PhasRig

Experimentation with personal rig builder:

For the last few weeks, I've been scripting my own personal rig builder for maya. The builder, at it's core, is pretty simple. So anybody with a decent amount of knowledge of python and maya rigging would be able to add on to this builder or perhaps make it even better. So the builder will create and stitch pieces of rigs together to give you one clean, functioning rig. It starts out creating placers for you to position the joints. The placers only need translate values because it will orient itself and do it's best to stay planar. Within the next coming month, I should have the builder in good enough shape to start testing on a few different models, mostly including bipeds, qauadrepeds, or anything of those natures.

Builder Library Basics:

I have a library of scripts that piece together the end result rig. Within the library, there are 3 categories. "Builds", "Modules", and "UI". These three categories make up the entire rig builder. Each category has a significant purpose.

Within the "Builds" folder, there are some basic scripts that are needed to build a module. For instance, I have two base scripts. One script is for creating a controller for a specific joint and another is for creating joints connected to a specific module. These don't usually need any updates as I want the same creation every time.

Within the "Modules" folder, there are different types of rigs that can be pieced together in any number of combinations. For instance there is a script for each of the following. "Biped_Head", "Biped_Spine", "Biped_Clavicle", "Biped_Arm", "Biped_Hand", "Biped_Leg". All of these modules make up the standard biped. The same setup goes for any other type of rig, including quadreped. The builder basically makes you Dr. Frankenstein.

Within the "UI" folder, there lays only one script. This script is strictly only the UI element that calls to all other scripts within other categories. For instance, this ui calls to each module and each build script.

Rig builder so far

A Module Script Layout:

Each module has the exact same layout and once you create one, you can easily create another. Granted, there will be some differences depending on your rigging needs.

This layout is very simple but it's all I really need for each module. So each module looks the same but some may have more than others. For instance, the "Biped_Arm" has more than "Biped_Clavicle" because the clavicle has less setup in the rig.

Connecting The Libraries:

A lot of the builder scripts will call to other scripts but I've done my best to manage the layout and keep everything clean. To simplify what's happening, each module will call the "Builds" scripts and the UI will call each of the "Modules" scripts. That's basically it. There are some snippets in the modules being called from the "Modules" __init__ file but those will probably make their way to the "Builds" category.

More to come (pictures, videos, details)...