Class 3 - Week 7 - Planting Elbows and Knees

Way back during our AM Maya Springboard days, we had attended one of
Kevin Freeman's Tech Q&As and heard from some of the other students
that having to make a character kneel down to the ground was a major
headache due to all the counter animating and to avoid it if we could.
So from then on, we tried to keep away from anything that would
involve having the character kneel. But then, one day, we decided to
stop avoiding the issue and try it out for ourselves. After much trial
and error, we found that if you prepared your shot and your character
in advance, it actually wasn't all that difficult.

The workflow is basically the same with only slight differences
depending on whether you are planting an elbow or a knee. So to make
it easier to reference later on, each topic will be explained on it's
own page which you can get to from the links below.

Both topics have also been separated into different difficulty levels.
The basic level will get you all you need to get going, but if you
feel up to it and have a bit more Maya experience, you can try out the
Intermediate or Advanced steps to make things even easier to use in
the long run. Although I will be using Stewie for these examples, this
should all apply to Bishop as well.

I also apologize in advance for the "copy/paste" feeling of both articles. I
had hoped to write something unique for each one but decided it was more
important to actually get it out to you instead. 

Elbows

Knees

One thing to remember with either of these methods is that it is much
easier to set up if Stewie is in his default "T" pose. While you can
set it up while he's in the position you need him to be, some of the
newly created objects may not rotate in the way you expect them to.

Those are both quite long winded topics but I hope that at least some
of it will be helpful to you. As always, if you have any questions,
suggestions, or comments, please feel free to contact Cameron or me on
Skype, AMConnect, or by PM.