Adding Controllers

Once the skeleton of this model was completed, it was time to start thinking about creating the appropriate controllers for the different joints on the body. This was probably one of the simplest stages because it mainly entailed importing the appropriate shape which was then to be placed and shaped accordingly.

 Controllers for the head, jaw, eyes, elbow, shoulders, centre and feet were created using circles which were then scaled up or down, or bent in order to fit with the shape of the body. For example the shoulder had to be scaled inwards and then bent slightly.

Controls for the hands, clavicles and the master control at the bottom were created using the CV Curve tool. When creating the shape around the hand, I selected "Cubic" so that it would automatically create a nice curved shape where I was clicking. The clavicles and master control however were done in the "Linear" setting whilst holding down "X" so that it would snap to the lines of the grid which I was using for reference.



COLOUR TIME!

 Once all of the controllers were in place, it was a matter of colouring them all appropriately to make it easier to identify them. This was done by selecting the control that needed to be coloured and then going into the authographic view and going into "Drawing Overrides" which then enabled me to select the colours for each control. (red for right, yellow for centre, blue for left)



Lots of Snapping..

There was also the stage of making sure that the pivot points of each controller were snapped to their respective joints in order to make sure everything would work properly later on. This was done by holding "V" and snapping the point in place.

This stage was one of the most enjoyable for me because I find making controllers and snapping things into place very satisfying... no really I'm not joking.

Another quick fix that was needed was the alteration of the geometry line from the arm to the hand. This was done pretty quickly using the orient tool, and could then be mirrored onto the other side so it saved some time! I then zeroed out all of the controls to they didn't have any garbage values left.