Rigging- Cat

I followed the manual that came with the Setup machine to rig the cat. Each body section (colour coded) was added one by one, the front legs as one and the back legs as another. When first added, the proportions, rotations and shapes were set to match a humanoid character but it didn't take long to match them to my cat character.



Once the parts are set up to match your character you can rig it in a couple of clicks.


For the eyes I followed this tutorial, the eyeballs are connected to the controller with aim constraints and the eyelids to the eyelid controllers also with aim constraints.



For the mouth I added an extra joint, added the influence to the mesh, parented the joint to the head and painted the weights so that only the bottom part of the mouth is influenced when the jaw is opened.



Some of the weights needed altering on the belly and the legs.




I decided I needed a few more edge loops around the stomach, after adding them and altering the weights, the deformation of the stomach is much better.



I added joints inside the ears and connected them the same way I connected the jaw. I then just displayed the selection handles so that the joints could be easily selected and rotated.



When testing the rig I found that the eyelids played up when rotating the head, I realised that it had something to do with the constraints I'd put on them. Though I'd followed the tutorial, the setup was obviously unsuitable if i couldn't have my cat blink wile his head is rotated.



I fixed the problem by creating driven keys, with the controllers as the drivers (y axis) and the eyelid rotate (x axis) as the driven. The result is much better.