Elle Rig

Full body and face rig developed for Disney Research

Features:
-Advanced foot system with bend limit and toe straight angle customization
-FK/IK hybrid spine and trunk 
-Eyelid system with blink, wide, and soft follow features
-Auto stretch arms and legs
-Blendshapes for mouth expressions and breathing 
-Space switching throughout 
-FK/IK arms with custom finger curling attributes
-Trunk squash and stretch with volume preservation
-Control for belly bounce deformation
-Multi-joint ear system
-Rotate order options
-Character options including geometry display type
-Fully scalable 
-Unity ready 
​-Quick playback in Maya

Elle is a fully rigged anthropomorphic elephant that I created for a Disney Research augmented reality project. I had a lot of fun rigging this character not only because of its appealing model to work with, but I had a bit more time to incorporate some interesting features. 

This rig in particular features a robust foot system that allows the animator to set the angle for when the foot rolls forward and for when the toe straightens out. Additionally, I implemented stretchy joints and FK/IK switching to provide the animators with muliple options for bringing the character to life. 

Elle's trunk is a hybid FK/IK system with individual controls for rotation and translation. Advanced twist is also applied to the trunk to create a full twist throughout its length. For Elle's face rig, I built an eye system with several sets of joints to create blink, wide, and auto lid follow motions, and I sculpted mouth shapes to help reveal the emotions of the character. A feature version of the rig contains a bit more deformation techniques to preserve volume deformation throughout the spine and trunk. The green belly control allows for belly jiggle animation in any direction.