THE
SETUP MACHINE 2 FOR MAYA MANUAL
covers Maya 5.0, 6.0, 6.5, 7.0, 8.0, 8.5, and Maya 2008
Written
by Raf Anzovin, Steve Anzovin, & Morgan Robinson
Copyright © 2005-2008 by Anzovin Studio, Inc.
All rights reserved
INTRODUCTION
The Setup Machine 2 (TSM2)
for Maya is a standard
Maya plug-in that installs a high-quality animation rig -- the joints and
controls that enable efficient manipulation of a 3D character -- into any
character model, as well as providing basic automated skin weighting. TSM2
for Maya does the hard work of setting up a character for you. Pop our
pre-made widgets into your own characters, attach the mesh (the skin) to
them, then click, and TSM2 for Maya installs the rig and calculates weights
in seconds, eliminating the most complex and time-consuming steps. You don't
need to know anything about joint orientation, pole vectors, or expression
syntax to rig characters with TSM2, and once the character is rigged, it will
work on any seat of Maya—you don’t need to install anything additional to use
the setup.
With TSM2 for Maya, you can
rig not only humans, but also multi-limbed creatures that would be quite
daunting to rig by hand, such as giraffes and squid. Or rig exotic fantasy
creatures--fauns and centaurs, Pierson's puppeteers, Tars Tarkas.
TSM2 for Maya was designed by Raf Anzovin. Rig
construction: Raf Anzovin. Programming: Morgan Robinson. Product Manager:
Steve Anzovin
TABLE OF CONTENTS
What’s
new in TSM2?
System requirements
Important Notes
The Rigging Process
The Setup Machine menu
Widgets
Rigging
a Biped
Weighting
Rigging
a Quadruped
Animating
with the rig
The
TSM Controls menu
Smart
FK/IK Switching and IK-as-FK
Rotation
Isolation
Proxy Layer
Twist
Controls
Upper Body and
Character controls
Spine
Head
Legs
Arms
Fingers
Thumbs
Tail Segments
Troubleshooting
and Frequently Asked Questions
Contact Us
WHAT'S NEW IN TSM2?
Virtually everything. We've completely rewritten
the rig, the rigging process is totally revamped, and weighting has been
added. Owners of TSM 1 should consider TSM2 a completely new product with a
new set of rules.
TSM2 FOR MAYA
FEATURES
Compatible with Maya 5 and later | Easy,
intuitive controls |
Instant animation
proxy
MODULARITY
Totally modular, customizable & portable | Rig ordinary or exotic body plans,
human, animal, or fantastic, or rig just the parts you choose | Innovative construction-set approach to
rigging—attach elements to each other with simple tabs.
FLEXIBILITY
Full positional &
rotational isolation of all controls--pose your character the way you want,
without worrying about how the controls will affect each other | Hyperextend elbows, knees & fingers
backwards even while using IK | Bending
controls in the middle of the forearms and legs allow more fluid limb posing
& animation
STRETCHINESS
Every system is stretchy |
Intelligent IK stretch
with ease-in eliminates jarring IK pop on limbs | Head has separate stretchy zones for
brow, jaw, and entire head | Proxy
overlay mode allows complete control to reshape your character
FK-IK SWITCHING
FK-IK switches on every system | IK-as-FK
allows the best of both worlds--use FK for broad gestures & IK on top for
small tweaks, or use IK to pose FK controls
CREATURE FEATURES
Quadruped leg system |
Tail/tentacle system | Unlimited arms, legs, and
tails/tentacles
WEIGHTING
Automates the weighting process | Fully
weight many characters in under an hour | Exclusion sets eliminate unwanted weighting influences
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
--Maya 5.0, 6.0, 6.5, or 7.0. Separate
versions of TSM are required for each version of Maya.
--Windows NT/2000/XP
--Mac OS versions are planned for later
release
IMPORTANT NOTES
Please read these suggestions and warnings
before you continue.
* To use TSM2 for Maya, you should be
conversant with basic Maya concepts like joints, deformers, forward and
inverse kinematics, object hierarchies, and so on. Please consult your Maya
documentation if any of these concepts are unfamiliar.
* IMPORTANT!
Always keep a backup of your pre-rigged character along with your rigged
character. If you decide to change the way your character is rigged with TSM2
for Maya, such as adding limbs, make any necessary changes to the pre-rigged
character and then rig it with TSM2 for Maya again.
* IMPORTANT! As a safety precaution,
always save your character directly after rigging and auto-weighting with
TSM2 and before you start any additional weight-painting.
* IMPORTANT! During the rigging
process, you should only have one character in a scene at a time. We
recommend rigging each character in a separate scene and then importing or
referencing them into your shots.
* TSM2's auto-weighting often needs tweaking in some places,
particularly at elbows, knees, and wrists. This can be done using Maya's
standard weight-painting tools. You will still save hours of painting time
with TSM2's auto-weighting.
* IMPORTANT!
KNOWN ISSUE: When rigging a series of characters one after the next, save
each character after rigging and restart Maya to avoid a potential crash.
This is a bug, and we should have it fixed very shortly.
THE RIGGING PROCESS
We've tried to make it as easy as possible
to install any rig. The workflow is simple:
1) Import a character mesh into your scene
[Keep an unrigged backup of your character]
2) Add widgets to your scene from the
Setup Machine menu.
3) Position and size the widgets within
your character mesh
4) Use Rigger to install the rig and
weights [Save your rigged character]
5) Use Exclusion Sets to eliminate
unwanted weighting influences in areas like fingers and legs
6) Tweak weights if necessary using Maya's
weight painting tools
The following sections explain the process
in more detail.
