Flexible Rig | Part 3 | Stretchy Limbs

In part three of this #Maya #rigging #tutorial, we add stretch functionality to the limbs.
Huge thanks to 3DWorld for allowing me to share these with you. Make sure you check out the magazine, and subscribe.
www.myfavourit...
Say "Thanks!" with a Coffee and Earn Rewards -
www.ko-fi.com/...
Tools Used -
Autodesk Maya - www.autodesk.c...
Follow Me At -
/ antcgi
/ antcgi
/ antcgi
www.artstation...
Download -
www.cubebrush....
www.artstation...
www.gumroad.co...
flippednormals...

[@antCGi]

Thanks for watching and remember that I don't earn any advertising revenue from these 3DWorld videos. So if you find them useful why not say thanks with a coffee - ko-fi.com/antcgi - regular contributors get exclusive downloads ;)

[@tankthomus]

I'm loving your tutorials so far, but I have been struggling with this video in particular. I followed your instructions when creating the nodes and for some reason my Distance In Between node that's taking outputs from the locator and root control has an abnormally large distance (227 units) whereas my Full Distance node has a more accurate distance of 136 units. What's weird is that the distance between these two node setups is identical and should be the same value when the IK wrist control is set to its default position. I tried remaking this setup in another scene to see if it's my Maya version that's causing this problem, but I was able to get the whole Stretchy limbs nodes to work perfectly in that scene. I still do not understand why the Distance In Between node and the Full Distance node have radically different values even though they are both measuring the same distance. Do you happen to know what the problem is, or if I could find any help elsewhere with this issue? Thanks. EDIT: I finally figured it out! So When calculating the distance between two objects we use each object's "World Matrix" value. If you freeze all of the transforms on an object, this World Matrix value will get screwed up and give you an inaccurate value. The reason I was getting different values when they should have been the same, was because I froze the root controller's values and this screwed up it's World Matrix attribute. I fixed this problem by creating a 2nd locator and matching all of its transforms to the root controller. I then made it a child of the root controller so that it will follow the rig when it moves, and I used this new locator's "World Matrix" value instead of the root controller's value. If you are reading this and you are confused just leave a reply under my comment and I'll try to help.

[@michaelolasanya4135]

Your videos are awesome and we'll explained....Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us... Please keep on sharing... You have won a loyal subscriber... I'll be glad to see cool animation tutorials like for human and animal walk cycles and so on.... God bless you.

[@antCGi]

I’d love to do some animation tutorials at some point 👍

[@michaelolasanya4135]

@@antCGi I'll definitely be looking out it and more tutorials... Thanks

[@AlexM0rgan]

You mention you could use a set driven key to control the operation of the condition node, but I don't get the option when I try to set it up (can key every other part of the condition node except this). I'm having to use the expression editor and if else statements instead but would love to know if there's an easier way UPDATE: worked it out - in set driven key you need to click options and tick "show non-keyable attributes", then connect your stretch switch to the condition operation as normal. Despite claiming it's non-keyable it works :)

[@shakedpat1893]

Hey, thanks for the tutorials! i've tried some others before, this is definately the most informative and helpful ones that i've seen, you are really making it very easy to unterstand, and I appreciate it a lot. I've encountered an issue when trying to make the arm stretchy - it's either strechy but the arm doesn't straighten up all the way, and after it crosses the maximum scale mark it goes back to its natural folded state, or the elbow ik is stretching, but the shoulder ik doesn't. I've made sure that all of the connections are correct, the local rotation axis are facing the correct direction, I've tried using locators instead of the joints and correcting their local rotation axis, made sure that the numbers are almost or exactly the same and that the divided numbers giving me a result of 1 in the condition. I followed your guide one for one, on several scenes, clean and with the character that i'm working on but still didn't get the same results. Do you have any ideas why would it behave that way? HELPPPPPPP :)

[@antCGi]

Hi and thanks! Is the end locator parented correctly? You can download the final file here so you can check it out - ko-fi.com/post/Flexible-Rig---Final-Rig-Q5Q01DRPU

[@shakedpat1893]

It is parented correctly. I think I may have figured it out, though when animating the arm it's shaking up and down. Thanks for the reply!

[@relaxingbeverage7720]

@@shakedpat1893 how you figured it out bruv ?? i'm having the same issue :/

[@nguyenhakieunhung3242]

Hi there, thank you for the tutorial. I tried and it did work but there are a few problems. 1. I didn't have the "unitConversion" node popping up when I connect arm_stretch_distance to condition like you did at 8:30 2. It was stretching fine, but when I hit undo (ctrl+Z) to undo the movement/reset arm control back to 0, my elbow joint kept staying in the same spot when I moved the IK control. I don't know what I did wrong because it did work, it was just weird. Please let me know if you have any idea what the problem might be. Thank you!

[@FireCrewGAMING]

Well made tutorials, thanks for them! However, if we wanted to have the knees/elbows at a specfic spot and planted in this spot, how would we go about doing this within this rig set up? Will you perhaps make a tutorial acknowledging his in the future? Thanks!

[@antCGi]

Hi and thanks! You would need to create an elbow/knee pin control which wouldn’t work with this rig, but I’ll be covering it when we start to look at advanced rigging.

