'Maya'

 
'Rigging a Palm Tree'
by
Derek Smart


Here is one method for creating the remaining joint chains. Switch to the top viewport and select your chain.

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Duplicate the chain the move the pivot point into another leaf stem.

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Rotate the chain until you get a good match to the orientation of the stem.

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Rotate the chain again vertically to match the stem. I prefer to create each chain individually the same way I created the first chain. It adds a little bit of random placement and rotation, so when animation they will not look like clones. This is a minor detail though.

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Select the main joint of your stem chain and shift select the top joint of the tree trunk.

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Hit 'p' to parent the new stem joint chain to the top of the tree trunk.

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Modeling

Rigging
Page 4

Dynamics & Skinning


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