Rig : Feature Notes

While animating I realized that following behaviors are more desirable.

-> Clavicle should not affect arms, in FK or IK. (But, still have an option for arm to follow clavicle)
-> Knee should be able to move independently from the foot.
-> Neck should have an option for following spine or align with world space. By default it should follow the spine, as overlapping action is easier (for my workflow).

-> Almost all major parts should have an option to turn orientation inheritance on and off.

Rig : Testing & Bugs

I have been animating this quarter and I have realized that true problems with any rig behavior can be identified only after animating it for at least one animation. If you use the rig for say 1 or 2 weeks you become comfortable with new features and you also find bugs or problematic behaviors.

It is mostly like software engineering. Rigs should always go through QA (quality assurance) testing. Because sometimes some bugs can only be found after some time (depends on a lot of factors). Sometimes while animating not all features are used or the right combination of triggers are not activated to produce the bug.

It is sometimes not the individual logic that is flawed, but the combination of logics that create the problem. Hence any logical implementation, a rig or a script, should be tested for all possible combinations.