bt Hips ctrl parent to BS LowBack Ctrl parent to BS Chest Ctrl parent to BS head_ctrl parent to L Knee parent to R_Enee edit cmd new cmd Inputs Outputs Actions Materials _ Baking What you ll see happen is that the fk control objects appear and the elbow pole vector control disappears So we are now in fk mode Ok now select the fk arm controls and rotate the arm into another position Next right click any of the fk controls and highlight switch to ik WARNING You ll get an error if you select the BG_arm_ctrl_L and try to switch back to ik I m not really sure why Select Select Hierarchy select all fk contrals select all arm controls switch bo TK edit cmd new cmd Inputs Mukpuks Ackions Materials Baking What will happen when you release the right button is that the ik controls will match the positions Of course ther2. body BG_Root_Ctrl Moves Rotates the main root Center Of Gravity of the character around BG_Hips_Ctrl Moves Rotates the independent hips BG_LowBack_Ctrl Rotates the lower spine BG_Chest_Ctrl Rotates the chest Stretches the spine Y translation BG_clavicle_ctrl_L R rotates the clavicles BG_neck_ctrl Rotates the neck BG_Head_Ctrl Rotates the Head BG_fk_bicep_ctrl_L R Rotates the fk upper arm BG_fk_elbow_ctrl_L R Rotates the fk elbow 10 BG_wrist_ctrl_L R Rotates the fk wrist 11 BG_arm_ctrl_L R Translates Rotates the ik arm They also have the controls for ik blending and stretching control 12 BG_elbow_ctrl_L R The pole vector controls for the elbows 13 BG_Finger_Ctrls Rotate the fingers 14 BG_eye_aim_ctrl controls where the characters eyes are looking 15 BG_knee_ctrl_L R The pole vector controls for the knees 16 BG_leg_ctrl_L R Translates Rotates the ik Leg They also have the controls for ik blending and stretching control Fig 1b Basic Guy Facial Controls 1 BG_Facial_Ctrls Positions Scales the facial control panel in the world Also has an attribute to switch on and off the facial objects eyes eyebrows 2 BG_MainBrowCtrl Raises and lowers all eyebrow controls 3 BG_MidBrowCtrl_01 Raises and lowers the mid brow 4 BG_MidBrow_Rotate Rotates the middle brow control Helps achieve a smooth transition between brow bends 5 BG_L R_EyeBrowCtrl_01 Raises lowers and sl
3. switch bo FE switch to IK select all arm controls hideshow Fingers select all Fingers parent to BG world parent to BSG _Root_ctrl parent to BG Hips Ctrl parent to BSG LowBack_ Ctrl parent to BG Chest_cCtrl parent to BG head ctrl parent to L_Knee parent to R_Knee edit cmd new cmd Inputs Outputs Actions Materials Baking Now move the mouse pointer down to the hide show fingers option See following image E Curve Foint Object Mode Control vertex z Edit Paint BS arm ctrl L Select Select Hierarchy switch to FE switch to Ik select all arm controls hidershow Fingers select all Fingers parent to Bes world parent to BS Rook ctrl parent ko BS Hips Ctrl parent to Bt LowBack_ Ctrl parent bo BS Chest Ctrl parent bo BS Ahead ctrl parent ta lL knee parent to R_Enee edit cmd new cmd Inputs Oukputs Actions Materials Baking oO When you release the right button the finger controls will either appear or disappear If you re following along with this manual they will disappear pretty cool huh Essentially what you have now is much cleaner and more efficient Maya file What you will soon find out is that most of the controls have this right click functionality in them 4b Dynamic Parenting Have you ever tried to switch a control objects parent while animating Chances are that you h
4. 6 Basic Guy v 1 0 User s Manual Hello and thanks for downloading my character named Basic Guy or BG for short This is a character that I created for doing physical acting pieces I left off the mouth to force myself to focus more on the body language to sell the acting To be honest I only put the eyes and eyebrows on for you all Feel free to turn them off and force yourselves to let go of the need to do facial animation Anyway in this manual I will try to explain how to use control him 1 Basic Guy Control Rig Breakdown Stretchy limbs Stretchy spine Dynamic parenting fk ik arm blending matching fk ik leg blending sorry no matching yet Facial GUI Independent hip control Installation To use a lot of the cool features of this character you will need some MEL scripts on your computer After years of rigging characters by hand I finally came across a guy named Hamish McKenzie http www macaronikazoo com that writes a bunch of really great and useful MEL scripts and he shares them with the public He also hosts a support forum for his tools really great guy Anyway one of his scripts happens to be a procedural rigging script Basic Guy s rig consists of a lot of this script not all but a lot The script is called ZOOCST mel and can be found here or it is also included in the file you downloaded from my site http www macaronikazoo com mel download zooToolBox rar To insta
5. ave and most likely you spent WAY too long trying to match the offset positions between the two objects But with dynamic parenting you can easily switch from one parent to the next without a pop in between Thanks Hamish Apparently it s not that hard to set up in MEL but most of us yes most of us that love to animate are usually pretty scared when they see anything that looks like some form of code Fortunately for us he has incorporated it into his scripts tool set Here is how to use We ll use the same control object from the previous lesson BG_arm_ctrl_L Ok let s manipulate his left hand up to look like he is holding his head Don t spend too much time it really doesn t have to be pretty Look at the following image for roughly what we re shooting for Ok now select the head control BG_head_ctrl 7 fig la Rotate the head and watch to see what happens to the left hand Nothing The hand stayed where we left it What gives man That s not cool Relax people Take a deep breath and undo that last head rotation Now select the left hand control again Once again we re going to use the cool right click function This time though move the mouse cursor to highlight parent to BG_head_ctrl Curve Point E as Object Mode aeea Edit Point Ba _arm ctrl L Select Select Hierarchy switch to FK switch to IK select all arm controls hide show Finge
