Creation 12

Action constraints

Notes:

• Attach finger controller by
• Select start fing, shift select fing controller, Ctrl + Shift + C
• Add constraint, copy location and rotation (pose mode).
• Alt + P = un-parent.
• Now select controller then shift select and add constraint, action.
• I had quite a few problems getting my constraints to work properly, you need to find what numbers in the action work best for you so just experiment, you might also need to change you action constraints key frame positions slightly. So i played around with the weight painting more for the fingers and face and the positioning in the action constraints. Remember to reset/clear locations and rotations before you try doing the action constraints as well.
• For the action enter; Action: Hand_Curl Action - Length Start: 1 End: 2 Scale Y - so fingers are effected when you scale controller on y-axis Target Range - Min: 1 Max: 0.5 Change to local space as well.
• Do this for all fingers
• Now do it all again for the extreme pose; Start: 3 End:4 Min: 1 Max: 1.5
• Now you can control your fingers more easily just using the controllers, this is the purpose of action constraints to make your model/rig more easy to manipulate.
• Now do the same for the mouth, I also took the tutorial a step further and did it for the eyes as well as adding more constraints to the mouth and eyes when moving the controller in different directions, the result is 1 controller bone for the eyes and 1 for the mouth which you can move together or separately which you can move left, right, down and up to effect the face.
• In order to get the mouth and eyes to work properly I had to go back and switch the direction of some of the bones and parent them properly, it turned out after much investigation I had not followed the earlier tutorial (face rig) properly and it was rigged incorrectly. Alt + F = switch direction.

How I did the lip constraints:

• Add bone: Smile_Frown
• Frame 1 grab all lip controllers, I = Insert key frame - LocRotScale - New action: Smile_Frown
• Frame 2 - Smile pose.
• Frame 3 - Normal pose.
• Frame 4 - From/Sad.
• Select new bone add constraint to lip bones
• Action 1; Start 1 End 2 Smile_Frown Min 0 Max 1 Location Y Local space
• Action 2; Start 3 End 4 Min 0 Max -1