Maya Rigging

Creating IK handles -

I learnt a valuable lesson...

I omitted to delete history and freeze transformations, before contraining my IK handle (green box highlighted on the wrist of the character below). Therefore the axis values were not set to zero; meaning that it's pretty impossible to get back to a 'T' pose.

I am going to practice and create the right hand side of the arm rig - and remember to delete history and freeze transformations!!!

What are IK handles and solvers?

"Maya provides inverse kinematics tools called "IK handles". The effect of an IK handle on a joint chain is determined by the type of IK solver that you choose.
There are three types of IK handles with corresponding solvers: Single Chain (SC) Handle, Rotate Plane (RP) Handle, and Spline Handle.

• Single Chain (SC) Handle and Rotate Plane (RP) Handle can be used to animate the motion of an articulated figure's limbs, and similar objects.
• Spline Handle can be used to animate the motion of curvy or twisty shapes, such as tails, necks, spines, tentacles, bull-whips, and snakes." http://accad.osu.edu/~midori/Materials/IK_solvers.html

Maya interface whilst rigging.

Hypershade (on the left) for creating blend switches between FK and IK and Outliner on the right, showing the hierarchy.