6. e are those that prefer the ability to blend between fk and ik mode So you will find on the BG_arm_ctrl_L control an attribute called IK Blend I think the attribute name says it all Well that s more or less how to use Basic Guy Hopefully you find him to be a useful character that you can use to create some fun physical animations with However all that I ask of you is that you give me credit for creating him That s not too much to ask right Happy animating Basic Guy Limitations e Unfortunately with all of the stretchy parts of the character scaling in not an option unless you want to delete the rig do your scaling and then re rig With zooCST mel it really isn t that much of a pain e You can t blend between parents Not really sure why you d want to with the matching and all but some people really like to blend e He has no mouth yeah he knows that too That s ok I plan on adding more of my characters and the rest all have mouths This file is meant to make you focus on body language to sell the acting
7. ides the Mid left and mid right brow controls 6 BG_L R_EyeBrowCtrl_02 Raises and lowers the outer left and right brow 7 BG_L R_upLid_ctrl Controls the upper eye lids of the character 8 BG_L R_LowLid_ctrl Controls the lower eye lids of the character 9 BG_L R_Squash_Stretch_ctrl Squash and Stretch control for the eyes 10 BG_L R_Pupil_scale_ctrl Controls the pupil size 4 Uh you promised me some cool features Ok now that we got through the boring images I can now show you how to use some of what I think to be cool features 4a Right Click functionality Remember when you renamed the dagMenuProc_v mel and placed that file in the scripts folder Well by doing that you opened up a whole new way of working with this rig A lot of the control objects in Basic Guy have more control options when you hold down the right button All right man make some sense already Ok let me explain with some images and an example I am assuming that you have Basic Guy loaded up in Maya at this point So first select the left arm control BG_arm_ctrl_L 11 in fig 1a Now if you installed dagMenuProc mel properly you should see a bunch of options when you hold down the right button If not make sure that you renamed the correct file and placed the renamed file into your scripts folder step 2 for directions Here is what you should see Object Mode Edit Point Ba arm etri L Select Select Hierarchy
8. ll unzip unrar that file and copy all of the scripts into your Maya scripts folder There are actually a lot of great tools other than zooCST mel in there In the download file there are also some files called dagMenuProc_v6 mel dagMenuProc_v65 mel and dagMenuProc_v7 mel This script is crucial for Basic Guy to have complete functionality Choose the one that refers to the version of Maya that you use and rename it to dagMenuProc mel I e The Maya 6 file will go from dagMenuProc_v6 mel to dagMenuProc mel Now copy that renamed file into your Maya scripts folder Next place all of the images here C Documents and Settings YOUR PROFILE My Documents maya 7 0 prefs icons Obviously you Il put it in the version of Maya that you are using I just happen to use Maya 7 0 Ok we should be good to go Fire up Maya and open basic_Guy_v1_Maya ma 3 What does what now I m sure if you re like me you won t want to read any of the descriptions to the following images Instead you ll open the file in Maya and push and pull on anything you can get your hands on That s fine too preferred even But for those that like boring images that have numbers all over the place hopefully the following images will scratch that itch Fig la Basic Guy Body Controls BG_world Moves Rotates whole character in your scene For positioning at the start of a file Also has an attribute to change the LOD Level of Detail of the character s
9. rs select all fingers parent to Bi world parent to BSG Root_ctrl parent to BG Hips Ctrl parent to BG LowBack Ctrl parent to BG Chest _ Ctrl parent to BG head ctrl parent to L_Enee parent to R_Knee edit cmd o new cmd Inputs Mutpuks Actions Materials Baking When you release you are telling the left hand control to follow the head control Did you see a pop I sure didn t Now select the head control again and rotate Almost too easy huh No more days of setting up all these crazy constraint controlled objects And if you re good at reading between the lines there you read that you can add these parents to props as well it s all in his scripts ZooCST mel has a tab where you add the parents NOTE When you select an object that has dynamic parenting you will see an attribute in the channel box that is called Parent If you try to change the parent in the channel box there WILL be a pop The right click menu will actually call upon a MEL script when you release the right button to match the positions of the objects When changing the parent in the channel box the MEL script will not be called hence the pop 4c fk ik matching Just like dynamic parenting this functionality makes it much faster to go between fk and ik and vice versa And once again it all happens in the right click menu See why it is crucial to install the tools Just because I
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