Rigging Vehicle Help

[greenvampire]

Hi Guys, Im currently trying to rig a vehicle in Maya, so that I dont have the keyframe each object.
I've tryed "Davveys Vehicle Rig" but it wont load... which is annoying.

so, does any one have any suggestions on how to do it... im only really needing wheel rotation constraints and possibly body roll.

Im new to using constraints and mel scripts in Maya, my Maya teacher was usless back at Uni, so we ended up just keyframing every object seperatly.


thanks in advance for any help

[Masakari987]

I wrote a tutorial on door rigging that has several aspects that could be helpful.

There are three aspects that may help you, a locator, user created attributes, and knowing expressions (Set Driven Key can also be useful, depending on what you are wanting the car to do). Use the locator as the main control where you can control the various animation through a single unrenderable object. You add controls by adding attributes (Add Attribute under Modify) to the locator. Then use expressions to link one attribute (i.e. Rotate X of the left rear wheel) to an attribute you created on the locator (say...rearWheel_spin). Then do the same for the right front tire by linking to the attribute rearWheel_spin. Then you can do a similar thing to the other objects.

Then when you need to key the animation, you can simply key specific attributes on the locator instead each object.

Let me know if this made sense or not.

[multimediaman]

Originally Posted by obsolete?

Not completely sure how Maya tackles the issue, but for me, I prefer one dummy for ever axis the objects move or rotate on... When I created my Portland Int'l Raceway video, my cars all had a rigging convention that I thought up myself, for what would give me the most control of the vehicle's animation... and this idea of breaking everything up by axis of movement seems to be the best solution.

So for our hypothetical car, we'll think of our alignment as:

Driving direction: Y axis
Sides of car: X axis
Height: Z axis.

So for the tires, they spin along the X axis... they steer along the Z axis, and camber along the Y axis... so for the most realism when you're steering the car while it's stopped... you'd require a steering dummy that rotates to steer the tire, and a camber dummy that rotates to camber in or out, depending on which way you steer.

I usually name my dummies something easily recognizeable... like:

(without the parentheses, which are used to separate naming convention units)

(D)(type)_(objectname)_(specialnotes)
(D) - indicates the object is a dummy
(type) - indicates what the dummy is supposed to control about objectname
(objectname) - the same name as the object that the dummy controls.
(specialnotes) - gives further description of (type), if needed)


So here's an example of my subaru impreza outback sport wagon's rig setup:


Domni_ImprezaWagon - main vehicular positioning dummy
|_Drotate_vehicle_spinout - for spinning vehicle from the center
-|_Drotate_vehicle_fishtail - for slipping the rear of the vehicle out during turns
--|_Dorigin_axle_F - used as a guide in re-alignment of suspension
--|_Dorigin_axle_R - used as a guide in re-alignment of suspension
--|_Dpos_axle_F - controls height of both tires at once
---|_Drotate_steeringL - steers the front-left wheel
----|_Drotate_tire_fl - spins the front-left wheel
-----|_tire_fl - the front-left wheel itself
---|_Drotate_steeringR - steers the front-right wheel
----|_Drotate_tire_fr - spins the front-right wheel
-----|_tire_fr - the front-right wheel itself
--|_Dpos_axle_R - controls height of both tires at once
---|_Drotate_tire_rl - spins the rear-left wheel
----|_tire_rl - the rear-left wheel itself
---|_Drotate_tire_rr - spins the rear-right wheel
----|_tire_rr - the rear-right wheel itself
--|_Drotate_body_roll - both tilts the car side to side, and front to back
---|_Body - car body itself
---|_glow_brakes - Brakelight glow objects
---|_glow_turnsigRL - Rear-Left Turn Signal
---|_glow_turnsigRR - Rear-Right Turn Signal
---|_glow_runningLamps - DTRL glow objects
---|_glow_headlights - headlight glow objects
---|_glow_hibeams - high beams glow objects
---|_glow_turnsigFL - Front-left turn signal
---|_glow_turnsigFR - Front-Right turn signal
---|_glow_centerbrake - Rear center brake glow object
---|_RaceCarDriver - the chick driving the car
---|_ImprezaExhaust - exhaust particle system
---|_Drotate_doorFL - door
----|_Dpos_windowFL - door window Front-Left
----|_Dorigin_windowFL - window re-alignment dummy
---|_Drotate_doorFR - door
----|_Dpos_windowFR - door window Front-Right
----|_Dorigin_windowFR - window re-alignment dummy
---|_Drotate_doorRL - door
----|_Dpos_windowRL - door window Rear-Left
----|_Dorigin_windowRL - window re-alignment dummy
---|_Drotate_doorRR - door
----|_Dpos_windowRR - door window Rear-Right
----|_Dorigin_windowRR - window re-alignment dummy
---|_Drotate_boot - boot/trunk/5th door
---|_Drotate_bonnet - bonnet/hood



small note: a curve editor can make re-alignment of obejects easier than eye-balling it all the time.... but re-alignment dummies (Dorigin) can be the best, when you're trying to work quickly...



does this type-out of my rig system help you out or at least give some ideas how to get started with your own rigging conventions?