THE SETUP MACHINE MENU
When the plug-in is installed, a new Setup
Machine menu appears:
The Setup Machine menu
This contains all the options for the
rigging process. The prerig submenu contains all the tools you need to set up
a character to be rigged, including adding Widgets and defining the character’s
mesh. The post-rig submenu contains Exclusion Set tools to eliminate unwanted
weights.
WIDGETS
In TSM2, widgets are the "rig
parts"--arms, legs, spines, etc. Each widget contains all the joints and
rigging necessary for that part, including the stretchiness functions,
switches of various kinds, and so on, but most of it is hidden until the Rig
tool is used. Instead, what you see when you add a widget is a very simple
approximation of the shape of a limb that has simple controls that allow you
to fit it into your character’s mesh. Any widget can be can be attached to
any other widget, in most any arrangement, so that, for example, you can have
arms coming out of the head or legs sprouting from a tail. When the Rig tool
is used, the widgets are transformed into a complete working rig.
IMPORTANT NOTE: TSM1 included a special quadruped leg rig that was
separate from the one used on bipeds. TSM2 has only one leg rig: it’s
flexible enough to be used on either bipeds or quadrupeds, although it
defaults to a biped configuration.
Types of widgets. Widgets come in the following varieties: head/neck,
spine, right arm, left arm, finger, right leg, left leg, and tail/tentacle.
(We will be adding more widgets types in future, including an insect leg and
wing.) Each is color coded for easy identification. You can bring in Widgets
individually to build a completely freeform character from scratch, or you
can use the Biped Builder that we’ve included with the product to add all the
widgets needed for a character at once.
Widget controls. Widgets have two different kinds of controls: System
moving controls, which are square and can be used to manipulate, parent,
or delete the entire widget at once, and Fit controls, which are
usually circular and used to fit the widget to the character’s shape. The Widget
Surface—made up of NURBs cylinders—can be manipulated directly to help
fit the widget to the correct shape.
This leg widget
contains a System Moving Control (with red arrow) and Fit controls (with
green arrows). The square-ish foot control at the bottom is the only fit
control that is not circular.
IMPORTANT! Please don’t nonuniform scale the System Moving
Controls. This may produce distortions once the rig has been created.
Nonuniform scaling the Fit controls is fine.
Connecting widgets. Most Widgets have Tabs. You can attach
widgets to other widgets at the provided tabs by parenting--you might, for
instance, attach an arm to a spine by parenting the system moving control of
the arm to the appropriate tab on the spine. See the quadruped building
tutorial for more detail.
A tab on a spine
widget.
Connecting widgets without the tabs. The tabs provide a simple visual reference for making
attachments, but you can also connect widgets together at points where there
are no tabs, or to other objects entirely. It’s easy to parent widgets to any
other joints or objects in the scene, which allows you to, for instance, rig
a spine yourself but attach Setup Machine arms to it. To attach widgets to a
place in another Setup Machine system with no tabs, you’ll have to unhide
some of the underlying rigging.
1. Open up a widget object in the
Outliner. Underneath, you’ll see at least three nodes—WIDGET, RIG, and JOINTS
(there is also sometimes an IK node). Everything but the WIDGET node will be
hidden.
A widget in the
outliner.
2. Unhide the JOINTS node. You can now see
the underlying joints inside the system (this is also useful if you want to
see exactly where the joints are being placed as you move the widget around).
A widget with joints
unhidden.
You can now parent widgets directly to the
joints if there is no tab available.
RIGGING A BIPED
Let’s go step-by-step through the basic
rigging process for a biped. Techniques you learn in this section apply to
most other rigging jobs you will perform with TSM2.
1. To start rigging, open a bipedal
character mesh in your Maya scene. We'll use the simple bipedguy model that
is included with TSM2.
Import an unrigged
biped character mesh into your scene.
2. Bring in the biped widget set by
choosing Setup Machine > Build Biped.
Build a biped body plan
3. In the Build Biped Options box,
you can specify the number of fingers (up to 6 total, including thumbs) and
add toes (these are simply fingers attached to the foot). Bipeds can have
tails as well; we will cover tails in a later section. Click Build to
import the widgets into your scene.
The biped widgets in
your scene
4. The widgets are probably at the wrong
scale. The Character control (large pinkish circle near the feet) and
the Upper Body control (yellow arrowy thing at the thorax) can be used
to move/scale the entire biped widget set.
IMPORTANT! Don’t nonuniform scale the Character control or
the Upper Body control! This will produce unintended results.
Scale the widgets to
more closely fit the model.
5. Start positioning the widgets so they
fit just within your character’s mesh. The next few images show various
aspects of this process. TIP: You
will probably want to get the upper body control down near the hips and then
raise the spine as you start positioning it, since most animators prefer to
Upper Body control to be near the hips. Use the System moving controls
(square controls) to move a whole system such as an arm, leg, or spine. Use
the Fit controls (small circular controls) to fit the widget to the
surface. Play with these controls and you’ll see immediately how they work.
IMPORTANT! Don’t nonuniform scale the System moving controls
(the square controls)! You can nonuniform scale the Fit controls (circular
controls) to your heart’s content—but keep the square ones uniform.
Fitting the spine
widget with the fit controls.
Note that mirroring is
automatically activated for arms and legs (including fingers and toes).
Anything you do to the left side is transferred to the right. TIP: If you want to make something
asymmetrical, you can break the mirroring on any control by selecting that
control and breaking the connections that control its position.
