Raptor365
09-28-2009, 09:54 PM
This is a proof of concept for a bird wing animation rig I need for a personal project.
The rigs I've seen in the past included bones/joints and were primarily for one purpose, flight.
I need a number of independatnt feathers with a fully animatable wing structure for a specific animation script that is capapble of full control over the wing shapes and feather angles.
This is my latest and most promising rig that I did today that uses seperate feathers to describe the wing look. Something I need.
Shown here is one layer with proxy feathers(red lo-polys). The feathers can be anything from polys to Cloner-style C4D realistic hair style feathers.
Everything right now is done with xpresso and Coffee coding (shown in the first few frames).
The concept is simple:
-3 controllers (green triangles) are used to position the wing and feather directions which control 3 corresponding points of a B-Spline.
Similar to a C4D IK-Spline rig, withought the joints.
More controllers are ofcourse possible if needed.
-The positions of the controllers, currently polygon cubes, dictate the shape and length/stretch of the wing while the rotation of the controls dictate the angle of the feathers.
Ideally there would be 3 banks of feathers on the same wing with various angle and position offsets but under the guides of 3 global controllers like shown here.
(3 or more controllers)
The remaining inner section of the wing where it nears the body would be standard polygons and hair/fur as with real bird geometry.
This rig is for the bigger wing feathers only, not for the fluffy body hair.
The advantage to this rig for me is that toon animations are more easily done, such as going from a closed/resting position to opening and mimicking covering ones eyes, giving the finger, ect.
The controllers themselves can be morphed so wing 'routines' can be made up ahead of time and morphed.
So I think this rig may work for what I need, I hope.
Anyways, that's sort of it so far. Bird wings. Sheeesh.
Your thoughts are welcome.
//edited: See below.
The rigs I've seen in the past included bones/joints and were primarily for one purpose, flight.
I need a number of independatnt feathers with a fully animatable wing structure for a specific animation script that is capapble of full control over the wing shapes and feather angles.
This is my latest and most promising rig that I did today that uses seperate feathers to describe the wing look. Something I need.
Shown here is one layer with proxy feathers(red lo-polys). The feathers can be anything from polys to Cloner-style C4D realistic hair style feathers.
Everything right now is done with xpresso and Coffee coding (shown in the first few frames).
The concept is simple:
-3 controllers (green triangles) are used to position the wing and feather directions which control 3 corresponding points of a B-Spline.
Similar to a C4D IK-Spline rig, withought the joints.
More controllers are ofcourse possible if needed.
-The positions of the controllers, currently polygon cubes, dictate the shape and length/stretch of the wing while the rotation of the controls dictate the angle of the feathers.
Ideally there would be 3 banks of feathers on the same wing with various angle and position offsets but under the guides of 3 global controllers like shown here.
(3 or more controllers)
The remaining inner section of the wing where it nears the body would be standard polygons and hair/fur as with real bird geometry.
This rig is for the bigger wing feathers only, not for the fluffy body hair.
The advantage to this rig for me is that toon animations are more easily done, such as going from a closed/resting position to opening and mimicking covering ones eyes, giving the finger, ect.
The controllers themselves can be morphed so wing 'routines' can be made up ahead of time and morphed.
So I think this rig may work for what I need, I hope.
Anyways, that's sort of it so far. Bird wings. Sheeesh.
Your thoughts are welcome.
//edited: See below.