System structure

The system structure is the hierarchy that will contain the rig you are building.

Everytime you create a rig a hierarchy will be created, the basic structure of a rig is expected to consist in 4 groups, one main system group, called root, and a settings locator, that controls visibility of the rig. Any object that belongs to the rig should find its place under one of this groups.

root: This folders are the main system group, referred as root.

settings: A locator called settings, where all the settings of to control the rig can be accessed.

kinematics:A group called kinematics, you can place all the nodes that form the rig that are not joints or controls.

joints:A group called joints, where all the output joints of the rig can be placed.

controls: A group called controls, where all the controls of the rig should live.

display:A group called display, anything you want to be visible to the user but not selectable(reference only).

Tip

None of this groups need to be created, you only need to use them, they are defined as properties and it will be automatically created. An instance of this object lives under the self.rig_system name space in every rig that inherits from BigBase.

class rig.SystemStructure.RigStructureModel

this class represents the system structure, by default the system structure of any rig system contains the following groups that can help you organize your rig. the settings group, its the group to control your rig system, it has a scale value that should control your rig. kinematics group, any node that performs an operation in the rig would be here. joints group, any joint on the rig would be in this group. controls group, all controls of the rig would be in this group display, the display group is intended to be any object that is on the rig that should be visible, but it should not be accessible to the animator, an example would be a curve showing the pole vector of an IK.

By default the display of the kinematics and the joints groups are linked to the visibility of the settings group. To simplify the hiding of what the final user of the rig should or should not have accessible.

class rig.SystemStructure.SystemStructure(*args)

This class is the interface to access the structure model, its an easy way to access it, and invoke his child nodes. It creates all the nodes as needed, you just need to access it in order to be created.

property controls

A property to refer to the controls group as a pymel node

create()

Creates all the members of the system structure its not necesary to call it unless you want to create all members at once, otherwise, they will be created as needed. :return:

property display

A property to refer to the kinematics group as a pymel node

property joints

A property to refer to the joints group as a pymel node

property kinematics

A property to refer to the kinematics group as a pymel node

property rig_hierarchy

The main hierarchy of the rig. It is an object of type rigHierarchy it will be used to define the parent of the system structure. :return: an RigHierarchy object that represents the main hierarchy of the rig.

property root

A property to refer to the root group of the system as a pymel node

property settings

A property to refer to the settings group as a pymel node