RIGGING A CHARACTER IN MAYA SKIN

Go to Skin вЂ“> Edit Smooth Skin вЂ“> Paint Skin Weights Tool.ДЇind the joint that you want the vertices to be influenced by from the big list. Now, to put weights on the skin, start from one end of your character and select the vertices you want influenced by the end joint in Select Components mode. In the Smooth Bind options dialog, make sure that Maintain max influences and Remove unused influences are unticked. To bind the skin to the skeleton, go to Skin вЂ“> Smooth Bind. Do the same for the left hip, right hip and right collar bone joints. Enter вЂњleft_вЂќ as the prefix so that all left jonts will have вЂњleft_вЂќ prefixed to its name. Once you delete any extra joints that you created earlier, select on the left collar bone joint and go to Modify вЂ“> Prefix Hierarchy Names.

Once you have mirrored joints from the hip joint and also the collar bone joint, click on the CoM joint and fire off Orient Joint.ДЇor joints that donвЂ™t align themselves correctly automatically, click on the Select Components button, then the question mark button, click on the joint, then click on one of its axis labels, then use the rotate gizmo that appears. You can mirror joints by first selecting the top of the hierachy of joints you want to copy over, then firing Mirror Joint.Д¬hoose the settings so it mirrors them in the right plane. ItвЂ™s important to name the joints properly too, as it saves you a lot when skinning. Now go to the side view and align the joints up for the character. Again, IвЂ™m making an extra joint at the end and deleting it afterwards to align the last joint. Using the same tool, click on the top spine joint then click on to make the collar bone, shoulder, elbow, etc. I wonвЂ™t be using the toes for this character, but by making a joint for the toes and deleting it later helps to orient the ball of foot joint. From there, continuously click to make the hip, knee, ankle, ball of foot, and toes. Select the Joint Tool again and click on the centre of mass (CoM) joint created earlier. Select the Skeleton вЂ“> Joint Tool and click to make joints for the spine, starting from the centre of mass. To start rigging, make sure youвЂ™re in the Animatons tab. LetвЂ™s see how I rigged her up, starting with the model in a T-pose as below. So hereвЂ™s my second character I modeled and posed in Maya.

Low poly character, Jennifer, rigged and posed

Rigging a character in maya