Hi, I am having some trouble with rigging bird wings that have to fold. I don't have any problem with rigging wings that are just open. This is for a school group project. I'm not sure where to use IK/FK. Any help is appreciated.

41 views and no one has any advice/solution?

folding wings of a bird is extremely tricky.

I found that the most control could be gained from adding extra “wing bones”.
Have a look at the rig in my reel around 1:00 =>
http://www.peterclaes.be/ [peterclaes.be]

How much of these bones you need depends on the accuracy you want. The more bones the nicer you will be able to fold the surface which controls the feathers.

This is a wing rig done by a friend of mine, it might give you ideas:
http://joplaete.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/wing-feather-tool-version-ii/ [joplaete.wordpress.com]


Also in real life birds often use their beak to put the feathers into the right position.

Other reference you might want to look into is that flying white creature in one of the earlier Harry Potter movies.

folding wings of a bird is extremely tricky.

It certainly ranks up there as one of the most difficult rigging exercises possible

diana
Hi, I am having some trouble with rigging bird wings that have to fold. I don't have any problem with rigging wings that are just open. This is for a school group project. I'm not sure where to use IK/FK. Any help is appreciated.

This might also help;
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=879&Itemid=132 [sidefx.com]

I would likely not use IK at all, rotations are your friend.

Hi, thanks for the response. I was able to find a lot of bird wing rigging tutorial on 3ds max and maya, but nothing on houdini. I did do some tests, and IK on the wing does give me problems. I found this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaoypChuU1U, [youtube.com] and we are trying to achieve something similar. I am able to rig it, probably not the best, correct rig, but it's workable. However, I'm not sure how to paint weights, etc in Houdini.