Topics in Animation:  Intro to Rigging

In my last semester at UTD (Fall 2010), I took a course called Intro to Rigging.  It was taught by my Capstone adviser, professor Eric Farrar.  We didn't touch character rigs until about halfway through, so we could get the basics of Animation remembered.  Basically the first bit of the class was reteaching what we all should have learned in Computer Animation.

Assignment 1
Ball and Pendulum

The next thing we learned was how to use Expressions and Constraints.  Expressions work something like this:
Object X rotates 90 along the X axis so Object Y moves 4 units along the Z axis.  Constraints do what the name suggests, it limits what objects can do.  For example, if you only want a gear that can rotate along the X axis, you can constrain it to do so.

Assignment 2
Rube Goldberg Device

Assignment 3 was a clear mirror of the animation assignment (which was also #3 for me).  The main differences were that we didn't partner up and we just used Youtube reference videos.

Assignment 3 Part 1
Walk Cycle 1

Model on a runway - Chosen because the model used looks hilarious doing the model walk

Assignment 3 Part 2
Walk Cycle 2

Mr. McMahon - Chosen because he has an awesome walk.  I think I modified this a bit to make him more angry or something

Assignment 5
Rigging a Character

Assignment 6
Biped Rig