Mirroring
Arrows coming off joints help you figure
out which direction your joint will bend in. TSM2 allows you to
position things more or less freehand, so it’s important to be careful and
make sure that things will bend in the direction you want them to.
Joint arrows show
direction of bend
Sink arms part way into
chest up to the shoulder.
The arm widget, properly fitted to the
mesh of the arm, doesn’t perfectly cover the arm—and that’s OK. Slightly
bigger than the arm is good.
Widgets fitted to arm.
Box controls on fingers have a slight
arrow on the top to indicate which direction is “up.” Sink them into the hand
up to the first joint.
Fitting the fingers.
On the thumb, make sure the arrow
direction is indicating the axis you want the thumb to rotate on.
Align the arrow on the
thumb rotation axis.
You can use the fit control for the foot
to position the entire foot at once. IMPORTANT!:
If you expect the axes of the foot control to be aligned with world axes
(for walk cycles, etc) then don’t rotate it.
Position the foot using
the Foot control.
If you have a section of the body that
projects outside the widget surfaces, you can move the surfaces themselves to
encompass the projection. TIP:
You can even pull points on the widget surfaces in Maya’s Component mode.
The widget can be
modified to encompass projections on the model mesh.
Fitting the head.
The widgets, completely
fitted to the model mesh.
6. Once the widgets are fitted to the mesh,
you have a choice with regard to how the mesh will be bound to the rig, and
whether TSM2 will do weighting or not.
a) If you want the follow standard TSM2
procedure and use TSM2’s auto-weighting, select the entire character
mesh—everything you want to be weighted by TSM2--and choose Setup Machine
> Pre-Rig > Define Character.
Choose Define Character
if you want TSM2 to do auto-weighting.
b) If you DO NOT want to use
TSM2’s auto-weighting, skip the Define
Character step. Go right on to the Rigging step (next).
Why skip auto-weighting? You may want to
do your own binding and weighting, you may want to parent lots of rigid
geometry to the model instead of weighting it, or you may want to use a
procedural muscle system. Whatever the reason, we don’t believe in forcing
you to do things in only one way, so we give you the option.
When you rig with TSM2, you will see that
there is a set of bones visible inside the mesh. Bind or parent other
geometry or systems to these bones.
7. Choose Setup Machine > Rig. TSM2
calculates weights and installs the rig in seconds. As mentioned above, there
is a set of bones visible inside the mesh. Parent any additional geometry or
systems to these bones.
Select Rig from the
Setup Machine menu.
The rig is now
installed.
Looking at the rig in wireframe mode, you
can see that there is a visible bone structure within the character. If you
have used TSM2’s auto-weighting tools, you may wish to simply turn off joint
display and ignore them. If not, these joints are ready to be weighted, to
have geometry or additional joints parented to them, or to be used as
attachment points for a procedural muscle system.
The character’s joints
are visible and available for additional weighting if desired.
8. You may wish to pull points in
Component mode on the controls to make them exactly the shape you want, in
this case shrinking the Upper_Body control a bit.
You can change the
shape of controls such as the Upper body control.
* IMPORTANT!
KNOWN ISSUE: When rigging a series of characters one after the next, save each
character after rigging and restart Maya to avoid a potential crash. This is
a known bug, and we should have it fixed very shortly.
WEIGHTING
Even after auto-weighting, you may need to
tweak the weighting of your biped to get it exactly where you want it. There
are two steps to this:
1) Defining Exclusion Sets
2) Painting touch-ups using Maya’s
weight-painting tools.
Exclusion Sets. You may notice when you move a finger or leg, or
any body part that is close to another, that this may cause the neighboring
parts to deform. What’s happening is that the weighting of one part is
“spilling over” and influencing neighboring parts. This is usually a
time-consuming hassle to fix, but TSM2 offers a feature called Exclusion
Sets that makes it easy to block these unwanted influences. Exclusion
sets allow you to choose a set of points on the mesh and exclude an entire
section of the rig (such as a leg or finger) from influencing them.
Bad deformation on the
legs here—see how the calf on the left leg deforms toward the right leg. Use
Exclusion sets to deal with this.
To use Exclusion sets:
1. Select the points you want to exclude
from being influenced. In this case, care was taken to select the right
points on the pelvic area.
Select the points you
want to exclude.
2. Choose Setup Machine > Post-Rig
> Define Exclusion Set to exclude the selected points.
Define them as an
exclusion set.
3. Select a control from the system you
want to remove.
Select a control
4. Choose Setup Machine > Post-Rig > Exclude
Systems. The bad deformation is gone! Like magic! In most cases, you will
need to exclude all fingers (and finger-toes) and each leg from each other.
On a standard biped, the process should not take more than a few minutes.
The deformation is gone
after excluding unwanted influences.
Weight tweaking. TSM2 does a good job of overall weighting, but
characters may need some additional touch-ups.
Auto-weighting works
well for hips and shoulders—normally trouble areas in a rig.
Some joints you may want to tweak. In
particular, the inside of elbows and knees, wrists, chin, and some other
complex areas may need some help to get them looking exactly the way you want
them.
This deformation is a
bit harsh and needs weight-tweaking.
Use Maya’s native weight-painting tools to
do these touch-ups.
Weight paint to tweak
these areas.
And here’s the final model with
weight-tweaking.
RIGGING A QUADRUPED
FROM PARTS
Once you are familiar with rigging a biped
character, you may want to try rigging a quadruped character. The process is
a little different than rigging a biped, because we will be building a
quadruped from individual widgets rather than bringing in all the needed
widgets at once. This is the approach you’d use when constructing any non-humanoid
rig in TSM2. Once you’ve mastered this process, you will be able to build any
body plan, no matter how bizarre.
