After seeing the below tweet by Riham Toulan, I figured out how to use the nodes she mentioned to make a similar system in my own rigs. This may or may not be how Toulan set it up, but this is how I've done it so far.
- Make a poly cylinder for the neck. You can shape it later to better fit the shape of the neck and head of your character. You could even use a low poly version of your character's actual neck and head.
- Make a nurbs circle or curve around the top of the collar. You'll want to rebuilt the curve so that the U value goes between 0 and 1.
- Decide how many points you want to put around the collar. Put them at the base of the collar where each part of it will rotate. We'll call these bound joints for now.
- Make a number of locators equal to the number of bound joints. Attach them to the curve using the pointOnCurveInfo node, and place them above each joint by adjusting the U value.
- You may need to create a locator that sits in the middle of the ring of locators. This isn't attached to the curve, but will act as an 'up' pointer for your aim constraints in a sec.
- Aim each bound joint at the appropriate locator on the curve, and use the central locator as the up vector.
- Now make a floating joint for each locator on the curve. We'll call these control joints.
- Select the control joints, shift select the curve and bind skin.
- Now when you move one of the control joints it'll pull the curve and the collar joints will rotate accordingly.
- Make a group for each of the control joints.
- Select the neck cylinder. Deform > Muscle > Muscles / Bones > Convert Surface to Muscle/Bone.
- Select one of the groups that has a control joint in it and Deform > Muscle > Self / Multi Collision > Rig selection for KeepOut. Do this for each group.
- Select the neck cylinder and one of the newly made cMuscleKeepOut nodes. Deform > Muscle > Self / Multi Collision > Connect Muscle to KeepOut.
- You may have to change which direction the joints move away from the neck in. You can do this in the attribute editor of the cMuscleKeepOut nodes.
My favorite rig test right after the hip sway! :) very simple joint based setup with Point on curve Info and keep out nodes. #maya3d #gamedev #rigtip pic.twitter.com/3iEBdIXNsi
— Riham Toulan (@RihamToulan) March 17, 2018
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