Easy Man 2.2.0 for Maya

As a teacher I often work with students who are using 3D software for the first time. In many cases they have a background in drawing and want to focus purely on animation (as apposed to rigging, modelling, texturing etc)

I have noticed that often a rig I may think is great because it offers so much control can seem confusing. Easy man has been designed to be as simple to animate with as I know how.

I want my students to focus as much a possible on the posing of the character and other fundamental principles, instead of worrying about what that switch dose. Sometimes less is more, or fewer choices ( In this case controls) can lead to more learning. If you want every possible option for how to move an arm or toe then this rig is not for you, its for getting in and creating some movement with a minimum of fuss and confusion.

Floating controls have been kept to a minimum. You dont even need to be aware of the rig, just select the body part (arm, hand, head, body section etc) and move or rotate it directly.

Easy Man V1 was a bit of a disaster, I have given him a complete overhaul. Hopefully I have managed better this time, I am also an animator first so am learning as I go.

Improvements in Version 2.1

• Fixed unstable cycle on stretchy arm rig.
• New less intrusive and more stable knee and elbow point controls (circles around the top of the legs and shoulders)
• Easy Man V2.1 has a face (see below)
• Beginners often get their rig tangled up. You can select any part, multiple parts, or any in scene controls and set the translate and rotate values back to zero in the channel editor to reset the position.
• Easy mans unique setup allows you to key the whole rig on a frame by simply drawing a big square around the whole character and hitting "s" on the keyboard. No character sets or shortcut buttons required.

I have set up a locked camera just for the face controls, I recommend that when it is time to animate the face you set your view port to 2 panels and set one of them to Face_control_cam as in the image below. It is of course up to you.

I hope Easy Man helps to make your day a little easier.