We’ll work with the wolf model that is
supplied with TSM2. It was modeled by Daniel Gilbert and Chris Bishop.
The
wolf mesh that comes with TSM2.
1. Import the wolf mesh.
We’ll start rigging it with the spine—this is the usual starting point.
Choose Setup Machine > Pre-Rig > Build Parts > Spine.
Bringing
in a spine.
2. Rotate the spine widget
so it is horizontal, not vertical. Then follow the same process as in the
biped rigging tutorial to fit the spine into the model mesh.
Rotate
and scale the spine.
Fit the
spine just as with the biped.
3. Now bring in a set of
legs by choosing Setup Machine > Pre-Rig > Build Parts > Legs. They
come in as mirrored pairs, so you will need to do this twice, once for each
leg pair.
Import
legs using the Setup Machine menu.
Legs
come in mirrored. Position and scale them as needed.
4. We’ll fit the first leg
pair to the back legs of the model, but you can start with either front or
back. The key to getting the quad legs to work well is to fit the widget
carefully into the quad leg shape, which is significantly different than the
human leg shape. It is important to get the heel and toe into the right
place. Wolves and other animals walk on their toes, rather than flat-footed
as humans do. Notice below that the leg is on its toes, just like a real
quadruped. To make it fit, you may need to directly scale and pull points on
the widget objects themselves, as discussed in the biped rigging section. Try
to get as close as possible with the widget controls first.
Carefully
fit the leg widget to the quadruped leg shape.
Notice also that the toes
have been moved to the back of the foot control, so that the foot control
pivot point is under the toe instead of under the heel, as in a human foot.
The heel is now in the air.
Position
the toes directly over the foot control.
5. Bring in the second leg
pair, and fit it to the mesh in the same way.
Another
set of leg widgets for the front legs.
Notice that on these front
legs, we’re pointing the “knee” backwards. (It’s really the elbow, of
course.)
Point
the front “knee” backwards.
6. Bring in the head and
neck widget by choosing Setup Machine > Pre-Rig > Build Parts >
Head. You can distort the widget objects considerably to fit the shape.
Fitting
the head widget.
7. The next step is to
bring in a tail. Choose Setup Machine > Pre-Rig > Build Parts >
Tail.
Bring
in a tail.
You’ll see the Build
Tail Options box. Here is where you specify how many segments you want to
use. The more segments, the more flexibility in the tail. Two segments are
fine for a typical dog or horse tail. A cat tail probably needs three. A
squid tentacle or diplodocus neck might need 5 or 6 segments.
The
Build Tail Options box
The tail widget is an
orange cylinder.
Tail
widget.
Scale the tail widget as a
whole so that the length matches that of the model’s tail, then use the
widget controls and the widget geometry to fatten it up to the right size.
Fit the
tail widget to the model mesh.
8. Now the head, leg, and
tail widgets need to be attached to the spine. (When you rig a biped using
the complete set of biped widgets, this step has already been done for you.)
You’ve probably been wondering about those tabs on the widgets—here is where
they come into play. Parent the square control that moves each widget to the
nearest tab on the spine.
Parent
the square system moving control on each widget to the nearest tab on the
spine.
Attach
the tail here.
Attach
the head here.
9. As with the biped, once the widgets are
fitted to the mesh, you have a choice with regard to how the mesh will be
bound to the rig, and whether TSM2 will do weighting or not.
a) If you want the follow standard TSM2
procedure and use TSM2’s auto-weighting, select the entire character mesh and
choose Setup Machine > Pre-Rig > Define Character.
Choose Define Character
if you want TSM2 to do auto-weighting.
b) If you DO NOT want to use
TSM2’s auto-weighting, skip the Define
Character step. Go right on to the Rigging step (next).
10. Choose Setup Machine > Rig. TSM2
calculates weights and installs the rig in seconds.
Select Rig from the
Setup Machine menu.
The
wolf is now rigged and ready.
11. You may want to reshape the foot controls with
point-pulling to make them fit the quad shape better.
Reshape
the foot controls
12. You can even move the
pole-vector arrows to the side of the leg to make them easier to select.
Move
the arrows to the side of the leg to make them easier to select.
13. You also probably want
to turn on the heel pivot control (see more about leg controls in the Animating
with the Rig section). This is very useful for quads.
Turn on
the heel pivot control
14. Do any weight-tweaking
necessary, and you are ready to animate.
ANIMATING WITH THE RIG
This reference explains every control in
the rig. Many functions of the rig are controlled through extra attributes,
so we’ve made a point of listing all the attributes for each control. Almost
every rig TSM2 creates has alternate FK and IK controls, and these have been
listed separately.
Manipulation controls on TSM2 rigs are
color-coded by function:
--FK controls are blue
--IK controls are red
--Green is used for controls
that are a little of both (such as the fingers and tail controls).
THE TSM CONTROLS MENU
When the Setup Machine installs a rig, it also
installs a special menu that’s embedded in each Setup Machine character.
Whenever you have a Setup Machine character loaded (either as part of a scene
or referenced into it) the TSM Controls menu will appear—whether or not you
have the Setup Machine installed on that particular copy of Maya. The TSM
Controls menu contains the Smart FK/IK Switch tool and the Refresh Rig tool.
