When I finished BG v3.0, my goal was to start animating again. It's been WAY too long since I actually set some keys on a personal project... So, I set out and I started to story board out some ideas. I was also reading the comments from you all about BG v3 and what improvements/additions you all wanted. Most of them were already on my list of things that I wanted to add...especially the bendy limb stuff. So, a bit begrudgingly, I decided that I would go back and work on the rig a bit more. These updates to Basic Guy will be more fun to animate for me too!So, the first thing that I decided to implement was the bendy limb stuff. It took me a bit to figure out the best way to do this. I played with spline ik solutions, expression based solutions, utility node solutions...pretty much anything that I could think of. Unfortunately, nothing was working the wayt that I wanted it to. I would get everything set up and then I would run into issues such as spline ik twisting issues, fk/ik snapping issues, etc. Needless to say, I lost handfuls of hair during this!
The solution that I ended up going with was based off of Aaron Holly's ribbon spine. If you have never heard of this solution, it basically uses hair follicles to use as the deformer! This seems to be by far the most versatile solution. Perfect it is not, but I am very happy with it right now. The only down side of this solution is that I think you must be using Maya "Unlimited" to have the bendy stuff work. However, since I'm not really using much of the "hair" side of things, I may be wrong about this....
I also added more finger controls. Or more specifically, I added the "carpal" bones. This will allow you to get more realistic/less rigid hand poses.
Now this next announcement is really exciting to me. A co-worker has agreed to lay out his uvs for me!!!! Yes, Basic Guy is FINALLY getting uv'd! He also said that he would paint a texture for him as well. I'm also toying with the idea of modeling "clothes" that would be swappable on him. This way, BG will be way more customizable than he is now...
Also in the works is a more robust GUI. However, since MEL and me are not the best of friends, this process is taking some time. But, in the end, I hope to have a GUI where you can select rig parts, the ik/fk matching, maybe some pose buttons, face rig, etc...
Anyway, there is a small update as to what I've been doing lately.
Thanks to all of you who have emailed me with priceless feedback and also all the kind words!
Cheers and happy animating!
Tim