[@FireCrewGAMING]

@@antCGi Great! Looking forward to it!

[@RedfoxxVoid]

Hey, First thanks for your work and everything that you do for us, but I kind have an issue with that part of the tutorial. When I'm linking the "l_arm_stretch_dist" to the condition node (time code : 8:30), the "unit conversion" node does not appear, so it gives me strange values, and I end up with bugs and the stretching not working. Thanks again for everything

[@olesyatorokova]

Hey there, I have now the same Problem and don't know how to solw it now :/ Did you by any chance find it out..?

[@nguyenhakieunhung3242]

I have the same issue too. Although my rig did stretch, there's something weird about it. After moving my IK control, I hit undo to bring it back to the position before and the elbow joint didn't snap back. I have to manually turned transition and rotation of my IK control to 0 (even though they already said 0) to snap the joint back. Really weird and I don't know how to fix it.

[@mustaghasmughal9120]

hello brother i have followed your tutorial but arms are not stretching in my rigging process first term value is 14.575 and second term value is 4.902 and color if true value = 2.973 that is greater than color if false =1 what should i do please help me

[@bilbosmaug381]

Hello! I have a question. Instead of creating the arm root controller, can I use the translate values of the shoulder joint instead to find the total distance from the root of the joint to the locator?

[@aniketdhar9031]

Hello Sir, I have been following Your Tutorials for quite a some time now. I have successfully made the stretchy arm rig with the exact way You have shown us. But for one thing the stretchy rig is not working properly. Every time I am trying to rotate the Wrist Controller the Elbow joints ( the bind one ) is flicking abruptly. It's not staying in the place but when I am trying to move the Wrist Controller ( for stretching) the Elbow joints is behaving normally ( the stretch is working fine ). The Shoulder_Ik is working properly with the pole vector I don't know what causing the problem. I have been troubleshooting the problem ever since. Please Help......!!! Thank You

[@gracciliano]

very nice thanks

[@nataliadelafuente5484]

Hello there! First of all, thank you so much for the tutorials!! They´re the best rigging tutorials I´ve found online so far, even better than some I´ve paid for. I have a question that I hope you can answer, when starting to do the Stretchy arm, on the Node Editor, I cannot connect the World Matrix to de Distance Between node, it gives me an error message that just tells me it´s not possible to connect. I really don´t know why as I believe I´ve followed your same exact steps, so I hope you know a reason why this is happening. Thank you very much in advance! :)

[@antCGi]

Hi and thanks! Have you double checked your connecting the exact same nodes as in the video? so worldmatrix[0], not just worldmatrix?

[@nataliadelafuente5484]

@@antCGi Thank you for the quick response! Yes, I double checked and I was. I think it´s related to the Maya Version I´m using or some sort of difference in the configuration of the Node Editor itself. When I click and drag the "Other" tab that pops up in your video doesn´t show in my case. I solved it by opening both the Node Editor and the Connection Editor windows, so by selecting the nodes on the Node Editor and refreshing the connection sides on the Connection editor, it allows me to connect both parameters. It´s a bit uncomfortable but gets the job done, both my arms and legs are stretchy and working fine. I thought you´d like to know how to get around it in case somebody else asked! ^^

[@zakimuhammed4662]

Hello Anyone help me Please. I tried Exporting the Rig and the Animation with Stretchy turned on to Unity . the Animation works perfectly in Maya, but when i import the animation to unity It is Almost Stretched 20 times than how its been animated. please anyone help me. Thanks.

[@katiam1001]

Hello, Thanks for all your great videos first ! I've got a little problem. Everything's working but my elbow reation's is really strange when i'm streching my arm. It does'nt strech straight but my elbow is folding at the same time. I tried to delete my pole vector constraint and nothing's changing. Do you have any idea of what's happening? Thanks a lot for your time :)

[@chrisfo8545]

Did you find a solution for this problem? Have had it myself. Troubleshooted 2 days to try to solve it, but eventually gave up. Funny thing is that it worked on the first model I made, but didn't on the second. Which got me thinking that it had to have something to do with my options, so I doublechecked everything(I think) but still same result. Troubleshooted two days, but eventually gave up, wasn't that important to implement in that 2nd model anyway.

[@avinashcoolcracker9828]

hello i tried connecting world matricx of joint to in matrix distace node

[@47humza]

This video is of low quality? Please upload it again.

[@antCGi]

Looks ok to me, maybe it hadn't finished decoding?

[@michaelolasanya4135]

@Hamza Asad The videos are actually really high quality...

[@tankthomus]

If anyone is having trouble connecting the World Matix attribute to the distance in-between node then I can help. Select the distance in-between node then hold right click. There should be a button that says, "Show All Attributes", click this button. Now the distance in-between node should have two new inputs named "In Matrix 1" and "In Matrix 2". Now you can connect the Joint's World Matrix output to the Distance in-between node's "In Matrix 1" input.

[@rabiolislam244]

//Warning: Cycle on " expression3.output[o]" may not eavaluate as expected. (Use "cycleCheck -e off" disable this warning ). how will i solve this problem ? please tell me

[@antCGi]

Please post on my Facebook page and I will take a look. A screen shot would help too, and where in the video you are working.