Free CG Tutorials: Digital Tutors - Rigging Cartoon Vehicles in Maya

Digital Tutors - Rigging Cartoon Vehicles in Maya

An advanced guide to creating vehicle rigs with emphasis on toon. Learn a production workflow to creating vehicle rigs with emphasis on cartoon performance, squash and stretch rigging techniques, and the principles of building solution-based rigs for easy animation.Contains over 8 hours of project-based training for setup artists and animators learning the processes of creating intuitive cartoon rigs with animator-friendly controls. Perfect for experienced artists.

Lesson : Runtime 8 hrs. 6 min.

Introduction and start scene overview
In this lesson we will go over the course objectives and highlight the tools and techniques we will be learning throughout this training.

Creating a MEL script for snapping objects
In this lesson we will learn how to create a MEL procedure to snap objects together and add it to our shelf.

Starting the wagon rig
In this lesson we will learn how to organize our scene using Display Layers and create a Lattice to distort our vehicle.

Creating bones to deform the vehicle
In this lesson we will learn how to create a joint chain and bind our lattice to it

Designing a MEL window to apply squash and stretch to the rig
In this lesson we will learn how to create a custom window using MEL to run a procedure

The execution command for the squash and stretch tool
In this lesson we will learn how to create our vScale procedure and create squash and stretch using a Multiply Divide Node

Finishing the squash and stretch tool
In this lesson we will learn how to finish our squash and stretch procedure

Adding volume to the squash and stretch of the vehicle
In this lesson we will learn how to create extra lattice shapes and attach them to our squash and stretch using expressions

Finishing the squash and stretch setup of the vehicle
In this lesson we will learn how to finish our volume expressions

Creating the initial controls
In this lesson we will learn how to create control objects and connect them to our wagon

Finishing the vehicle body control objects / adding a twist deformation
In this lesson we will learn how to create front controls and adjust our Advanced Twist Controls

Making the proxy cage for the vehicle
In this lesson we will learn how to duplicate our object to create a proxy cage

Controlling the spinning of the police light
In this lesson we will learn how to create a custom attribute and use expressions to control the police light

Connecting objects to polygon meshes
In this lesson we will learn how to attach an object to two edges

Beginning the setup for the antenna
In this lesson we will learn how to create joints and use a Spline IK to control the antenna

Connecting the antenna to the mesh
In this lesson we will learn how to use our earlier process to connect our joints to specific edges

Finishing the antenna
In this lesson we will learn how to use Soft Bodies to move our antenna

The setup process for the doors
In this lesson we will learn how to use clusters and blendshapes to control our door

Adding a control object to the front right door
In this lesson we will learn how to connect a control object to our door

Finishing the front right door
In this lesson we will learn how to attach our door using Custom Attributes and Set Driven Keys

Working on the front left door
In this lesson we will learn how to rig the front left door

Starting setup of the steering wheel
In this lesson we will learn how to use clusters and blendshapes to control our steering wheel

Wrapping up the steering wheel
In this lesson we will learn how to create custom attributes to finish our steering wheel

Starting on the back doors
In this lesson we will learn how to use blendshapes to drive our back doors

Final tweaks for the back left door
In this lesson we will learn how to use Set Driven Keys and how to edit them in the Graph Editor

Beginning the right back door
In this lesson we will learn how to use clusters and blendshapes to control our back door

Finishing the right back door / starting on the back lock
In this lesson we will learn how to use clusters and blendshapes to control our back lock

Finishing the back lock
In this lesson we will learn how to create a custom attribute and use the Connection Editor to control the back steering wheel

Beginning the setup of the exhaust
In this lesson we will learn how to create blendshapes for our rear exhaust to create a blowing motion

Finishing the exhaust rig
In this lesson we will learn how to create a custom attribute and use the Connection Editor to control the exhaust blendshapes

Rigging the siren with non-linear deformers
In this lesson we will learn how to use a Squash non-linear deformer to rig our siren

Tying the non-linear deformers together to create a noisy siren effect
In this lesson we will learn how to connect our non-linear deformers together using Expressions

Final tweaks for the siren rig
In this lesson we will learn how to craete a control object for our Siren and connect it using our CTM script

Starting on the tires: creating control objects
In this lesson we will learn how to create the control curves for our tires

Connecting the tire to the control object and setting up a tire follow switch
In this lesson we will learn how to use a combination ot tools to connect our tire to the car

Looking into ways to rig the tires to revolve
In this lesson we will learn how to use expressions to create various methods of controling the tire rotation

Creating the illusion of weight on the tire
In this lesson we will learn how to use a Squash non-linear deformer to let us squash and stretch the tire

Working on the connections between the tire control and squash deformer
In this lesson we will learn how to use the Connection editor and Expressions to control the squash and stretch of our tire

Completing the back right tire
In this lesson we will learn how to make final tweaks to the tire rig

Moving on to the back left wheel
In this lesson we will learn how to apply our tire rigging techniques to the back left wheel

Applying the revolve expression to the rear left tire
In this lesson we will learn how to use expressions to create various methods of controling the tire rotation

Adding the squash deformer to the rear left wheel
In this lesson we will learn how to use a Squash non-linear deformer to let us squash and stretch the tire

Starting our work on the front left tire
In this lesson we will learn how to apply our tire rigging techniques to the front left wheel

Wrapping up the general connections of the front left tire
In this lesson we will learn how to finish our front left tire

Setting up the steering control
In this lesson we will learn how to use an aim constraint to create a steering control for the tires

Working on the last wheel
In this lesson we will learn how to apply our tire rigging techniques to the final wheel

Finishing the rig for the last tire
In this lesson we will learn how to finish our final tire

Creating the wagon idle expression
In this lesson we will learn how to use an expression to make our wagon shake

Adding the idle shake to the hood
In this lesson we will learn how to apply a separate shake to the hood

Making character sets for the vehicle
In this lesson we will learn how to create Character Sets so we can easily animate

Determining a good rotation order and writing a MEL script to quickly apply it
In this lesson we will learn how to create a useful rotation order for our objects to reduce issues in the future

Smoothing the wagon model and setting up a control to switch between smooth levels
In this lesson we will learn how to create a switch for smoothing the geometry of our model