Useful Tips/Techniques on Rigging a Bird/Feather

Ever wondered what it takes for a bird to fly!? Simple, it's the wing.  :)

I have managed to find some nice links on creating a fairly realistic wing and feather setup similar to what you might have seen on the gorgeous birds of RIO! Well of course, you can implement similar technique keep constructing and manipulating. The idea is to understand the technique, stuffs like what is going under neath the hood.

I will keep updating this post with more resources so stay tuned!

~ Stumbled upon these two wonderful sites/blogs by Nakyoung Kim and yukfoo.net, sharing the ideas, tips, techniques and tools to create a bird rig, mainly focussing on the wing and feather system. 

~ Paule from Pen Production have some more insight on similar looking setup using spline based controllers. 

~ Check out this link on creating a good looking bird wing setup by Henrik Englund :)

~ Nice tool created by Ismail to setup a bird (wing/feather) rig!


~ This is a really good resource to see how the bird's wing is articulated


More Useful Links:
http://www.jackals-forge.com/tutor/tut1.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jUKOMGKfOM&feature=related
http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutorials/maya/bird_tutorial/bird.asp
http://www.hartworks.net/blender/jared/

Looney Tunes Rigging Reel by Josh Carey

Josh Carey, Head of Rigging at Reel FX Creative Studios and co-founder of Rigging Dojo, has made an awesome, eye popping Rigging Demo Reel for Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, two of the most popular Looney Tunes characters of all times. Really loved how the 2D cartoony style has been brought to life on to 3D platform!
This was Reel FX’s submission to the VES Awards for Best Overall Achievement in an Animated Short. Josh Carey was responsible for Supervising all Rigging on the Project as well as doing several of the Rigs, Tools, and Workflows needed to achieve the Crazy Looney Tunes Character Rigs.

Mini-Course Mentoring @ Rigging Dojo!

Teaching is truly another form of learning for me! Recently I conducted a little mini course at Rigging Dojo, sharing some of the ideas, tips and techniques for creating a Dynamic Rig! During this time, I was very pleased after receiving all those cool feedback from the students. I would like to thank Brad "The Founder of Rigging Dojo" and the entire Rigging Dojo team including the awesome students for this wonderful interactive opportunity. I really had a wonderful time :)

Amazing Moves!

I had to post this; such awesome robot dance moves! This guy is amazing. I am thinking how hard will be to actually do an animation similar to this including the character setup ;)

Maya/Rigging: Dealing with Double Tranforms

Sometimes double transforms can trip you up right out of the box, sometimes they don't become apparent until you try to "package" your rig under some Master Control node. This video talks about some common situations where you'll find these issues and some simple fixes to deal with them. A video by Zeth Willie!

Spaceman!

What does it feel like to fly over Planet Earth! Notice the city lights and the lightning thunder.

Sculpting Anyone!?

Check out these cool sculpting videos by James Van Den Bogart on vimeo! Awesome works :)

Dynamic Goodness #101

Here are some dynamic goodness worth sharing! Check out the video tutorial on creating hair system based dynamic rig :)

Cheers

Meet Höbö!

Look at this, simple, smart, bouncy, cartoony ... fun to play with character rig named Höbö! I just checked it out and this looks sweet, seems like a comeback of Barbapapa! The character is designed, modelled by Ozan Civit rigged by Gökalp Gönen! Höbö is recruited by Animation Scout founder Ugur Ulvi Yetiskin.

TEJO ~ Muscle Simulation

A little while I posted a link about a WIP image of  TEJO rig! Now here it is, the beast is finally alive. Muscle simulation done using Maya Muscle. Animation was done by Manish Shakya, currently graduating from Animation Mentor! Cheers :)

Recent Flicks!

Updates to The Animal Kingdom!
Taken with Galaxy S II :)

Flickr Library!

SRB ~ Eye Factory "Grab It, Cheers"

Hey Folks,

Just uploaded a little tool for everyone to play with. The name goes "Eye Factory", yes "Eye Factory" for creating a quick, intuitive eye/eyelid rig based on joints. Well, the tool won't skin the geometry so, you will have to work out on a good skinning for proper deformation. Once the tool runs, it's just a matter of connecting the attributes with a nice UI of your own, and walla you are done with a fairly realistic, could be cartoony looking eye setup with automated fleshy eye features, intuitive - regional eye blinking and more. You can always dig in and see what's going underneath the hood. Fairly simple little tool, test it, try it, share it and like it ... Cheers :)

Below is an image showing some important guideline for using this tool :

You can download the tool from CreativeCrash. Click here for the link!

If you feel like learning how the setup works, I have a quick video tutorial at your disposal!



Happy Rigging/Animating ... Feedbacks, queries and comments are most welcome :)

Sculpting The Face - Webinar with Ryan Kingslien

Recently Image Metrics hosted a facial sculpting and anatomy webinar with ZBrush Workshops founder, Ryan Kingslien. Ryan is one of the industry's most sought after artists and it was a pleasure to hear his take on how to tackle learning facial anatomy. The video is hosted/presented by Ryan Kingslien and Jay Grenier. Check out the video below.

Sculpting The Face - Anatomy & Form

Mario Bros on Violin!

Something fun to watch, and play "The Mario Bros" with live Violin playback!

Porto Seguro - Dinheirinho Rigging

Simple straight forward, cartoony, funny rig demo of a Banknotes character; yes a Dollor Bill Character by Wesley Schneider. Totally creative and stylized character design. Worth watching it!

TEJO ~ Muscle Setup Snapshot

A little WIP snapshot for TEJO, the character from the Muscle Workshop. This beast is coming to life soOn ;)

Character TD Demo - Kaylee Rig

A video demo by Jonas Avrin (@Jawabiscuit) featuring the Kaylee rig which is provided by Alex Curtis, director of Hephaestus, soon to be released. It shows techniques provided by Autodesk's Animator Friendly Rigging series by Jason Schleifer. Special recognition goes to Image Metrics' proprietary facial rigging tools for the automatic setup of the control rig for the face! I worked on the goggles and hair setup. Many thanks to Jonas for the mention :)

Reference! Reference! - Free Animation Database

Check out this cool site with tons of free animation reference libraries http://www.referencereference.com/. Title says it all!

Rise of the Planet of the Apes :: Production Focus

CGSociety talked to the leads at Weta Digital about their work on 'The Rise of the Planet of the Apes'. VFX Supervisor Chris White gave some brilliant insights about the creative workflow.