****edit****

oh my... I just realized you may be meaning "rig" as in, getting the tires to rotate as the car moves... heh

I prefer all the stuff hand-animated myself... the expressions that I've worked with all fall short of anything that's useful to me. The one time I've sat down and worked up a speed-based expression for rotating my tires, I got a circular dependancy error, and never bothered with it since.

[greenvampire]

Originally Posted by Masakari987

I wrote a tutorial on door rigging that has several aspects that could be helpful.

There are three aspects that may help you, a locator, user created attributes, and knowing expressions (Set Driven Key can also be useful, depending on what you are wanting the car to do). Use the locator as the main control where you can control the various animation through a single unrenderable object. You add controls by adding attributes (Add Attribute under Modify) to the locator. Then use expressions to link one attribute (i.e. Rotate X of the left rear wheel) to an attribute you created on the locator (say...rearWheel_spin). Then do the same for the right front tire by linking to the attribute rearWheel_spin. Then you can do a similar thing to the other objects.

Then when you need to key the animation, you can simply key specific attributes on the locator instead each object.

Let me know if this made sense or not.

Cool thanks for that mate, I think I know what you mean... I will check out your tutorial and ill let you know if I get stuck

[greenvampire]

Originally Posted by multimediaman

****edit****

oh my... I just realized you may be meaning "rig" as in, getting the tires to rotate as the car moves... heh

I prefer all the stuff hand-animated myself... the expressions that I've worked with all fall short of anything that's useful to me. The one time I've sat down and worked up a speed-based expression for rotating my tires, I got a circular dependancy error, and never bothered with it since.

cheers mate, yeah I would like to do a rig as in gettin everything to move at once...just to save me a bit of time for the multiple car animations I've got to do, but worse come to worse, ill just set key each object lol

[et_fone_home]

Originally Posted by greenvampire

Hi Guys, Im currently trying to rig a vehicle in Maya, so that I dont have the keyframe each object.
I've tryed "Davveys Vehicle Rig" but it wont load... which is annoying.

Which version of maya are you using? because its 7.0 and above, i have it working for 7.0 and 8.0.

[greenvampire]

Originally Posted by et_fone_home

Which version of maya are you using? because its 7.0 and above, i have it working for 7.0 and 8.0.

Im using 7.0 at the moment,

Heres a step by step of what I did... see if I've done anything wrong lol :

- Copyied the Mel scripts to Program Files/Alias/Maya7/Scripts

- Copyied the Other files to the Icons folder

- Opened Maya

- Tried typing in DVY_VehicleRigger.mel (in the command line) and got the error : Error: Cannot find procedure "DVY_VehicleRigger.mel".

- Opened the Script Editor and did " File / Source Script..." ... nothing happened

- Opened the Mel file, copyied the script, and pasted it into the script Editor, then executed it... this made a shelf icon for the script... but nothing else happens.


I then thought, "Maybe its my car thats causing the problem", so I tryed using the un-rigged test car you get with the script.... still nothing.




its just one of those bloke things were I wanna fix it and make it work.... I could use other methods which would probably be just as quick, just wanna get this working!

[greenvampire]

Update:

I've managed to rig the car by picking bits from these three tutorials::

Tutorial: Rigging A Vehicle

http://www.smcars.net/forums/tutoria...oors-maya.html

Maya Animation Rotating Wheels on a Car - Maya Tutorial Tutorial

I used the basics of the first two tutorials to grasp an understanding of all the elements I would need, and applied these basic skills to rigging the main car (shell and wheels moving from a Curve Arrow shape)(I did not use the Joints in the first tutorial either)
I then used the Third tutorial to rig my wheels to rotate with the movement of the shell.

I still need to figure out how to limit the steering of the front wheels, so that they will not go past -25 + 25 in the Y rotation.... otherwise they will eventually turn "the wrong way" when the car does a 180...
Worst case senario fix for this, is to have the steering on a seperate control, or on a set expression like on Masakari987's door tutorial.

idealy, I would like everything to work off my Main "BodyCtrl" , which currently:
-Translates the Body + Wheels on all axis'
-Rotates Body on all axis'
-Rotates Wheels on X Axis with the movement of the car

[greenvampire]

::Updated::

Decided to create the steering control by using a seperate controler, and using the "Set Driven Key" method, set one driven key with the rotation one way, then again for the oposite direction... seems to work nice

so, all sorted hopefully, I will report back if I have problems.... if any one is having the same trouble and wants me to explain further just gimmi a shout, and ill try write some basics down... but you cant go far wrong with the three tutorials above