Jarred Love Show How to Create a Custom Constraint System Using Matrix Nodes.

Maya has a reasonably functional constraint system for both animation and rigging challenges. If you feel that Maya’s internal tools for constraints are slow or would like a cleaner setup, then you may want to make your own. Watch Rigging Artis, and technical Animator Jarred Love run through how you can create your own, using Matrix Nodes in Maya.

Why Make Your Own?

Lots of constraints in complex rigs can turn on you and become wasteful and messy. Many rigging artists opt for creating their custom Constraint Systems, and that involves using Maya’s Matrix Nodes. The setup ultimately provides a cleaner hierarchy and faster evaluation than Maya’s default constraints.

More Rigging With Matrix Nodes

A while back, Vasil Shotarov detailed his process for using Matrix Nodes in place of constraints. His tutorial showed how to create a node based matrix constraint and a twist calculator that is ideal for creating forearm rotations.