1. Creating Hand Control Curves

Step 1

Start Maya and open the file which was saved in the last part of the tutorial.

Step 2

Create a circle curve in the side view as shown in the following image. 

Step 3

Snap this curve to the left arm joint as shown in the following image.

Step 4

With the curve selected, jump in the vertex selection mode and edit its shape as shown in the following image.

Step 5

Make a duplicate copy of the circle curve for the right arm joint and snap it on the joint as shown in the following image.

Step 6

Create another circle curve for elbow control and snap it on the left elbow joint as shown in the following image.

Step 7

With the curve selected, jump in the component selection mode and edit its shape as shown in the following image.

Step 8

Make a duplicate copy of the curve and while pressing and holding the V key, drag it on to the right elbow joint to snap.

Step 9

Create a cube curve and snap it to the wrist joint for creating hand control.

Step 10

With the curve selected, jump in the vertex selection mode and edit the vertices as shown in the following image.

Step 11

Create one more circle curve and edit it in rectangular shape for wrist twist control as shown in the following image.

Step 12

Make duplicate copies of both hand and wrist twist control curves and place them for the right side joints as shown in the following image.

2. Creating Clavicle Control

Step 1

In the top view, create a circle curve on the grid as shown in the following image.

Step 2

Jump in the perspective view and place it around the left clavicle joint. Being in the vertex selection mode, edit its shape as shown in the following image. 

Step 3

With clavicle curve selected, press and hold D and V keys to snap to the left side’s arm joint as shown in the following image.

Step 4

Make a duplicate copy of the curve and snap it to the right side’s arm joint.

3. Creating Head Control

Step 1

Create a cube curve and snap it to the head joint as shown in the following image.

Step 2

With the cube selected, jump in the components selection mode and edit the vertices of the curve to scale it down as shown in the following image. 

4. Deleting History and Freezing Controls

Step 1

Select all control curves. 

Step 2

With the curves selected, go to Edit > Delete by Type > History command to delete the history.

Step 3

With the curves selected, go to Modify > Freeze Transformations to freeze all transform values and reset the initial values to 0.

5. Creating Elbow Control

Step 1

Jump in the front view and create a circle curve as shown in the following image.

Step 2

Jump in the component selection mode to edit the vertices of the curve as shown in the following image.

Step 3

With the curve selected, press and hold D and V keys to snap to elbow joint as shown in the following image.

Step 4

Make a duplicate copy of the curve and snap it to the right side’s elbow joint as shown in the following image.

Step 5

With both elbow control curves selected, go to Edit > Delete by Type > History command to delete the history.

Step 6

With the same elbow control curves selected go to Modify > Freeze Transformations to freeze all transform values and reset the initial values to 0.

Step 7

For identification purpose, set the color of right side’s controls to green and left side’s controls to red. 

Step 8

Rename all left controls as L_FK_Arm_control01, L_FK_Elbow_control01, L_Hand_control01, L_FK_Wrist_control01, L_Clavicle_control01, and L_Elbow_Control01. Rename all right controls as R_FK_Arm_control01, R_FK_Elbow_control01, R_Hand_control01, R_FK_Wrist_control01, R_Clavicle_control01 and R_Elbow_Control01.

Step 9

Hence all control curves have been completed and ready for linking, applying constraints and parenting. 

6. Applying Constrain

Step 1

First of all, hide the body and other meshes as well. Turn off these layers in the Layer Editor panel.

Step 2

With L_Hand_control01 selected, press and hold Shift key and then select L_Hand_IK_01 as shown in the following image.

Step 3

With both hand controls and Ik selected, go to Constrain > Point and click on the option box.

Step 4

In the Point Constrain Options window, turn on Maintain offset check box and then click on Add button.

Step 5

With L_Clavicle_control01 and L_Clavicle_IK_01 selected, go to Constrain > Point constrain command.

Step 6

With L_Elbow_Control01 and L_Hand_IK_01 selected, go to Constrain > Pole Vector constrain command.

Step 7

With L_FK_Wrist_control01 and L_wrist_jnt01 selected, go to Constrain > Orient and click on the option box.

Step 8

In the Orient Constraint Options window, turn on Maintain offset check box and then click on Add button.

7. Applying Expression

Step 1

For applying expression, select L_wristTwist_jnt01 and go to Window > Animation Editors > Expression Editor.

Step 2

In the Expression Editor window, select L_wristTwist_jnt01 in Objects group and select rotateX in Attributes group. In the Expression text box, write the expression as L_wristTwist_jnt01.rotateX = L_FK_Wrist_control01.rotateX*0.8; and then click on Create button to apply.

8. Creating Custom Attributes

Step 1

With L_FK_Wrist_control01 selected, go to Modify > Add Attributes command.

Step 2

In the Add Attribute window, write IKFKSwitch as the Long name and set the values of Minimum, Maximum and Default to 0, 1, and 0 respectively and then click on OK button.

Step 3

Now, you can see the IKFKSwitch attribute has been added in the channel editor.

Step 4

In the same way, with L_FK_Wrist_control01 selected, open the Add Attribute window and write Thumb as the Long name and set the values of Minimum, Maximum and Default to -5, 10, and 0 respectively and then click on Add button.

Step 5

Following the same way and with L_FK_Wrist_control01 selected, open the Add Attribute window and write Index as the Long name and set the values of Minimum, Maximum and Default to -5, 10, and 0 respectively and then click on Add button.

Step 6

Following the same way and with L_FK_Wrist_control01 selected, open the Add Attribute window and write Middle as the Long name and set the values of Minimum, Maximum and Default to -5, 10, and 0 respectively and then click on Add button.

Step 7

Following the same way and with L_FK_Wrist_control01 selected, open the Add Attribute window and write Ring as the Long name and set the values of Minimum, Maximum and Default to -5, 10, and 0 respectively and then click on Add button.

Step 8

Following the same way and with L_FK_Wrist_control01 selected, open the Add Attribute window and write Pinky as the Long name and set the values of Minimum, Maximum and Default to -5, 10, and 0 respectively and then click on Add button.

Step 9

In this way, the custom attributes of the various controls have been created. To edit the values, you can go to Modify > Edit Attributes command to open the attributes editor window.

Step 10

In the Edit Attributes window, you can select any desired custom attribute and then change its name and value.

Step 11

For instance, select Index custom attribute and then turn its New name to Index Finger and press the Enter key to apply the changes.

Step 12

Following the same way, rename all fingers name as shown in the following image.

Step 13

With R_Hand_control01 and R_Hand_IK_01 selected, go to Constrain > Point constrain command.

Step 14

With R_Clavicle_control01 and R_Clavicle_IK_01 selected, go to Constrain > Point constrain command.

Step 15

With R_Elbow_Control01 and R_Hand_IK_01 selected, go to Constrain > Pole Vector constrain command.

Step 16

With R_FK_Wrist_control01 and R_wrist_jnt01 selected, go to Constrain > Orient constrain command.

Step 17

For applying expression, select R_wristTwist_jnt01 and then go to Window > Animation Editors > Expression Editor.

Step 18

In the Expression Editor window, select R_wristTwist_jnt01 in Objects group and rotateX in the Attributes group. In the Expression text box, write the expression as R_wristTwist_jnt01.rotateX = R_FK_Wrist_control01.rotateX*0.8; and then click on Create button to apply.

Step 18

In this way, the controls for left and right hands are completed. In the next part of the tutorial, I will show how to create the controls for the fingers and IKFK Switch.

Conclusion

In the next part of the tutorial, I'll show you how to create fingers' controls and IKFK switch.