Maya Workshop: Biped Modelling in Maya Part 3

Adding Controls
In this next session I added in all of the control points which were necessary for controlling the movement of the model. This again was a fairly easy stage, adding in simple circle control points for most of the body and then slightly altering some for others. The control points that we added in first were all NURBS primitive.

So to begin with I started by adding in the circular controls which went on the root, hip displacement, spine, elbows and the top of the head. These only had to be simple control points as they would only be rotating in certain direction and not moving anywhere else.

For the feet it was slightly different, I started by adding in a circular control but then used the vertex points to be able to manipulate the shape to match the shape of the foot, before duplicating it for the other.

I then wanted to create the master controls for the model which goes onto the bottom of the feet. To be able to make this I used the  CV Curve tool and made sure that it was on linear so that we could draw straight lines and use the grid to snap the points to it. I then moved it down to the bottom of the feet and snapped it to the joints so that it was in place.

I then moved onto adding in the eye and eyebrow controls which again were simple NURBS primitive circles but the eyebrow shape was changed just slightly so that we could recognise them as brows instead of eyes which were right underneath.

I then moved onto adding in the finer details, we first started by adding in the clavicle control and then also the top of the spine movement, which we changed the shape of slightly so that we could differentiate from the rest of the arrows, and made it slightly bigger.

I then went down to the knees and added in two locators on them so that we could track and bend the knees later on, this is a good way of knowing where there going to be moving.

 I then finished up by adding in control points around the top of the shoulders, around the jaw and then finally around the top of the neck. I have now finished adding in all of the control points and will move onto connecting those to the geometry of the body so that they all move together.

I then went about editing the control points slightly so that all of the pivot points where in the correct location, and where on the correct joint. We did this by moving the pivot instead of the actual control points and went through them all to ensure that the points where all in the correct location.

I then went and colour coded all of the control points. There is generally a rule that all the points on the left are blue and on the right, red. So I when through everywhere and made sure everything was the correct colour.

I then went through and made all of the control points that were in the middle, yellow. This doesn't have a rule but I wanted to make it a nice bright yellow, just so it stood out against the others. Then also at the bottom made the master control white, again so it could be clearly seen.