PhasRig - Update v002

To stay updated on the progress i'm making while creating this tool, I'm posting everything in as much detail as i can and this week i have some new modules, some slight changes in configuration, and some more UI design changes. 

Lets start with the easiest change, which is the UI design. So instead of using the placeholder images that looked like spheres, i've made some more intuitive and easier to read images for the buttons. Something to give it my own personal touch. Hopefully the style sticks. To let the builder read these images easily and not get confused when trasnferred to another machine, i created a folder inside the "ui" folder called icons, similar to an installed package. The idea is to create a .zip file of the top folder and extract that into the maya scripts folder and then it's ready to go. Maybe sometime i'll look into creating a plug-in or install method but for now, this works perfectly fine. 

I've made a few additions to the module set that i have. So far i've created a spring ik/fk leg that i will use for my quadreped hind legs. I'm currently working on something simlar to the front legs but i might hold on that until i create something better in mind. I've also started laying out a module to use for a wing. This one i'll address in more detail later. 

Aside from the new modules, i've been editing the way i'm indexing the modules when they are built. For this i'm currently using an index number on everything inside a module. For instance, when you create an arm, the arm will be called "Arm##_PlacerGrp". Every object will have that index within it's name. There are a few issues with this method that i still need to address. One, the code could be slightly cleaner. Two, i could end up having too many numbers in an object name. Something like "Finger01_01_Jnt". I do have another solution in using the dag hierarchy but this might take some time to integrate into the scripts.

The spring ikfk module i created is for a quadreped hind leg. Right now there's nothing special about the hind leg, it's just using the old spring Ik handle because i wanted the hind leg to compress the joints equally for now. I will probably change this setup to a two chain ik rig to make this slightly more stable.

Now for the wing module. This module is quite a bit different in terms of creation and the controlablility of how many fingers / knuckles to create.

For most modules, i have a popup that will ask if you want to create a left side, right side, or both. The wing module will have a lot of pop ups until i figure something better out. The first pop up will ask you if you want a flat wing or upright wing. this only changes the starting point positions of the placers and doesn't change the creation aspect. Flat would be for dragon types and upright would be for fairy types. this just makes the creation process faster. the next pop up will ask how many fingers/joint chains you want. and the one after that will ask how many knuckles/joints you want per chain. right now both the fingers and knuckles only support up to 5 joints, which is plenty for realistic characters. 

The next thing that the wing has that's different is that each placer is created along a curve. then the placer controls the cv's of that curve, which is then lofted into a surface. so if you create more than 1 finger and knuckle, you'll get a surface between each joint chain. the builder will create a new curve at the midsection of the surface. Below you can see a reference picture of what the placers and surfaces look like. They're all live connections. 

The wing might need a little more work but for now this will help me get started on a simple wing rig.