Creature TD and Technical Artist Wasim Khan shares his CreatureRig IK Stretch plugin for Autodesk Maya, which can create an IK stretch system that will allow you to define the initial length.
Created for one of Wasim Khan’s previous projects where he had to create a rig to morph a monkey to an ape, then to a man, Wasim built an IK system where an animator can define the length of an arm or leg by adding a new initial length. This allows for the animator to use the new length as the initial position for the IK system, making animation easy.
CreatureRigs Stretch IK (Maya Python Plug-in) is a single maya node to create an extensive robust ik stretch system for your rigs
Wasim Khan starts with an impressive animated example, then shows how the CreatureRigs Stretch IK Plugin works on some simple examples, and also provides a couple of examples of incorporating the CreatureRigs Stretch IK into a rig.
The CreatureRigs Stretch IK Plugin is available on the CreatureRigs set here, and features:
- Set stretch limit
- Customizable initial length of IK Joints
- Set Mid joint offset
- Set Mid-lock blending
- Soft Stretch – Avoid IK popping
- Stretch Mode Type – Scale / Translate (Animatable)
- Supports Non-Uniform scale
- Automatically determines joint chain’s stretch axis
- Custom locators to display current stretch mode
