Hello! First of all, saw your Rocky and Grace dancing anim, it is so friggin cute! Can I ask you a bit about the process? I've been wanting to rig Rocky myself, but I'm not familiar with the STL file format from the official released model
When you imported into Maya, did the model come in with all the faces separated? If so how did you combine them? When you say the licensing didn't allow you to share the rig, are you referring to the rigging software you used, or the official model itself? I didn't see any mention of that anywhere so just wanted to double check Is that a 3D grace rig, was that an official release from somewhere too?
(sorry for so many questions, feel free to totally ignore if you'd rather not answer!)
Hello! Thank you for liking my animation.
Rocky Model
I downloaded the Official Model of Rocky on Printables. When you scroll down, you will see the model's license. If you need more details on the license, just click on it.
Rigging
I downloaded the files where Rocky's torso and limbs are separated. I imported them into Blender and exported them as an FBX file. Then, I opened it in Maya to start rigging.
If you have any questions about how I rigged, I learned from watching YouTube videos.
I don't know how experienced you are with Maya, so I don't quite understand what you mean by "how did you combine them"? I just imported everything into the same scene.
Animation
I filmed myself as a reference for Grace (I'm not showing that). I rotoscoped and adjusted the animation in 3D using an anatomy rig for Grace. Rocky's animation was improvised. I put the final animation into stepped-tangent mode on 2s.
I traced over my playblast in 2D using Photoshop timeline. I added lighting to the scene to help with drawing shadows.
I don't have a Grace rig. I'm not good at 3D modelling, and I don't know how blendshape and paintweight work in rigging.

















