Drake Update

All in all I would say rigging is about 70% complete. I've got most of the major features in place and functioning correctly but there are still a couple additions I would like to make before finally calling it "done".

I've prepared a few visual demos to help illustrate some of the rigs functionality but do keep in mind that most of the skinning weights are automatic since I frequently add bones when I add new functionality and spending time on painting weights would just go to waste. Also note that the rig does not have any custom control shapes at the moment. They will come during the final polish stage!

The spine and overall body control functions almost identically to the Interceptor one. I felt like my spine on that rig fit all my needs. 

IK legs are like the first cool feature that most people would learn if they wanted to learn character rigging. I've experimented with many different types of IK legs over the years and really wanted to create a robust IK leg that has easy to use controls and allows the user to pose the leg in dynamic ways. In the future I would like to add an additional IK functionality to the leg that allows the pivot point to be at the knee instead of the foot. I've found myself scrapping a few animations in the past because I wanted the character to be placed on their knees but when moving the rest of the body the knees would slide around.

I often neglect the controllability for the fingers and toes so for this rig I opted to make a single control bone for each digit that would curl the entire digit as you rotated it. But it will only curl in a single axis!

How many of you have had difficulties in making the tail sway back and forth and not look all stiff? It isn't a hard thing to achieve once you understand a few things but it can be kind of tedious. So I've decided to make an automatic control that creates a tail wagging motion with just the adjustment of a single value! The amount of tail swaying can also be adjusted if you didn't want it to be so exaggerated. 

Facial rigging is another one of those things that really takes a lot of work in getting right. Over the update period that I spent on the Interceptor I came across a method that allows you to effectively skin a bone to another bone. This is super useful for areas you want to have controls over but still have a bit of falloff. I've achieved this in the past with some overly complicated bendy bone spline monstrosity but even that had its limits.

I've also made an eye rig that deforms the eyelids when the eyeball rotates!

Those of you who have used my Interceptor rig would know that the throat controls felt a little messy and cluttered. I tried to do the best I could but it is rather difficult when you have 10 controls for every section down the length of the throat. So I decided that instead of having a ton of tweak bones for each section, I will just have a single bone that controls that section normally and use shape keys to expand and contract the throat. This method (though not yet implemented) feels like a much cleaner solution that will also provide better deformation results. And I plan to do the same thing for the genitalia.

Now the fun bits! Making a genitalia rig is almost as complex as making a facial rig. But thanks to my discovery of the Armature constraint I can simplify that rig while still maintaining high levels of control.

Also she has a womb for all my kinky unbirthing folks :>

In conclusion, lots of progress is being made but there is still a long road ahead. But that road does become shorter every day.

Some features I still need to add are an IK/FK switch for the arms and legs, a robust tongue rig (I am undecided if I want to continue adding spline IK functionality or not), some control option for the womb and stomach. And don't forget that there's still a male version. Although most of the rig can still be reused for it, I'll have to recreate all of the shape keys. The same applies to the sfw version!

I suspect that once the rigging stage is finished the rest should be fairly quick to follow. I will likely release them with texture options similar to how I did with the Interceptors just to get them in peoples hands and then make a texture pack later.

Thank you all so much for your patience and your continued support. I know it's been a bit slow here lately but I promise you will love the payoff!