Rigging The Jaw with Python in Maya

When it comes to rigging, a jaw rig can get complicated very quickly. Being able to rig a jaw that works for a variety of scenarios — and is rebuildable — is an essential skill in production. One that Arturo Coso, a Rigger on Love, Death & Robots, shares the secrets to in this 4.5-hour workshop for Maya using Python.

Taking a production-approved approach to rigging, Arturo details how to create a completely rebuildable jaw rig. While these types of rigs often require lots of objects and nodes, this is simply not efficient when done manually. Arturo’s approach shows how to create the rig using guides. You’ll follow along as he codes in Python, line by line, the jaw rig with an independent lip seal. The rig creation is divided into sections by methods, to make the learning process as easy as possible.

This workshop is taught so that you can follow along to create your own jaw rig for any 3D character model. The specific model used in this workshop is by the talented David Barrero and is available to purchase in his personal asset store.