Creating a Basic Human Rig Part 3: Arms

& Hands.

2
Parent joint 1
to joint 2 spine. 1

Creating the shoulder, arm and wrist joints using the create joints tool.
Creating the arm wrist
and clavicle joints and
then parenting them to
the clavicle joint.
Creating the fingers using the create joint tool. Use duplicate to speed up process and then once
all 4 fingers are set resize to desired lengths.
Naming the
fingers.
 Create twist joint.

Ctrl D (duplicate) index finger, delete end

the joint, align for thumb position.

Then in the attribute menu you can limit rotation which then allows
for joint to be rotated with out using the rotates to and causing any
unwanted geometry. Hold control and middle mouse button drag
slider in the joint orient, repeat for both joints.
 Parent thumb to twist
joint, then parent thumb
and fingers to wrist.

2
1
 • Shrunk arm scale again.
• Then mirrored arm to right
side using the mirror joint
function and was then able to
rename right shoulder.

Should now be able to move in the same directions.

Adding in the controls.

Created an crescent moon shape for the clavicle joint and the hand controls, snapping each
orient joint to the corresponding joint.
Then added in circle
controls for the
shoulder, elbow and
wrist and scaled
down the elbow and
wrist controls as
well as renaming
the controls.
Then duplicated the controls, grouped and mirrored
then for the right arm, I then proceeded to rename the
controls for the right.
 Connecting the Controls.

Then constrain point and orient for clavicle, shoulder, elbow and wrist joints and then parent controls to
joints.
 Then added in new attributes to the hand
controls for better functionality of the hand
when all connected up.
Then duplicated hand controls
and mirrored to the hand and
renamed as well as freezing
the transformations.
Open general connections editor and load hand controls into one of the columns, then select
three joints in one finger and load into the opposite column.

Repeat process on the rest of the fingers.

• Fingers now curl.
• Thumb connections added as well as the
thumb twist functions.

Connect:
X TO rotate X
Y TO rotate Y
Z TO rotate Z
Then added in a set driven key
which will added a further set
of restrictions to the hand
functionality this being done
on the fingers spread function
• Point and orient the hand control to the wrist.
• Now remove any unwanted channels for cleaner graph
editor and command box by selecting the arm joint
controls and going through and hide those not needed.
By selecting, right clicking and going down to make
selected non-keyable and then lock and hide selected.
 Set restrictions on
finger movements
in the edit attribute
window.

Repeat on all fingers

Then remove unwanted

channels – translate, rotate
and scale

Repeat on other arm.

Further restrictions on limbs, Limiting the hand, elbow, shoulder and clavicle joint.

Adding further restrictions on the arm joints in

the attribute panel on the right of the
workspace.
Repeat process on right arm but reverse
numbers in min and max, so what was positive is
now negative and what was negative is now
positive.
Last step parent clavicle controls to chest controls so
arms move with upper body.