Yarn Rig and Tools
The rig has an expression-based setup for the yarn roll so that the animators don't have to manually rotate the rig.
It also is equipped with a spline stretch so that we can make the yarn character more expressive.
I created the ribbon tool for fast iteration of the yarn rig's "strings," as during the production we were unsure of how long the strings were going to be.
The ribbon is equipped with an option to use "aim setup" and "deformers" as well.
Spline Squash and Stretch Tool for the main ball! Can be reused for spine and other meshes.
Yarn Rig created for an Unreal Engine 5 cinematic.
This work-in-progress character rig was designed to be expressive despite having no facial features or limbs. The main yarn ball uses a joint-based spline IK setup, allowing for smooth squash and stretch while remaining fully compatible with engine export.
Instead of hands, the character animates using its yarn strands. Since the strand lengths changed frequently during production, I developed a Python tool to quickly generate and iterate on ribbon rigs.
To make the movement of the yarn easier to animate, I also built an expression-driven rolling system that automatically rotates the yarn ball based on its translation, making it easy to animate natural rolling motion. You can also control the speed of the roll by changing an attribute.
