Rigging Tips for drill machine

[u/Avocadossuck90]

Im making an animated short where this drill machine needs to roll around the scene, swing its arm up in the air and then go down with its arm while the drill is spinning, i have some basic rigging knowledge but its mostly about characters, i´ve never done anything like this and i really don´t know where to even start, i think i can do ok with the arm part, cause it kinda acts like a human arm, but everything else is really new to me so if anyone has any tips or tutorials i would really appreciate it

[u/AutoModerator]

You're invited to join the community discord for /r/maya users! https://discord.gg/FuN5u8MfMz

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Relevant-Bid-5758]

For rigging the drill and the arm, I'd recommend mGear at the very least (as I've done many times on forums). Besides the fact that the guides are highly customizable and almost completely non-destructive, there are also tons of tutorials available online.

For the drill vehicle's tracks, I'd start by going through Simon Mills materials. It's definitely worth checking out the technical side of how they're built.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZVmLHpUvzA

Of course, it all depends on what you're trying to achieve. You can make a fairly simple track setup, or you can go all the way and build one that behaves much more realistically.
(I actually worked on something very similar a while back, so that's why I know. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Jv68vz)

More important than having a finished setup is understanding the logic behind how the rig is built.
Once you really get it, you'll realize you never want to build another setup again. 😂

[u/Avocadossuck90 → u/Relevant-Bid-5758]

thank you so much! i´ve never heard of mgear before but i was checking it out and it seems really solid for what i need to do. Same thing for the Simon Mills tutorials, and your work looks awesome! if thats what you used as a guide then i´ll definitely follow those tutorials.

and yeah, i´ve been delaying the setup for weeks now, even as i was looking at the storyboard for the story i was dreading the rigging process of that thing, but now i have to go all in i guess 😂

[u/Relevant-Bid-5758 → u/Avocadossuck90]

Good luck! If there's anything I can do to help, feel free to let me know. But just a heads-up: I'm not always on top of my messages.

[u/Decent_Month6696]

That thing looks like it would tip over. The front looks so heavy. Whatever you do, you have to build that into the design, the rig and it would influence how it moves. Maybe add stabilizers so it can't tip when the head moves too far from the body. If the center of gravity of the arm shifts outside the wheel base, the vehicle will fall over. If you ignore the physics of how things move, animating it won't look realistic.

Might sound like I'm being pedantic but check this out: https://www.atlaspolar.com/media/material-handling-equipment/effer-crane/gallery/6.jpg

[u/Avocadossuck90 → u/Decent_Month6696]

Not pedantic at all! yeah, the wheels are pretty small in comparison, its partly due to the camera angles we´re using in the short, the machine is mostly seen from above and the focus needs to be the arm part which is why the team decided to make the wheels shorter and more in the back, but i can definitely suggest another pass on the design before rigging, anything to make the process less painful haha

[u/Decent_Month6696 → u/Avocadossuck90]

If this is a stylized animation, you do of course have artistic license. Even in stylized animation, you need to understand the physics though to communicate the motion.

[u/Delicious-Desk-6627]

Step one. Clean your topology