Posing – rinnging and weight painting in Maya 7

OK, so why am I using Maya 7 I hear you scream. Well Mostly for convenience, the computer I use in the 3D studio (the only one with Zbrush) only had Maya 7 so I thought I’d just roll with that edition.

Initially I was going to use the trans-pose tool in Zbrush, but after having a few test runs with it I found that it didn’t pose the model well enough (I was very sloppy). So I asked the technical support if rigging and weight painting would be worth my time and it turned out that even though I was a complete noobe at the proses, it didn’t take long at all.

Step By Step

First I had to create the skeleton or rig for the Rex, I made sure the initial point to start from the pelvis or pubic bone because that would be the central balance point (which would be the case for real dinosaurs as the pubic bone acts as pivot and is essential for balance).

Making the rig was quite easy as it followed the same pattern as the bones or a real dinosaur.

Once the basic rig was in I positioned and copied the arms and legs, then i rigged the tongue. I also had to make sure the bones were quite a ways into the body so I had an easier time weight painting.

Once the rig was complete and attached to the mesh it was time for weight painting. I must admit I’m not a fan of weight painting, I find it laborious and dull but luckily I was only posing my creature so I wouldn’t have to spend as much time on it, if I were rigging for animation it would have taken a lot longer.

To start I moved the model into the pose I wanted then I worked out what needed to be bound to what, luckily I didn’t have many problems with this part of the project it was just a time consuming job. I was very happy with the result though it was my first ever time weight painting, my model seemed to come that much more alive which kept me working that much more harder to get the model completed. All in all it took me about 5 hours to rig and weight paint my model fro this pose.