Rigging the Alien Character….

Open your Alien file that has bones and has the skin envelopes set up…

Here is what I have

Hide the skin

1. Adding IK Solvers to the bones

Go to the top view……

-Add an HI Solver from the bone_rightupperarm to bone_rightupperclaw1

-Add an HI Solver from the bone_leftupperarm to bone_leftupperclaw1

Add point controllers that are linked to the from the ik chain. Link IK chain to point controller….

Name the point controllers point_leftarm and point_rightarm

Move the point controllers. That arms should bend forward properly….

The above is the proper way

BUTTTTTT if they bend backwards you will have to fix the swivel angle of the arms

Straighten out the arms

We need to select the ikchain01 and select the motion button

This will bring up

Swivel control… I am going to have to change it to 180 degrees

Notice that now when I move the point controller it works better and the arms bend forward

If it needs it fix the left side as well.

Setting up all the IK Chains and the Point Controllers

You will have to set up six IK chains in total. You should have already done two….

The next 4 make the claws work properly…..

Make HI solvers from

Bone_leftclaw1 to bone_leftclaw1tip

Bone_leftclaw2 to bone_leftclaw2tip

And…

Bone_rightclaw1 to bone_rightclaw1tip

You should have six IK solvers at this point….

Now we will make point controllers that will be linked from the IK chains to control them….

See the diagram

Make 8 point controllers around the outside of the bones….

Named as you see on the diagram…

Link them in the directions shown by the arrows…..

So the point claws controllers are linked to the point rightarm controllers and then linked to the point moveentirebody controller

3 bones…. Bone_rightbody, bone_leftbody and bone_nose are linked to the Point_movebody controller…

Try them out….

The point claw controllers should allow you to move the claws.

The point arm controllers should move the arm

The point movebody controller should move the body but keep the arms and claws in their original place

The point moveentirebody controller should move the entire body

The perspective view should look something like this..

But wait….. I just learned that we can improve the movement of the claw by linking the point_leftclaw1 and point_leftclaw2 controllers for the claw to bone_leftlower arm. Do this for the right claw as well….

Turn on the Select and Manipulate buttons and the select and move button… You should see this now

Try grabbing the green handles and using them to rotate around the ik solvers.

You should be able to use the point controllers to move the limbs and the green swivel controllers to rotate the limbs

Okay now its time to start skinning the character

Save the file as “alien with arms and bones and rigging.max”