1. Parenting Teeth and Jaw Mesh Joints
Step 1
Start Maya and open the file which was saved in the last part of the tutorial.
Step 2
Select all teeth meshes, go to Mesh > Separate tool to separate all teeth as shown in the following image.
Step 3
Hide the body. To hide the joints, go to Show > Joints and turn it off.
Step 4
With all lower teeth selected, go to Mesh > Combine command to combine.
Step 5
You can see all combined teeth mesh as shown in the following image.
Step 6
Follow the same process for upper teeth also. With all upper teeth selected, go to Mesh > Combine command to combine.
Step 7
Go to Outliner window and unhide all meshes by pressing Shift-H key as shown in the following image.
Step 8
Select Eye ball mesh, Upper teeth mesh and Upper Gum mesh followed by Head02_Jnt01 and then pressed P key to parent.
Step 9
Select Lower teeth mesh, Lower Gum mesh followed by Jaw01_Jnt01 and then press P key to parent.
Step 10
In this way, I've parented jaw and gum including eye ball meshes also. Rotate the neck joint to check the connectivity.
Step 11
Select and rotate Head02_Jnt01 to check if all upper teeth and gum including eye balls follow or not. It looks good.
2. Skin Binding With Body Mesh
Step 1
Select the body mesh followed by Root01_Jnt01 and then go to Skin > Bind Skin and click on the option box.
Step 2
In the Bind Skin Options window, set the value of Max influences as 2 and then click on Bind Skin button to apply the Skin command.
Step 3
To check the effectiveness of skinning, rotate the thigh joint. You will see some abnormal deformations. You'll need to correct the skin weight settings to rectify the problem.
3. Applying IKs With Joints
Step 1
Go to Skeleton > Create IK Handle and click on the option box.
Step 2
In the Tool Settings window, set the Current solver to Rotate-Plane Solver as shown in the following image.
Step 3
With Create IK Handle tool selected, click on Left_Pelvis_Jnt01 and then click on Left_Ankle_Jnt01. You'll see the IK handle as shown in the following image.
Step 4
Following the same way, apply IKs on both legs and hands joints and then rename these as Left_Leg_IK_handle01, Right_Leg_IK_handle01, Left_Hand_IK_handle01 and Right_Hand_IK_handle01 as shown in the following image.
4. Creating Spline IKs on Spine Joints
Step 1
Go to Skeleton > Create IK Spline Handle and click on option box. In the settings window, keep all settings by default.
Step 2
With Create IK Spline Handle tool selected, first click on Spine01_Jnt01 and then click on Neck01_Jnt01 to apply the spline IK handle tool as shown in the following image.
Step 4
After applying Spline IK Handle tool, you can see a spline curve under the joint connected with Ik handle.
Step 5
With the Spline Curve selected, click on Components selection on the status buttons bar to select the vertices of the Spline Curve as shown in the following image.
Step 6
With the first vertex selected, go to Deform > Cluster and click on the option box.
Step 7
In the Cluster Option window, turn on Mode Relative box and then click on Create button to create the cluster for selected vertex.
Step 8
Select the cluster, go to clusterHandleShape tab, set Origin Y and Z values to shift it upward as shown in the following image.
Step 9
In this way, you have created three more clusters according to the vertices. Shift them all upward a bit.
Step 10
In this way, you have completed creating spine Ik handle with clusters.
Conclusion
In next part, I'll show how to set skin weight and controls.