SMART FK/IK SWITCH and IK-AS-FK
TSM2 contains the standard FK/IK switches that
allow you to blend between the two types of system manually. But it also
offers two unusual ways to deal with FK and IK on your character’s limbs: a Smart
FK/IK Switch that switches between FK and IK while maintaining the limb's
position, and the IK-as-FK Controls, which allow you to animate the
broad gestures of a limb with FK and use IK for small adjustments on top of
them.
The Smart FK/IK Switch tool is a MEL
script that is embedded in all TSM2-rigged characters. It runs when you start
up Maya, generating a Setup Machine menu containing the FK/IK switch tool
whether you have TSM2 installed or not.
To use the Smart FK/IK Switch tool, just
select one of the controls in any TSM2-rigged arm or leg, then select TSM
Controls > Smart FK/IK Switch. The limb will switch to the opposite type
of kinematics while maintaining its pose exactly.
This tool is good for more then just switching
between FK and IK. You can also use it to pose the FK controls with IK tools,
and vice-versa. Just switch momentarily to the IK controls, pose the limb,
and then switch back. This is very useful when you want the natural arcs of
FK rotation but would prefer to pose with more direct IK tools.
* IMPORTANT!
Smart FK/IK relies on the TSMControls selection set that the Setup Machine
generates in order to know which controls should be calculated. Although
you’re free to rename any of the controls in any way you like, please don’t
remove them from the set (we think you’ll find it very useful as a way of
selecting controls yourself, anyway).
IK-as-FK is an integral, essential part of the rig. Properly speaking, TSm2
never actually uses FK on any joints. Instead, when you’re switching between
FK and IK TSM2 is simply switching between two different control systems that
affect the same IK handle. As a result, in FK mode, it’s possible to continue
using the limb as IK, within certain limits. On both the FK hand control and
the FK foot control, there’s a switch that allows you to unhide a separate
control to translate the hand and foot around as IK. This control is parented
to the end of the FK control system, so it will follow along exactly with any
already-animated FK movements.
This is very useful in situations where you want to
use the smooth arcs of FK for general movements, but need IK to create the
little movements that would require a considerable amount of small rotations
and counter-rotations in FK. For instance, let’s say your character points at
another character and then jabs her finger at him several times while
talking. You might want to animate her bringing her finger up to point with
FK to get smooth arcs, but then animate on top of that a little bit with IK
to get each finger jab, without ever leaving the FK control set. IK-as-FK is
great for producing those little movements while in FK mode.
* IMPORTANT!
Don’t try to animate any big gestures with IK-as-FK! If you drag the control
too far away from its 0,0,0 point the elbow direction will start to become
unpredictable. This control is designed to allow you to make small
adjustments and gestures to movements that have mostly been animated with FK.
If you want to animate broad gestures with IK use the Smart FK/IK Switch or
the manual switch to move to IK mode.
IK-as-FK
allows you to animate with IK on top of FK.
ROTATION ISOLATION
Every system (except for tails and
fingers) that the Setup Machine creates has an FK/IK switch and a Rotation
Isolation switch. Although most animators are familiar with FK and IK
concepts, not all may be familiar with rotation isolation. Basically, just as
IK can pin, say, the position of the hand down to a specific place so that it
stays there no matter how the rest of the body moves, rotation isolation can
pin the rotation of an arm down so that, no matter what you’ve done with the
body, it will always maintain exactly the same pose on-screen. This is often
extremely useful when animating with FK—you might get the pose of an arm down
exactly right, and then discover that you needed to make a slight change to
the body, which would throw the arm pose off and cause you to have to do a
lot of counter-animating. Rotation isolation removes the need for most
counter-animating.
When isolated, systems are still relative
to the Upper_Body Control. You can still turn the entire character
around if desired using this control.
When
using rotation isolation, limbs maintain their orientation even as the spine
is manipulated.
Without
isolation, they follow the orientation of the spine.
PROXY LAYER
When you fit the widgets within your
character’s mesh while rigging with the Setup Machine, it will use them to generate
both your character’s rig, and a proxy for your character. A proxy is a
low-resolution model that approximates the shape of your character but has no
detail or deformation, allowing you to get fast feedback while animating even
if your character has a dense mesh. The TSM2 proxy also allows you very
direct control of deformation on your character.
  
Geometry, Proxy
Overlay, and Proxy Only display modes.
When displaying the character in Proxy
Overlay mode (accessible from Upper_Body Control > Display),
the proxy is superimposed as wireframe around your character. When you grab
any of the proxy objects directly and manipulate them, it has a direct effect
on your character’s mesh. For instance, the head is separated into three
sections in the proxy. By switching to Proxy Overlay mode, you can
independently control the stretchiness of three regions of the head—the
forehead, the eyes/nose, and the jaw—to achieve very cartoony effects.
In addition, the proxy is invaluable when
you want to attach your character’s controls to other parts of its body, or
on another character’s body. For instance, if you wanted to have a character
rest its hand on its knee, it’s normally a pain to figure out how to get the
hand attached to something that there’s no control for. It’s quite simple,
however, to switch to proxy mode and Parent Constrain the character’s
hand to the proxy shape in its knee, which will follow along with the surface
perfectly.
Manipulating the proxy
objects allows you direct control over the character’s skin.
TWIST CONTROLS
When the Setup Machine rigs and weights a
character’s arms and legs, it’s attempting to create a deformation that’s as
usable and smooth as possible. In order to do that, it blends the twist of an
arm joint—say the shoulder—down the arm, producing a realistic and smooth
deformation. This is pretty standard in Maya rigs, but also standard is the
problem that goes along with it: the ugly and unwanted twisting that occurs
when you rotate the limb past 90 degrees on one axis. Which axis it has a
problem with usually depends on what rotation order you’re using, but there
will always be one axis on which you can’t rotate past 90 degrees without the
twist.
