Creating a Magnum Mecha Character in Maya: Part 8

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

In this part of the tutorial, I'll show you how to create a complete rigging system for the robot.

1. Preparing the Robot for Rigging

Step 1

Open Maya. Open the file which was saved in the last part of the tutorial.

Step 2

Create a sky dome light and floor surface. With these items selected, create a new layer by clicking on Create a New Layer button under the Channel Editor.

Step 3

After creating the new layer, click on Visibility button to hide the contained elements.

Step 4

With all body meshes selected, go to Mesh > Combine command to combine selected meshes.

Step 5

With the combined mesh selected, go to Mesh > Separate command to separate the meshes.

Step 6

With all separate meshes selected, do a right click on the mesh to open the fly out menu. Select Assign Favorite Material > Lambert as shown in the following image.

Step 7

You'll need to mirror some deleted body parts after deleting the history.

Step 8

With all meshes selected, go to Edit > Delete by Type > History. Alternatively, you can press Alt-Shift-D key.

Step 9

With the foot of the robot selected, go to Edit > Duplicate Special and click on the option box.

Step 10

In the Duplicate Special Options window, turn on Copy radio button and set the value of Scale X to -1.00. Click on Duplicate Special button to apply duplicate command on the selected foot mesh element.

Step 11

You can see the mirrored right side foot as shown in the following image.

Step 12

Select the knee ball as shown in the following image.

Step 13

Go to Mesh > Combine command as shown in the following image.

Step 14

In this way, all leg parts have been duplicated.

Step 15

Following the same way, all right side's hand parts of the robo have been duplicated as well. All hand parts have been duplicated

2. Removing Unwanted Elements

Step 1

With the robo selected, go to Edit > Group. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl-G keys.

Step 2

In the Outliner window, rename the group as All_Meshes as shown in the following image.

Step 3

Select all group nodes as shown in the following image.

Step 4

You will see the one and only group as All_Meshes in the Outliner window.

Step 5

With all parts of the robo selected, go to Modify > Center Pivot command.

Step 6

Now, if you select any part of the mesh, you will see its center pivot as shown in the following image.

3. Creating Joints For Skeleton

Step 1

Jump in the side view. Go to Shading > Wireframe and turn on its radio button. Alternatively, you can press the 4 key on the keyboard.

Step 2

Go to Skeleton > Create Joints tool as shown in the following image.

Step 3

With the Joints Tool selected, create four leg joints from hip to toe as shown in the following image.

Step 4

Rename the joints as Left_Thigh_Jnt, Left_Knee_Jnt, Left_Heel_Jnt and Left_ToeTip_Jnt.

4. Mirroring Joints

Step 1

With Left_Thigh_Jnt selected, go to Skeleton > Mirror Joints option box.

Step 2

In the Mirror Joint Options window, turn on Mirror across YZ radio button and then write Left_ in Search for text field and Right_in the Replace with Right_ text field. Click on Mirror button as shown in the following image.

Step 3

After applying the Mirror command, you can see the renamed and duplicated mirrored joints in the Outliner window.

5. Creating Spine, Root and Head Joints

Step 1

With the Joints Tool selected, create 3 spine joints from hip to chest as shown in the following image.

Step 2

Create two more joints from chest to neck as shown in the following image.

Step 3

Jump in the front view. With the Joints Tool selected, create only one joint under the spine joints on the center of the grid as shown in the following image.

6. Parenting Joints

Step 1

For parenting the joints, select the spine joint followed by the bottom joint and then press the P key.

Step 2

You can see that the bottom joint is now the parent of the spine joint.

Step 3

Following the same way, select the neck joint followed by the chest joint and then press the P key.

Step 4

Rename the indicated joints as Root_Jnt, Hip_Jnt, Abs_Jnt, Chest_Jnt, Neck_Jnt, and Head_Jnt.

Step 5

Following the same way, create head joints in the side view and rename these as Head2_Jnt and HeadTip_Jnt as shown in the following image.

Step 6

In this way, the spine, root and head joints are completed.

7. Creating Head and Fingers Joints

Step 1

With the Joints Tool selected, create 3 left hand joints from arm to wrist in the front view as shown in the following image.

Step 2

Jump in the perspective view and then put the joints inside the hand mesh as shown in the following image.

Step 3

With the Joints Tool selected, create 3 left thumb joints from start to end as shown in the following image.

Step 4

Jump in the perspective view and then move the created thumb joints inside the thumb mesh.

Step 5

Go to Shading > X-Ray and turn on the check box as shown in the following image.

Step 6

With all thumb joints selected, reduce the Radius value to 0.25.

Step 7

Move the joints inside the thumb mesh properly and resize as well.

Step 8

Following the same way, create four joints for the index finger.

Step 9

Move the joints inside the index finger mesh properly and resize as well.

Step 10

Following the same way, create four joints for the middle finger and move the joints inside the mesh properly and resize as well.

Step 11

In the same way, create four joints for the small finger also and move the joints inside the mesh properly and resize as well.

8. Setting Up Orientation of Joints

Step 1

With the thumb root joint selected, click on Select by Components button followed by Select Miscellaneous Components button on status button bar.

Step 2

Now you can click on the thumb joint gizmo and rotate it in local axis as shown in the following image.

Step 3

Following the same way, click on Index joint's gizmo and then rotate it in one way local axis as image shown.

Step 4

Hide the robot mesh and then orient the index finger joints as shown in the following image.

Step 5

Click on the middle and small finger joints gizmos and then rotate in the local axis as shown in the following image.

Step 6

Rename the hand joints as Left_Arm_Jnt, Left_Elbow_Jnt and Left_Wrist_Jnt.

Step 7

Rename the thumb finger joints as Left_Thumb_Jnt01, Left_Thumb_Jnt02 and Left_Thumb_Jnt03.

Step 8

Rename index finger joints as Left_Index_Jnt01, Left_ Index _Jnt02, Left_ Index _Jnt03 and Left_ Index _Jnt04.

Step 9

Rename middle finger joints as Left_Middle_Jnt01, Left_ Middle _Jnt02, Left_ Middle _Jnt03 and Left_ Middle _Jnt04.

Step 10

Rename small finger joints as Left_Small_Jnt01, Left_ Small _Jnt02, Left_ Small _Jnt03 and Left_ Small _Jnt04.

9. Mirroring Head Joints

Step 1

In the panel menu bar, go to Show > Polygon and turn on the check box to show all polygons in the view port.

Step 2

With left arm joint selected, go to Skeleton > Mirror joints option box.

Step 3

In the Mirror Joints Options window, turn on Mirror across YZ radio button and then write Left_ in Search for text field and Right_ in the Replace with text field followed by clicking on Mirror button as shown in the following image.

Step 4

In this way, all hands and fingers joints have been mirrored and renamed as well.

10. Parenting All Joints

Step 1

With Left_Thumb_Jnt01, Left_Index_Jnt01, Left_Middle_Jnt01, Left_Small_Jnt01 selected followed by Left_Wrist_Jnt, press P key to make the Left_Wrist_Jnt as the parent.