Rigging and animation tools for Maya

Tested in Maya 2016 and 2017

Get Qt.py from here https://github.com/mottosso/Qt.py/blob/master/Qt.py Place it in a scripts folder (adjacent to the motiga folder is fine). This beautiful file makes supporting Maya's change to PySide2 in 2017 painless.

Download, unzip and put the "motiga" folder in one of your Maya script folders.

Making rigs manually is cumbersome and tedious because it takes many actions to follow through on a single decision. When you have 3 joints: Shoulder, Elbow and Wrist, you probably are making an arm, and you probably want IK and FK controls for it. But when creating rigs by hand, you name these joints, then name similar chains to control these joints, then name the controllers to match.

I want to make the act of laying out the joints to also be the same as creating the rig so you make one decision (I want an "arm") and do one action (place an arm card). This convenience must be tempered with customizability because I want this to handle any bizarre creature.

Most importantly, every decision should be easily changed. There is still lots of work to be done on this front, but the rig is able to rebuild many parts independently.

In the script editor, in a Python tab, run:

import motiga.tool.fossil.main
motiga.tool.fossil.main.RigTool()

import motiga.tool.rigTools

# This toggles isolating the selected controls.  Note - parents of selected controls will remain visible.
motiga.core.alt.call('Quick Hide Controls')()

Here is a walkthrough just to get an idea of how to start making rigs.

• Open fossil as described in the Usage section.
• In an empty Maya scene, go to the 'Start' tab and add hit 'Start'. This will make a basic biped. Each conceptual rig component is made as Card, which, ideally, makes it really easy to lay things out in broad strokes, as well as fine tune the individual joints. This also makes clear the axis that the limb is intended to move on.
• After you're done fiddling around, go to the 'Editor' tab, hit 'Select All' then 'Build Bones'. This makes all the bones, you can see how it made the other side for cards flagged to Mirror or Inherited
• Hit 'Select All' again, followed by 'Build Rig'. This makes all the controls (defaulting into FK)
• Select on of the Elbow controls. Use the bottom right section in the gui to change the shape from the dropdown and/or move the CVs around.
• Select the Shoulder card and hit 'Save Mods'.
• Select the Shoulder card and hit 'Delete Rig'.
• Select the Shoulder card and hit 'Build Rig'.
• Select the Shoulder card and hit 'Restore Mods'. You're changes have now been reapplied!

This is managed through an instanced shape on all the controls made by a card instead of putting it on one control, the might get hidden. In the channel box will be a shape with a name ending in FKIK_SWITCH