So today I starting working on the posing rig for the Hunter. It’s becoming pretty complicated but I’m very hopeful that it’ll work. Well, I know it’ll work, but will it work the way I want, i.e. will it be easy enough to pose, and could I stand to pose ten’s and ten’s of these. These guys travel in packs, and are known to attack in packs.

There are several differences between rigging in Sketchup or using Maya. Here are the big ones I see:

• In Maya control nodes are easily selectable, with all rotation axis available to grab. In Sketchup I have to snap the rotation tool to a surface that mimics the angle I want to rotate on (hence why the strangeness in the rigging shapes see below).
• In Maya I can use reference of the real model in real time with other models I might be posing.
• In Sketchup, all hidden and “inking lines that I’ve already sculpted are maintained. If I import a posed model in from Maya, I have to re-hide all the poly lines that I didn’t want to show up.
• I wouldn’t use IK tools in Maya anyway.
• I wouldn’t use blend-shapes, or soft skinning in Maya.
• I still might rig a hunter model in Maya if I need to really pose one with a character.

Enough bullet points. Here are some images of the rig: