Chimera Capstone, 2023
Programs: Maya 2022, Procreate, Houdini, RenderMan, Adobe Suite, Zbrush
This project was completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for my Master of Science in Visualization under the guidance of Dean Tim McLaughlin, Professor Felice House, and Dr. Jeremy Wasser. My capstone was used to study how to use scripts on an animal that does not exist while rigging a creature with three conflicting forms: that of a lion, goat, and snake.
Rig Demo
Here you can see my rig breakdown. It demonstrates features of the rig such as on the legs, roll and twist joints, IK/FK and stretch joints, foot/toe/ankle rolls, and ribbons. The spine has IK spline and ribbons. The tail offers IK, FK and dynamics. The rig also includes features such as clusters and muscle simulation.
Approaching Scripts
I used python to create a script that will automatically rig the legs for me. The code will create four joint chains (IK, FK, stretch, and driver), connect the joints to controls, implement the IK/FK switch, create the stretch system and connect it to the attribute so that it can be turned on or off, create roll joints on the femurs and ankles, and clean up the hierarchy.
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I also used scripts to create ribbons, create IK/FK switches, add dynamics, and lock down the final rig for animation.
Bifurcated Spines
Because this rig has two heads, I studied bifurcated spinal structure. I used an IK spline and ribbons for maximum flexibility. Two necks also meant that I needed two functional heads that could move together and separately. Switches were added on each head to follow the translate and/or rotate of the shoulders.
Snake / Tail
The snake was difficult because it had to also work as a tail. A tail is usually FK to follow the body, but a snake is usually IK to help with the bendy movement. Therefore, the snake was rigged backwards and I used an IK/FK switch. I also used a different hierarchy set up so the head would follow the body, rather than the other way around.
