ADAM

GENERAL NOTES:

• The controls are color coded:

                - Magenta = Center

                - Red = Right

                - Green = Left

• You shouldn’t have to pick joints at all on Adam.  You can hide the joints, and use only the spline shapes to manipulate the character into your poses.

• Adam was designed for fast animation in terms of hardware resources (notice the low polygon count), not necessarily for realistic deformation.

• For the most part, the controls are just like the “Mack” controls. However there are some extra controls not found on Mack.  All the controls will be detailed below.

HEAD 

• The orientation of Adam's eyes are constrained to the magenta spline shape directly in between his eyes.  As you rotate the “EYECONS”, the eyes will rotate in the same manner (note that both eyes move symmetrically, i.e. you can't cross his eyes.  If this is necessary for your animation, you would need a different setup for the eyes).

• The orientation of Adam’s head is constrained to the orientation of the spline sphere (NECKCONS) located around his neck.  The actual neck joint is orient constrained to this spline shape, so as you rotate the spline shape, the neck joint will follow.

ARMS/HANDS

• Each arm is controlled by a Spline cube located around the wrist.  The arms are setup with IK from the shoulders to the wrists, and the IK handles are point constrained to the spline cubes (RHANDCONS and LHANDCONS).

• In both wrist controls, there are custom attributes for:

  • Curling each finger (Thumb Curl, Index Curl, Middle Curl, Ring Curl, and Pinky Curl)

• "Relaxing" each finger (Thumb Relax, Index Relax, Middle Relax, Ring Relax, and Pinky Relax).  This control simply rotates the fingers from their "base knuckle" allowing you to position them in a more relaxed position.

       

• The spread of the fingers (Spread)

• Rotation of the wrists (Wrist Up Down, Wrist Side Side, Wrist Twist).

• Note: To make Adam "grasp" something, you would have to use a combination of the "Relax" controls and the "curl" controls.

• Note: These are fairly detailed hand controls, but they do not allow for some movements.  If you wanted to orient the fingers about their various axes in a very specific way, you would have to actually rotate the joints themselves and set keys on those.  

• The direction that the elbow points is controlled by the spline shapes directly behind the elbows (LELBOWCONS and RELBOWCONS).  The arm’s IK handles have “Pole Vector” constraints placed on them, constraining the Rotate plane of the IK solver to the spline shapes.  The translation of these determines the “third point” that defines the 2D plane that the arm will rotate on.

• Note: The Elbow constraints are parented under the wrist constraints, so that they aren’t easily lost amidst the other elements in your scene.  You may want to try having these not underneath the wrist controls in terms of hierarchy, there are advantages and disadvantages to either setup, try it both ways, and see which you prefer for your animation.

FEET/LEGS

• The spline shapes around Adam’s feet (LFOOTCONS and RFOOTCONS) control the IK handles placed on Adam’s legs and feet.  The translations control the location of Adam’s heels, as you can tell by the location of the pivot point.  Similarly, rotating these controls will cause Adam’s feet to rotate around the heel. 

• Each foot control has a "ToeUp" attribute.  This makes Adam's toes bend back.

• Similar to the arm setup, the direction that the knees point is determined by the spline shapes directly in front of the knees (LKNEECONS and RKNEECONS).  These are setup with pole vector constraints just like the arms.  Also like the elbow constraints, the knee controls are parented under the feet controls.

• Note: As you move the feet, Adam's whole body moves.  This is explained below in the "Expressions" section.

TORSO/HIPS

• Adam’s skeleton is rooted right around his pelvis.  Off the pelvis are the hips and the torso.  The torso and hips are independent of each other (they are sibling nodes in the hierarchy), which allows for independent hip motion, as in swaying hips. 

• The TORSOCONS is located around Adam’s lower back and contains the following custom attributes:

• Bend Forward and B (this makes Adam's spine arch forward and back, it manipulates each joint in his spine chain)

• Bend side to side (like above except a sideways bend)

• Twist

• Note: You can also rotate the TORSOCONS, however this only rotates the torso joint.  The above attributes rotate all the joints in Adam’s spine, allowing for more detail and subtle motion. 

• The HIPSCONS is located around Adam's pelvis.  Rotating this control rotates the hip joint.

WHOLE BODY CONTROLS

• The ROOTCONS is located in front of Adam’s stomach.  This spline shape controls the position and orientation of the root joint of Adam’s skeleton via orient and point constraints.  Moving this control moves all of Adam’s other controls except for the hand and feet controls.  This is useful for moving the body without moving his feet (squatting or jumping) or hands (pushing/pulling).

• The MAINCONS is located above Adam’s head.  It is the largest shape, because it is the parent of all other controls.  Moving this control moves all other controls, and is useful for placing Adam where you want him in your scene.  You can translate and rotate this control to position Adam.  Typically, you move this only once to place your character where you like before you start animating, then move only the other controls.  You could move again later, but it is best to think ahead.  It is also useful if you want to set keys on every control.  Simply select the MAINCONS and set a key on it with your set key hierarchy options set to “below”. 

EXPRESSIONS (link to the expressions documentation)

• You'll notice that as you translate and rotate Adam's feet that his body moves as well.  This is because there are expressions that control the position of the root joint of his skeleton.  The expressions actually control nodes above the ROOTCONS shape, these nodes are labeled rootShift and rootTurn.  The reason that these are used instead of just using the expression to affect the ROOTCONS is that the expression takes control over the attributes of these nodes.  You don't always want the root to be centered or rotated according to the feet, this method allows for manipulation of the ROOTCONS in addition to where the expressions place the root.  This expression setup is particularly useful during locomotion, when you typically want the pelvis to be centered between the feet most of the time (or at least close to centered).  

• Note: You can disable expressions (as well as constraints, IK solvers, and a few dynamics nodes) by selecting Modify->Disable Nodes->Expressions.  This will cause the expression to not be evaluated.  Disabling expressions will allow you to move the root explicitly without the orientation/position of the feet affecting it at all.  This allows for "total" control, as opposed to letting the character setup do a little of the work for you.

IDEAS ON ALTERATIONS YOU MAY WISH TO MAKE

• An alternative control setup for the head would be to use an aim constraint similar to that of the Earl character setup.  An aim constraint could also be used to control the eyes. 

• Recall the hierarchy of the wrist/elbow controls and the feet/knee controls above.  Experiment with animating the model with and without the elbow/knee controls parented under the wrist/feet controls, and see which method works best for your animation. 

• Again, keep in mind that you can disable expressions, remove IK handles, and change the hierarchy of controls to suit your needs.  Remember, experimentation and testing is the best way to find out what would work best for your animation!

Thanks to Jeffrey Ian Wilson for providing the hi-resolution NURBS version of Adam.