Walk before you can perform complex Karate moves

Conextual and industry research aside, I've been concentrating on learning how to actually do what I plan to. The character is a fairly standard quadropedal type, and rigging should be a fairly straight forward albeit long and complicated. There are going to be a few custom attributes and driven keys for sure, but he'll be quite a bit more manageable than Megatron. At least he doesn't have to turn into a dog or something.

In order to learn everything I need to know, I've been steadily working through the training guide "Learning Maya 5: Character Rigging and Animation."









It's pretty heavy going, though I understand most of it quite quickly, the process demands meticualous attention to detail. I often find myself having to go back several steps because I missed a decimal point in the channel box or I didn't freeze the transformations before adding IK effectors etc etc etc. However I am well used to this type of thing hapenning and the frustrations of the "two steps forward one step back" way of working have long since melted away. However the process is logical, and I like the level of control I can create for my digital puppet. I will endeavour throughout the making of TB to create a character that would be as easy to understand as possible if I were to hand him over to an animator.

Anyway, here's a snapshot of the WIP. The character is a bit lame, why can't we animate interesting characters in training guides? Must the end product always be dull and completely unexciting? Oh well, I'll spice him up with some super Ninja skillz later on.