Cat Quad-Rigging

Here is the entire process of rigging a quadruped character from scratch - from basic techniques for creating bones, capturing geometry, setting up IK for bones, blendshapes for the face, creating spine and tail, as well as creating custom parameters to controllers for additional user control.

In this video we will be importing our geometry, assigning a material and creating a world controller null, so that we are ready to rig the character. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Download scene file here: sidefx.com More info: blaabjergb.com/houdini-rigging

In this first of two videos, we will be building part of the front leg. In this video, we will be creating the bone chain for the leg and setting up the FK controllers along with the IK. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Tutorial by Bjørn Blaabjerg Sørensen https://blaabjergb.com/houdini-rigging Download scene file here: https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/cat-quad-rigging-01-getting-started

In this second of two videos, we will be finalizing the front leg. In this video, we will be creating twist effectors and custom parameters to drive the IK/FK blend.

In this video, we will be creating the hind leg of the quadruped with IK/FK blend, twist effectors and custom parameters. This process used in the video will be very similar to the one used when rigging the front leg, seen in the previous two videos.

In this video, we will be mirroring our front and hind leg setup with the mirror tool. After mirroring the rig legs we will proceed to connect our custom parameters up to the new mirrored legs and making the rig ready for the next step.

In this video, we will be creating a spine, and during the video, we will be exploring two different methods for creating an IK setup on a bone chain driven by a NURBS curve.

In this video, we will be creating the tail setup with both IK and FK controllers. After having created the tail, we are going to connect it up to the spine.

In this video, we will be connecting the various rig parts up, and setting up a blend system for the front legs so that they can be driven by either the hip or world.

In this video we will be creating the neck for the creature with an IK/FK switch.

In this video, we will be creating the head setup for the quadruped with jaw and ears. We will also be importing and testing our blendshapes for the face.

In this video, we will be connecting the blendshapes up to our face controllers, so that the animator can drive the shapes of the face. We will also be looking into methods of limiting our controller nulls from translating too far away from the character.

In this video, we will be creating the eye setup for the character using look-at constraints.

In this video, we will be exploring different methods of capturing the geometry, to drive it with the bones of the rig. We will also be looking into mirroring of the bind and the delta mush node.

In this final video, we will be creating a digital asset of our quadruped rig, to be able to export it for use in a pipeline. We will also be taking a quick look at how to expose and edit select parameters in the finished asset.