Anyway, here is a short video clip that shows the rig test that I did for one of my models that I'm working on. The animation isn't very good but my main concern was simply to make sure that all of my controls were working.
When you watch the video, you'll notice that the model is broken into about 40 pieces. This is the low res model that I use so that I can scrub the timeline in real time. The idea is to animate on a very light weight model then transfer the animation to the real model. I actually have 2 set ups; a bound rig which has the high rez skin, muscles, skeleton and other stuff. I also have the control rig that has the light weight model, a skeleton and all of the controls. After animating the control rig, I can import the bound rig then "snap" its skeleto to the control rig's skeleton. There are a lot of reasons for doing this instead of just building the controls right onto the skeleton which has the skin bound to it but mostly I do it as habit so that if I ever get in a situation where someone needs a variety of rigs, each designed to do something custom, I won't have to try to build EVERYTHING into a single rig....
Here's the link: Rig test 1.2 meg quicktime file
The movie I'm working on will be done sometime after the first of the year...
