Character Rigging - Game Character Development with Maya - page 743

FIGURE 12.31 Import and position the foot icons.
6. You want this icon to rotate the foot from the ankle, as your own foot does, so
press Insert and point-snap (press V) the pivot point up to the ankle joint ( Figure
12.31c ) .
7. Create a mirrored duplicate of the foot icon, positioning it over the right ankle.
Freeze the transforms, and rename the file to RightFoot ( Figure 12.31d ).
WhenwecreatedthebasejointsforKila'sfeet,in Chapter11 ,wehadtoaltertherotational
pivot of the ankles so that they lined up with the orientation of the foot. We will have to
do something similar here—as you can see in Figure 12.32 , left, the rotational axis for the
foot icon does not follow the orientation of the foot joints.
FIGURE 12.32 Adjust the rotation of the foot icons so they line up with the joints.
1. Because you are working with an icon rather than a joint, you can't directly edit
the rotational axis; nor can you rotate the joints of the feet, because they would no
longer line up with the geometry. What you can do is alter the Y rotation of the
icon so that the manipulator lines up with the foot ( Figure 12.32 , right).
2. When you have the Y rotation value for the left foot, copy it across for the right
foot, turning it into a negative value.
Note that this will add some rotational values to the icon, which we don't really
want. Once the character is bound, we can zero these values out, which will make
her feet point directly forward.