Because Maya uses an essentially
Euler-rotation based system, there’s really no way we know of to completely
prevent this from happening, short of rewriting a significant piece of Maya.
But we’ve built a number of ways of getting around it into The Setup Machine.
These are simple tools you can use to ensure that bad twisting never bothers
you again.
First are the Twist Placement
controls. These have been placed on the shoulders, the wrists, and the hips,
and they allow you to switch which direction is “bad.” So if you find
yourself animating something and you’re straying into a place where bad
twisting is happening, you can just switch that twist over to the other
direction. For instance, say you have a shot where a character’s hand moves
over to touch its opposite shoulder. This will probably push the shoulder
past 90 degrees across the body, and it will twist. However, the character
never puts its hands all the way down at its sides in the shot. You can just
switch the Upper_Arm Twist Placement control to “down,” and the twist
will now occur only when its hands are down at its sides—which does not
happen in this shot.
That’s often enough to take care of the problem.
But what if you do have a situation where the characters arm needs to be both
across and straight down in the same shot? Unfortunately, you can’t blend the
Twist Placement control between its two states. For situations like
this, and for any other situation in which you need direct control of the
twist, TSM2 also offers a way to control the twist manually. The Nullify
Twist and Add to Twist controls allow you to turn the twist off at
some point in your shot and take over manually to fix any problems. Because
these controls are blendable, you can easily use the automatic
twist for most of the shot and only blend in the manual control to fix a few
problem areas.
* IMPORTANT!
Sometimes you may use the Twist Placement control on a shoulder, and the
shoulder will suddenly seem to lose it’s connection to the rig. There’s
nothing wrong with the rig: that’s a Maya bug that causes it to lose track of
the rig when rotation orders are switched. If this happens, simply choose
“Refresh Rig” from the TSM Controls menu that is embedded in every
character—this will force Maya to evaluate the rig correctly.
 
If the arm twists badly
when rotated past 90 degrees down, the Twist Placement control can fix it.
UPPER BODY and CHARCTER CONTROLS
The Upper_Body and Character
controls are the most basic controls in the Setup Machine rig, used to move
the whole character around.
The Character control is mainly
used to position and scale the whole character at the start of a shot. The
only situations where it may be useful as an animation tool is if the
character is flying or swimming. Also, if the character is sitting inside a
moving car or other kind of vehicle, you may want to parent or Parent
Constrain the character control to the vehicle.
NOTE: Even though we use spline IK in many places
throughout the Setup Machine rig, it’s perfectly OK to scale the character,
and even to parent it to other objects that scale. Many rigs that use spline
IK don’t allow this.
In order to identify your characters in
the Outliner, you may want to rename the character control to the name of
your character.
Character:
Translate XYZ: Moves the entire character.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the entire character.
Scale XYZ: Scales the entire character.
Visibility: Shows or hides the entire character.
The Upper_Body control is so named
because it’s often used to move the character’s entire upper body around
while keeping its feet planted (although this is a bit misleading, because if
you have the legs on FK they’ll move along too, and if you have the arms on
IK they’ll stay behind). Many animators use this as their primary way
of moving the character around in a scene while they animate. It also
contains a control to switch between the various display modes of the proxy,
and all the FK/IK and isolation switches for every system in the character.
NOTE: All of the FK/IK and Isolation switches go from
0-1.
Upper_Body:
Translate XYZ: Moves the entire character.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the entire character.
Scale XYZ: Scales the entire character.
Display: Switches between Geometry, Proxy Overlay, and Proxy Only
display modes.
X_FKIK: FK/IK switch
X_Isolation:
Isolation switch (there will be as many of these as there are systems that
require them).
SPINE
The Setup Machine spine defaults to IK. In
IK mode, the spine always stretches between the Spine_Pelvis control
and the Spine_Torso control, with the Spine_Middle spine
control allowing adjustments to the curve of the back. The Torso and Pelvis
are completely separate from each other, making it very easy to tweak and
adjust the pose of the spine. In addition, any of the spine controls can be
scaled, allowing you a great deal of control over reshaping your character's
body on the fly. This is perfect for subtle breathing animation or extreme Tex Avery-style distortions.
While it’s common to use the Upper_Body
control to move the character around and use the spine controls to pose the
shape of the spine, there’s no particular reason why you can’t animate with
just the three spine controls, moving them around the scene without help from
the Upper_Body.
Spine_Pelvis_IK:
Translate XYZ: Moves the characters hips around.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the character’s hips.
Scale XYZ: Scales the character’s hips.
Rotate Axis XYZ: Can be used as an additional way of rotating the
control to avoid Gimbal Lock.
Stretch Meter: Cannot be edited—it measures the distance you have
stretched the spine by moving the controls.
Spine_Middle_IK:
Translate XYZ: Can be used to control the bend of the character’s
back.
Rotate XYZ: Doesn’t have any rig effect, but it can help make the
control more visible in some situation.
Scale
XYZ: Scales the middle of the spine.
Spine_Torso_IK:
Translate XYZ: Moves the characters torso around.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the character’s torso.
Scale XYZ: Scales the character’s torso.
Rotate Axis XYZ: Can be used as an additional way of rotating the
control to avoid Gimbal Lock.
Stretch Meter: Cannot be edited—it measures the distance you have stretched
the spine by moving the controls.
Using the IK spine
controls
The FK controls of the spine are much the
same as the IK controls, but instead of being free-floating, they're
organized into a standard FK hierarchy.
