Adding custom attributes and controllers - Part 2 Spine



In a similar fashion to the work I’ve covered last week, this week I have taken care of adding custom attributes and controllers to the upper body. At the end of this work session I had the spine, neck and head of the model rigged.

The control shapes were the first to be added. I needed five different controllers affecting five different bones, some independently, some affecting two or more bones at a time.



As seen above, these controllers were in order:

  • COM controller (or the Master controller) – This controller serves as the main one: all the other (body) controllers have been linked to it. When moved, the whole body follows. The same is valid for rotation.
  • Hips controller – This controller takes care of the hips movement (or the spine base). When rotated, the pelvis follows the rotation along with the hips. However, the first spine bone should rotate to a degree as well as a result. To get that effect, ‘Parameter Wiring’ has been used: a new Euler XYZ rotation parameter has been created for the spine bone; that parameter has been then linked to the X rotation parameter of the controller, as seen in the picture below. Rotating the hips controller now affected the first spine bone as well.


  • Spine base controller – This controller takes care of the first and second spine bones movement, as the third ones orientation had been constrained to the neck controllers’. The controller was linked to the first spine bone.
  • Neck base controller – This controller takes care of the neck movement. The neck bones orientation had been constrained to this controllers’.
  • Head controller – This controller takes care of the head movement. The head bones’ orientation had been constrained to the head controllers’ and then to the neck controllers’. The head controller had been chosen as an orientation target for the neck bone. Rotating the head controller now rotates the head bone and the neck to a degree, making it look natural.


I have to mention that the instructions above do not cover all the steps that had been taken to rig the spine, but they do cover the most important parts – aspects that I have also learned as a result of performing these tasks. In the upcoming blog post I will be rigging the arms of the model.

(final result - random pose that tests the controllers)

References:

YouTube. (2019). Rigging a Character in 3ds Max - Part 8 - Spine Rigging. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2o265OdbfE&list=PLnKw1txyYzRlxh1-BT4CifPXC5TBg2vUd&index=32 [Accessed 16 Feb. 2019].

YouTube. (2019). Rigging a Character in 3ds Max - Part 6 - Spine Controls. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s8lKpaBru8&list=PLnKw1txyYzRlxh1-BT4CifPXC5TBg2vUd&index=30 [Accessed 16 Feb. 2019].





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