This week, I've decided to forgo making my own rig and simply using a tool to do all of the heavy lifting for me instead! This way, I'll actually be able to get the rig done in the foreseeable future!

To make the rig, I've decided to use a Maya plugin called the Arise Rigging System. This is node-based system that lets you connect guides to bones in order to make a functioning rig. After watching a few tutorial videos on how the plugin works and what everything connects up to each other, it becomes very easy to understand how it all works. While I didn't make this from scratch, the plugin's biped preset helped very much in the making of the rig so far. It automatically makes different shapes for the controls, sets up IK and FK chains, and has helped so much in the making of the rig! I absolutely was not able to get the rig done just from using Maya's tools. I did not get far making it from scratch. I'm sure there's people out there that enjoy the rigging process, but I very much am not a technical artist. I'm very glad that I found this plugin in particular. From looking at other auto rigging plugins, a lot of them didn't seem to be as simple and intuitive to work with. However, the next part of the rigging process I hate even more than the rigging. Weight Painting is what is required in order to move the mesh with the controls. Depending on how the vertices are painted determines how the mesh bends in relation to the bones. Arise has a decent video skimming the basics of weight painting, but it's still a daunting process. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to actually pose and animate this character in about 2 weeks time. It might be optimistic, but it would have taken much longer without this plugin! I'm hopping to get it done in 2 weeks because I want to get back to practicing my animation for my graduate course. I still have about 6 months before I start, but I want to get as much as I possibly done so I can actually take advantage of the course. I think I've a decent tutorial series online, but that's still to be seen as of yet. I'll be sure to take notes so I can retain the info better.

This is a bit of a shorter post, but that's just how it is at this point in the rig creation process. Hopefully once it's done I can show more cooler stuff!

Thank you and good-bye for today!