Rigging // Controlling the Alien Character

Rigging is a stage I haven't touched until now so it was really interesting to learn. As Mat was teaching this stage I really enjoyed the session as I was up to speed with the process. I understood why joints had to be place where they were, this gave me an in-depth look at the character's skeletal system. I was also looking forward to learn how to place the custom controllers and see how the joints will move.
Below is an image showing my full skeletal rig.

 fig 1

Figure 1 above shows the full rig that I created to fit to the alien's geometry, this process was relatively not difficult to do but it is vital that all the joints are in the correct place other wise the deformation  will not animate accurately. The skeleton has not yet been rigged to the geometry.

After this process was done, I begun adding custom controllers using Nurbs curves and primitives, this course of action is to help move the skeleton.

fig 2

Fig 2 is the top view of the skeletal rig with controllers created

fig 3

 Top view of the skeleton and controllers (figure 3)

 fig 4