Reverse Foot Rig Part 1

Hey guys and gals; so this is the reverse rig set up for Maya; I am using 2011 but it should work with previous or later versions (I have done this in 8.5, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012 Maya versions). The reverse foot is a rig that exists outside the joint heirarchy of the skinned joints to help control an IK leg.

To do this we create joints at the heel of the characters foot and flow to the toe, mid foot, and ankle.

You will need the joint orientations of these to match; in the case of my reverse foot here I will make the Z all be the primary rotations and all point the same direction. I will suggest the cometJointOrient melscript at comet-cartoons (http://www.comet-cartoons.com/melscript.php) . If you want to follow along with me, here is my joint orientation shown.

You will want IK handles (using the RPsolver) to stretch from the characters hip to ankle. Then ankle to foot and foot to toe_dummy. Just like in the image here:

place the reverse foot rig (R_heel should be the root) in the foot. Then starting at Reverse_Toe; select the joint then shift select the IK handle near it (the one that goes from foot to toe_DUMMY) and use constraint>parent contraint with maintain offset checked. Repeat this step by selected Reverse_Foot joint and the IK handle that goes from ankle to foot. parent constrain again. Then select the Reverse_Ankle and the IK handle that goes from hip to ankle. Once again use parent constraint. See the illustration to see these connections and relationships:

I will usually now group all my IK handles and call them something like R_IK_GROUP (L is for Left or use R for Right). I will also select my reverse Heel joint and group it and call it R_REV_FOOT_GRP. I will then parent my R_IK_GROUP to my R_REV_FOOT_GRP and in turn parent the R_REV_FOOT_GRP to the NURBS controller called R_FOOT_CNTRL. The heirarchy will look like this:

next tutorial we will add banking and foot roll and really show what the reverse foot is full capable of!