A couple weeks ago when I began researching character rigging in After Effects, I came across multiple tutorials and example files that I have followed and looked at to see how the artist has put them together. My first attempt at character rigging was the Digital Tutors example I did a post about last week.
Since then I've found more tutorials and blogs relating to the subject and I've enjoyed reading and researching the different methods.
Over the weekend I found a royalty free plug in which simplifies the process of setting up expressions and parenting for a simple IK character rig. It is from a site called Duduf.R&D who create and develop free plug ins for character animation. Below is the link to their website.
Duik After Effects IK Tools Link
I was greatly interested in the Duik IK plug in and attempted to install the plug in this morning but unfortunately I couldn't get it to work. I read the install instructions several times and researched forums relating to the plug in but nothing I could do would work. I did find the forum linked below on Creative Cow relating to the compatibility of the different versions with versions of After Effects which outlined the problem straight away - my CS5 edition of Ae doesn't work with the latest English versions of the script.
Creative Cow Forum on Duik IK Tool Help
This led me to do more research into creating IK rigs for characters in After Effects. I did find an interesting article on Inverse Kinematics Redux, below is the link.
Post on Motionscript.com for designing IK rigs using expressions
Due to the time constraints I have left for production on my film, I decided that I don't have time to look further into and develop my own IK expressions for both of my characters so I looked further for other plug ins as a means of reducing the time spent on rigging my characters.
I found this plug in which is solely for IK rigging which is great for my characters. It also allows me extra control over other aspects like Master Nulls which is useful for the rig to work properly.
aescripts and aeplugins Puppet Tools Plug In Link
I also found an interesting website on After Effects expressions by Dan Ebbert
Motionscript.com link
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