Scaling custom rigs in Maya

Hey all,

I just ran into a bit of an issue. The model I was given to rig was not the proper size when I rigged it (both myself and the modeller didn’t test it in game first). Is there a script out there that I can add to my rig that will let me just scale the root so I don’t have to completely redo it? Is this is a difficult thing to do? I really haven’t looked into it before. Any help is appreciated!

thanks

Stefan

I may not be the most experienced person here to answer this…but if you create a Global Controller group that contains your joints, iks, control objects, etc., I think you should be able to rotate/translate/scale that group as needed.

Hey Stefan,

I have had to deal with this tons, especially in game engines that dont support scale.

Unfortunatly if scale is not setup in the rig already you will most likely have to redo it. Your only saving grace may be if you have you controls and your export skeleton separated out, i generally go with this kind of structure:

charRoot
–>RootBone
–>ControlsGrp

If it was setup like this the steps would be:

Break connections from export skeleton joints
scale charRoot down to proper size
unparent ControlsGrp (This will make it store the scale information)
freeze transforms on charRoot
reparent the ControlGrp
then reset all of your constraints and skinning

As far as I know there isnt a universal way to just fix it, this is why double checking your work before you start is so important!

Good luck my friend!

Its hard to determine the exact problem without looking at the rig, but make sure that all of your IKs are outside of the scaling hierarchy because they do not scale. If you have group nodes for your rig and control separate, try scaling them together and see if that works. Often its just a few parts that can make it seem like the entire rig isn’t scaling properly. Geometry that aren’t bound will have to be scaled separately, but bound geo will scale with the joints they are attached to.

I’ve found that using direct connects to the main or move all control is a pretty easy way to get your rig to scale.

Good luck!

[QUOTE=Yawns;15445]Its hard to determine the exact problem without looking at the rig, but make sure that all of your IKs are outside of the scaling hierarchy because they do not scale. If you have group nodes for your rig and control separate, try scaling them together and see if that works. Often its just a few parts that can make it seem like the entire rig isn’t scaling properly. Geometry that aren’t bound will have to be scaled separately, but bound geo will scale with the joints they are attached to.

I’ve found that using direct connects to the main or move all control is a pretty easy way to get your rig to scale.

Good luck![/QUOTE]

This sounds very interesting, even though I know this post is a wee bit old, still a current issue.

I think the iks being in another group probably would help, a group OUTSIDE of the global node which should only have, I’m assuming,

CharWorld
[INDENT]Mesh
[INDENT]IKS
[INDENT]GLOBAL
[INDENT][INDENT]JOINTS
[INDENT][INDENT]CONTROLS

Something like that?

I know that I’ve seen folks set this up similarly without scale constraints since the children inherit the transforms of the parent group.
the IKS not scaling, makes sense why mine are slowly moving up when I scale down or up. I’m also wondering if it’s because I have the squash and stretch turned on during scaling? Not sure how to not include the cluster group since they are parented under the joints.