Introduction to Character Rigging in 3ds Max

In this lesson, we'll rig our eyelids to be controlled by their custom parameters. Again, we have somewhat of a challenge before us. If we were to select our eyelid, you can see that we have values. But our custom parameters, they're set to zero. If we were to use wire parameters to tie these custom parameters into these, if they're set to zero, of course, what's going to happen is that shape is going to change. They eyes are going to actually close. And we don't want that. We want them to stay at their same position. So we'll just use simple math to get this working. Let's start with the left eye. We'll just right click on the eyelid. Choose Wire Parameters. It's going to be the Object, Slice From. And we plug that into our Head Controls, Modified Object, Attribute Holder, Left, Lower Lid. So the Slice From goes to the Lower Lid attribute. OK. So now, we have our custom parameter on our right side. We're going to need to use this middle arrow. So how are we going to set this up so that our value doesn't change? Well, we need a few things. One, we need to make sure that our expression is as follows. All we need to do here is take this left lower lid and subtract that by 14. Being that the left lower lid is set to zero, we're simply saying zero minus 14, or keep this first parameter with that same value. Now if we choose Connect, notice we're still going to get a shift. So that brings us to our next step. The next step is actually to convert this from degrees to radians. And by doing so, we won't have this multiplied value. Instead, we'll bring this right back to negative 14. So before, our expression that we've typed, we'll type in as follows-- the function degToRad. And then we'll want to concatenate that, put it in parentheses. And now watch. As we update this, the lid is brought back to negative 14. Great. So that's going to be the process for setting this up. So when we get to the upper lid, let's go ahead and set that up. I'll actually copy this. So that's going to be the left upper lid going into slice two. Again, our math is going to be as follows. We're going to use plus 30-- I'll actually go and paste. Change the name here. That'll be the easiest way to do that. It's going to be [? Upper ?] [? Lid, ?] making sure that it is spelled correctly. And instead of negative 14, we're using a positive 30 here. So that's simply going to be plus 30. Now as we choose connect, notice the eyelid remains the same. Everything's connected. If we were to minimize this, select our head control, and start to move, our parameters-- you can see we now have control over these eyelids. All right. Great. So that's the process here. We just use some simple math and our degree to radian function to help us out. Let's say we go ahead and work on this right side to finish it up. So what we need to do here is select the right eyelid. Load that up on the left side. Get to its object. Slice To and Slice From-- we can start with the Slice From again. We're using the same values. So we'll plug the right lower lid into the Slice From. Use the middle arrow. And again, we type in negative 14. Concatenate that. And before that, use our degree to radian function. Go ahead and connect that. Check it out. All right, everything's fine. So I'll go ahead now and copy this and connect the upper lid into the Slice Two. Again, we need to rename this. If we went ahead and copied what we used in the first expression, and then put in positive 30. All right, so now as we select our head control and start to move the other lid controls, they're moving just fine. All right, great. So we've learned how to work with simple math in our wire parameters expression. Now we also learned how to tie-in a function into that to, again, keep our eyelids the same, in the same position, while at the same time making sure that we can plug them in comfortably to zeroed out controls. OK, well, that's going to finish this lesson. In the next lesson, we've can start working on eye controls.