Spine_Pelvis_FK:
Translate XYZ: Moves the spine.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the spine.
Scale XYZ: Scales the spine.
Rotate Axis XYZ: Can be used as an additional way of rotating the
control to avoid Gimbal Lock.
Spine_Middle_FK:
Translate XYZ: Moves the upper part of the spine.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the upper part of the spine.
Scale
XYZ: Scales the upper part of the spine.
Spine_Torso_FK:
Translate XYZ: Moves the torso.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the torso.
Scale XYZ: Scales the torso.
Rotate Axis XYZ: Can be used as an additional way of rotating the
control to avoid Gimbal Lock.
Using the FK spine controls
HEAD
The head defaults to FK. In FK mode it has
one control to rotate and scale the head, and another that can be used to
both rotate and stretch the neck.
Head_FK:
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the head.
Scale XYZ: Scales the head (especially useful for stretch and squash
effects).
Rotate Axis XYZ: Can be used as an additional way of rotating the
control to avoid Gimbal Lock.
Head_Neck:
Translate XYZ: Stretches the neck.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the neck.
The Head_FK control rotates the
head, the Head_Neck control
both rotates and stretches the
neck.
In IK mode, there’s only one control. The
neck always stretches to reach it.
Head_IK:
Translate XYZ: Moves the head around, and stretches the neck to fit.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the head.
Scale XYZ: Scales the head.
Rotate Axis XYZ: Can be used as an additional way of rotating the
control to avoid Gimbal Lock.
The Head_IK control.
LEGS
Legs default to IK. When in IK
mode, the legs can usually be controlled with just two controls—one
footprint-like control that positions the foot, and one knee direction arrow.
By default, TSM2 doesn’t use pole vector controls in the ordinary sense.
Instead, we use arrow-shaped controls that can be rotated to point the knee
in any desired direction (the actual pole vector is at the tip of the arrow).
You can’t get the thing lost inside some piece of geometry or confuse the
left one for the right one. However, you also have the option to use a
standard pole vector control if desired.
Of all the systems The Setup Machine
installs, the limbs are the ones with the greatest flexibility. You can not
only stretch the leg, but reposition the knee on the fly, and bend the leg
in-between the joints for smooth, fluid poses. We’ve tried to make it easy to
shape any limb into exactly the shape you want on-screen. Most importantly
for legs, our auto-stretch with ease-in virtually eliminates dreaded IK-pop.
Manual leg stretching and auto-stretching work together to allow you to make
the leg appear the length you want, even while maintaining a smooth automatic
stretch.
NOTE: All
on/off controls are blendable (from 0 to 1, in most cases), so it’s always
possible to turn auto stretch or the standard pole vector on in the middle of
a shot without causing a pop in the character’s motion.
X = Right or Left
XLeg_IK_Leg:
Translate XYZ: Positions the foot.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the foot.
Scale XYZ: Scales the foot.
Rotate Axis XYZ: Can be used as an additional way of rotating the control
to avoid Gimbal Lock.
Raise Heel: Raises the heel while keeping the toe planted.
Swivel Heel: Swivels the heel from side to side while keeping the toe
planted.
Raise Toe: Raises the toe.
Swivel Toe: Swivels the toe from side to side.
Swivel Foot: Swivels the entire foot from the ball of the foot.
Leg Stretch: Stretches or compresses the leg.
Auto Stretch: Turns on auto stretching with ease-in.
Knee Slide: Slides the knee up and down the leg.
Calf Bend X:
Bends the calf on the X-axis.
Calf Bend Y:
Bends the calf on the Y-axis.
Standard Pole Vector: Blends to a standard floating pole-vector for
situations in which that is desired.
Leg Thickness X: Thickens or thins the leg on the X axis.
Leg Thickness Y: Thickens or things the leg on the Y axis.
Toe Pivot: Can show or hide the
XLeg_Toe_Pivot control, useful for ballerinas.
Heel Stretch: Stretches or compresses the heel of the foot, very
useful for quadrupeds.
Heel Pivot: Can show or hide the XLeg_Heel_Pivot control, for direct
control of heel rotation.
XLeg_Leg_Pole_Vector:
Translate XYZ: Aims the knee (though rotation is usually more
effective).
Rotate XYZ: Aims the knee in the direction the arrow is pointing.
Thigh Bend X:
Bends the thigh on the X-axis.
Thigh Bend Y:
Bends the thigh on the Y-axis.
Twist Placement: Switches which axis of the thigh will twist when it’s
rotated past 90 degrees.
Reposition XYZ: Can be used to reposition the hip joint. This is
mostly useful on quadrupeds (a tiger’s shoulders, for instance).
Remove Twist: Removes the natural twisting of the thigh.
Add to Twist: Drives the thigh twist manually.
XLeg_Toe_Pivot (visible only when turned on from XLeg_IK_Leg):
Translate XYZ: Positions the foot from the toe.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the foot from the toe.
Scale XYZ: Scales the foot from the toe.
XLeg_Heel_Pivot (visible only when turned on from XLeg_IK_Leg):
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the heel of the foot directly.
  
The IK leg has optional toe and
heel pivot controls.
The FK Controls on the leg still allow all
the stretching and reshaping controls (except auto stretch) and also contain
IK-as-FK.
XLeg_Upper_Leg:
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the leg from the hip.
Rotate Axis XYZ: Can be used as an additional way of rotating the
control to avoid Gimbal Lock.
Thigh Bend X:
Bends the thigh on the X-axis.
