Bourbon Rigging: Part 02

I've managed to get some time in lately to explore developing my rig for Bourbon in some extra detail; I've finally started to add some controls and explore the wire parameters settings. 

The rig is a mixture of IK/FK controls, with three duplicated copies of bones which I've colourised to help visualise in viewport. 

Green= Skinned Bones

Blue= IK bones

White = FK bones

As a result I've built an IK/FK switch into the global control to allow for extra manoeuvrability in animation. See pics below... 

Fig.1 An IK solver in action on the legs

Fig,2 An IKspline inside the neck

Fig.3 The spine twisting to show IK/FK falloff of the character rig

Fig.4 The Rig so Far

Bourbon: Rigging Part 01

Back to Bourbon, my quirky military rabbit character, I've started to build an animated rig for the character. This took some careful consideration of joint placement, as to how he would move. I couldn't just Rig him as I would a homanoid character since this would restrict the movement of the pelvis.

Step one was simply adding all of the bones into the right orient and position and making sure they were 'linked' or parented into each other accordingly. (See the schematic view to the right hand side of fig.1). 

Fig.1 Adding bones/joints to our rig.

The second stop I started to look into the different kinds of IK chain solvers I could deploy for my rabbits rig. See here I've also introduced a knee and foot control to counter animate twists and bends in the IK. 

Fig.2 Adding IKsolvers to the legs