Rigging

 Step 1:

The original joints were created using the joint tool, i then placed a joint in the hip, the knee, the ankle, the ball and the toe.

Step 2:

The set of joints were created in a new layer, coloured and named accordingly.

Step 3:

A pole vector for the knee was created by inserting a nurb circle, rotating it 90's and then alligning it to the knee joint, it was then pulled outward and then linked into the ik handle that had been created before hand, The ik handle was joined to the hip and then to the ankle. The pole vector now allows me to control the knee joint by using the circle instead of clicking on the entire joint.

Step 4:

Once all the joints were in place a new set of joints were then created underneath the leg joints, this is known as a reverse foot lock, it allows me to control the entire leg using this set of joints, it also allows me to control the foot a little more freely.

once the joints had been set in shape the corresponding ik handles were parented to the footlock joints, this allowed me to control the leg joints using this footlock set of joints.

Step 5:

The selection of joints and the leg controller were grouped together so that when they were mirrored it would all copy over easily without issue.


Step 6:

The joint was mirrored over to the other side, this was done by going on skeleton/mirror joint tool, the amount of influences were changed to 3 and then mirrored over, However the reverse foot lock was mirrored over seperately alongside the knee controller, once the footlock was mirrored i had to re-parent the ikhandles to the footlock joints.

Step 7:

Once the joints were mirrored i then proceeded to create a new layer from the right hand side selection, the joints were then coloured to allow me to easily identify each joint, A new knee pole vector had to be created however as the properties of the nurb circle wouldnt copy over correctly.

Step 8:

The final step was to paint weights on the joints of the legs, this controls how much priority the joints have over the rest of the mesh, without it the legs would deform unnaturaly when moved up and down, Due to the original set of joints being fairly well placed there wasn't a huge need for mass painting.

The animation was then rendered out using the correct settings and brought into photoshop.