Thigh Bend Y:
Bends the thigh on the Y-axis.
Twist Placement: Switches which axis of the thigh will twist when it’s
rotated past 90 degrees.
Remove Twist: Removes the natural twisting of the thigh.
Add to Twist: Drives the thigh twist manually.
XLeg_Lower_Leg:
Rotate Z: Rotates the knee.
XLeg_Foot:
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the foot.
Scale XYZ: Scales the foot.
Leg Stretch: Stretches or compresses the leg.
Knee Slide: Slides the knee up and down the leg.
Calf Bend X:
Bends the calf on the X-axis.
Calf Bend Y:
Bends the calf on the Y-axis.
Leg Thickness X: Thickens or thins the leg on the X axis.
Leg Thickness Y: Thickens or thins the leg on the Y axis.
IK as FK: Hides or shows the
XLeg_FootMover that allows IK animation on top of FK.
XLeg_Toe:
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the toe.
XLeg_Translate:
Translate XYZ: Positions the foot as IK on top of FK.
FK leg controls.
ARMS
Setup Machine arm controls are very similar to the
leg controls, with the exception of the foot and the addition of the
shoulder. They can use auto-stretch, limb reshaping, and IK-as-FK controls
just like the legs do. TSM2 arm controls default to FK.
NOTE: All
on/off controls are blendable (from 0 to 1, in most cases), so it’s always
possible to turn auto stretch or the standard pole vector on in the middle of
a shot without causing a pop in the character’s motion.
X = R(right) or L (left)
XArm_Shoulder:
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the shoulder.
XArm_Upper_Arm:
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the arm from the shoulder.
Rotate Axis XYZ: Can be used as an additional way of rotating the
control to avoid Gimbal Lock.
Arm Bend X: Bends
the upper arm on the X-axis.
Arm Bend Y:
Bends the upper arm on the Y-axis.
Twist Placement: Switches which axis of the shoulder will twist when
it’s rotated past 90 degrees.
Nullify Twist: Removes the natural twisting of the arm.
Add to Twist: Drives the arm twist manually.
XArm_Lower_Arm:
Rotate Z: Rotates the elbow.
XArm_Hand:
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the hand.
Scale XYZ: Scales the hand.
Rotate Axis XYZ: Can be used as an additional way of rotating the
control to avoid Gimbal Lock.
Arm Stretch: Stretches or compresses the arm.
Elbow Slide: Slides the elbow up and down the arm.
Forearm Bend X:
Bends the forearm on the X-axis.
Forearm Bend Y:
Bends the forearm on the Y-axis.
Twist Placement: Switches which axis of the wrist will twist when it’s
rotated past 90 degrees.
IK as FK: Hides or shows the
XArm_HandTranslate that allows IK animation on top of FK
Arm Thickness X: Thickens or thins the arm on the X axis.
Arm Thickness Y: Thickens or thins the arm on the Y axis.
.
XArm_HandTranslate:
Translate XYZ: Positions the hand as IK on top of FK
The arm’s curvature controls allow
for flowing lines in a pose (FK shown)
The arm’s IK controls use a hand control and
an elbow pointer.
XArm_Arm_IK:
Translate XYZ: Positions the arm.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the arm.
Scale XYZ: Scales the arm.
Rotate Axis XYZ: Can be used as an additional way of rotating the control
to avoid Gimbal Lock.
Leg Stretch: Stretches or compresses the arm.
Knee Slide: Slides the knee up and down the arm.
Auto Stretch: Turns on auto-stretching with ease-in.
Forearm Bend X:
Bends the forearm on the X-axis.
Forearm Bend Y:
Bends the forearm on the Y-axis.
Twist Placement: Switches which axis of the shoulder will twist when
it’s rotated past 90 degrees.
Arm Thickness X: Thickens or thins the arm on the X axis.
Arm Thickness Y: Thickens or thins the arm on the Y axis.
Nullify Twist: Removes the natural twisting of the arm.
Add to Twist: Drives the arm twist manually.
XArm_Arm_Pole_Vector:
Rotate XYZ: Aims the elbow.
Arm Bend X:
Bends the upper arm on the X-axis.
Arm Bend Y:
Bends the upper arm on the Y-axis.
Twist Placement: Switches which axis of the shoulder will twist when
it’s rotated past 90 degrees.
Nullify Twist: Removes the natural twisting of the arm.
Add to Twist: Drives the arm twist manually.
Arm IK controls.
FINGERS
The Setup Machine’s finger systems give
you as much flexibility as possible when manipulating the fingers. Each
finger can scale and stretch independently. You also can reshape the palm for
very exact control over how your character’s hands look. (The first finger
joint functions as a metacarpal.) We’ve condensed all this control down to
just one control per finger (unless you’re using finger IK). Unlike many
other rigs, TSM2 does not attempt to provide you with some kind of global
hand control moving the fingers into limited predefined poses: instead, since
all fingers are generated from the same rig and therefore have the same
attributes, it’s very easy to select them all--or only a few--and control
them at once.
Fingers don’t have completely separate IK
and FK modes like most of the other TSM2 systems. You can switch on the IK
control from the FK finger control, but the FK control does not disappear.
Also unlike the other systems, the finger IK control is not floating
free—it’s still parented to the hand and will move with it. TIP: If you want to tack the finger to
something specific (like a button), use a Parent Constraint to attach the IK
control to it.
FingerX_Finger_Control:
Translate XYZ: Moves the finger and rotates/stretches the metacarpals
to reshape the palm.
Rotate XYZ: Rotates the finger.
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