Russell Griffith-Marlin
Rigging and Animation Tech Artist
Kumo
Frog Ninja Rig
Character concept, modeling, texture, and animation by Michelle Lumowa
I had so much fun developing the rig for this character as she created and animated Kumo during our time at Gnomon working on this project for our Demo Reel. We worked closely through updates and revisions to bring her vision together for a final animation in Unreal Engine 5. This rig features a number of fun features to allow for extreme poses and a responsive chain setup that could meet the needs of animation.
We were faced with some big challenges while in the development phase of the project.
Our 2 biggest challenges... were the legs/feet and the chains for the weapon needed to be thrown long distances while keeping control in the animators hands.
How would the legs work... and what would that look like animated? What do the chains need to seem solid but allow for squash and stretch yet still be manageable for the animator?
The Frog Strikes Back...
The core issue... was the legs and how to have full range of motion. I used 2 sperate IK's, one being the IK Spring Solver and a regular IK rotate solver. Having the spring drive the lower leg and the rotate IK to drive the upper leg.
Using this setup... a Pole constraint would drive the upper leg with some reparenting of controls, I was able to have the IK Spring Solver drive the lower ankle position. The legs work like a normal IK leg just now using that Spring Solver I was able to attach cubes at the ankles to then allow for full range of motion on the lower legs without affecting the overall leg orientation.
With this in mind... I was able to place a Reverse foot set up to drive the feet and attach the toes like fingers. This all combined together allowed for full articulation of the foot and toes.