Zoey Rig

Full body and face rig developed for Disney Research

​Features:
-Custom foot attributes including multi-pose roll
-Robust face rig with 40+ blend shapes
-Auto and manual arm twist options
-Additional humerus twist attribute
-Stretchy FK arms and tongue
-Auto closed mouth option
-FK/IK hybrid spine with advanced twist
-FK/IK arms with custom finger attributes
-Soft follow eyelid deformation
-Dynamic parenting
-Rotate order options
-Character options including geometry display type
-Fully scalable
-Corrective shapes 
-Unity ready 
​-Quick playback in Maya

Zoey is a character with great personality, and I had the the opportunity to help bring her to life through a summer project at Disney Research. The rig that I built for her is usable for both feature and game productions, and my team at Disney used her for an interactive animation where users choose the events of the story. Additionally, Zoey was tested within the Unity game engine. Because of this, my challenge as a rigger was to ensure that she contained the necessary features to work within a game engine while still being robust for feature animation. 

Using Disney Research's Viseme technology for autonomous speech, I spent a great deal of effort sculpting 40+ mouth blendshapes to allow for a wide array of mouth movement. The auto speech animation applies to the blendshapes and then the animator is able to make adjustments through the facial controls. In addition, I implemented an eyelid system that allows for blink, wide, and automatic soft follow deformation. 

For Zoey's body, I implemented FK/IK switching for her arms, along with custom finger attributes that help to create quick hand poses such as a fist. Her FK and IK arms are capable of stretching, and her spine rig is set up to allow for advanced twisting. Lastly, additional features including space switching, rotation order options, and arm twist options provide the animator with more choices for bringing Zoey to life.