Custom Attributes
I then moved onto looking at the custom attributes of the model so that I could create the peel heel movement and get the eyes to blink. To start this off I first had to create these attributes so that they appeared in the editor. This was a fairly simple process and it involved one menu and deciding whether the values needed to have a negative value or not.
Reverse Foot Setup
I then moved onto creating a reverse foot setup, which allows more control over the foot area and makes walk cycles look more convincing and generally a lot smoother. I started by creating a peel heel group with only the left IK handle selected and then moved its rotational pivot point so that it was over the ball of the left foot.
I then did the same for the toe tap group, so I again made a group but this time put both the ball and the tow IK handles in it and then once again moved the rotational pivot point so that it was over the ball of the foot.
For the stand tip group, this involved using both of the groups I had just created so I selected both of these and grouped them together so that I could still use the other groups as well.
As the previous group also operated the twist toe, I only had one more group to make, which again I created using the previous one and grouping it to itself and this is the last attribute which allows me to twist the heel.
I then started by actually mapping the controls to be able to move the geometry. I started with the peel heel and opened up the set driven key menu which is where I picked the control point to be the driver and the peel heel group in my outliner to be the driven key. This means that when the driver, the control point, is moved the driven key, the group, will move with it. Also for this I had to ensure that I had set key points so that when everything is at 0 so is the model and then when it is moved through to 10 the heel is moved upwards.
I then moved onto the top tap setup which was the same process again as it had mainly the same attributes just had negative values as well.
I then did the stand tip group, which again was the same process.
I then did the twist toe. This was in the same group as the stand tip so I didn't need to change the driver for this one. The only thing that was different about this one to the previous ones is that the rotational value is in Y instead of X.
The lastly I did the twist heel group, which was just the same as the twist toe one but the opposite way around.
I then did all of this again for the right leg.
Fist Control
I then moved onto the first control. This was fairly easy as you just moved the finger around so that they curved over the thumb and then move the thumb in so that it tucks under the fingers to form the fist. The only problem that I encountered with this is that I needed to add some weight painting to get it to look right, but this was a fairly easy task.
Blinking
I then moved onto adding the custom attribute blinking. Before I did this though I made some slight adjustments to the eyes to make them look even better then before and also to give him proper eyelids that weren't just one single plane of geometry.
I started off by taking the master control and grouping it to itself to create the control group to which I used to create a new layer for all of the controls. I then used the outliner to create groups for the eyes, lids and then one that all of them would sit in as well. This meant that it was a lot easier to select different parts when constraining the eyes to the joint chain. I used a parent constraint to attached the lids to the head joint and then again another parent constraint but this time the eyes to the eye joint.
Forearm Roll
I then moved onto the last custom attribute that I needed to do which is the forearm roll. This is so that when the hand moved in certain axis' the forearm will use this influence and turn along with it slightly to create a slightly more natural movement. This was a very confusing stage of the creation of this alien, and probably the most difficult to get my head around, but eventually managed to figure it out.
I started by creating a new material in the Hypershade menu called Multipy Divide and this enables you to be able to make connections between different joints and determine how they are influenced through different inputs and outputs. I used a tool called the Hypergraph to be able to do this, first selecting the wrist and forearm joint and the multiply and divide material and took them into the menu. I then used the connection editor menu to be able to edit the connections between the 3 points.
I ensured the the wrist was connected to the multiply divide tool with the output being the rotational value of X and then the input being input X. This then meant that when we connected the multiply divide tool with the forearm roll that this time the output was input X and then the input was rotate X.
I then did the same for the right side, but this time I had to change the output to input Y instead of X as it is already in use in the other arm. This isn't a problem as doesn't effect the model in any way as we are still using rotate X as the input value.
I then tested to ensure that it was working, which it was and you can see below that they is a twist in the forearm geometry where the hand is turning in X.
I then went back into the hypershade menu to finish up and opened up the menu so that I could see the inputs. Input 1 is the wrist and input 2 is the forearm. Currently the forearm is multiplying the wrist movement by 1 but we want to change this to 0.5 so that we can get a much smoother twist on the arm and avoid there being too much influence.
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