Vincent Mazeas Pipeline & Character TD
May 2012
– A tool designed to rig spur gears at full speed.
Working with spur gears in animation can quickly become a nightmare if those gears are not properly rigged and hierarchied. Using various methods, this process can be shortened but remains quite long and tidious. Working at I-Reel, seeing dozens of CG mechanical watches led me to create a macroscript to make this process as fast and intuitive as possible.
Despite the simplicity of the formula that lies behind the rig, you have to know the number of teeth on your wheels, and counting teeth is a horrible task. Gearrify is therefore based on an user-input counting, based on each visualizing abilities.
Red markers are displayed around the gear's axis, and the user can follow the yellow one as visual reference on whether to increase or decrease the count of teeth, until it matches perfectly (see video for live demonstration). Once the teeth have been counted, just add it to the list and go on to the next wheel. The whole process is then automated, creating a rig in a blink of an eye. The main (and only) controller is displayed on the first picked wheel which will drive all of its children.
Gearrify can create spur gears rig in any possible rotation, make a wheel drive as many others wheels as you like, create a transmission axis on which wheels are rotating along or link perpendicular gears. It is also fully production-friendly as it will maintain the scene hierarchy.