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Description
So after a little research and some experimentation I found that the rig I was previously building for the Orange Lightning wouldn't give nearly the amount of flexibility needed to animate his silliness. After watching my buddy play Jak 2 for a bit I realized that Daxter stretches... a lot. Just about every limb of his body is stretchy and I think his teeth even stretch with a broad smile. In order to achieve this, the new rig's core is built upon constraining joint chains to hair follicles which are attached to NURBS surfaces. Maya's hair system provides an excellent way to attach essentially nodal points to a surfaces and follow any deformation rather easily. So with that concept driving the whole shindig, the rig so far has the following functionalities:
-NURBS driven spine with upper, lower, mid, and pelvic/ chest pivot controls
-Free hip rotation setup
-Forward and Reverse Stretchy legs with Forward and Inverse Kinematic switch blending and Set Driven Channel box feet controls.
-Forward and Reverse stretchy arms with Forward and Inverse Kinematic switch blending. Also comes with NURBS driven deformation controls on the biceps and forearms. Also has a multi-joint forearm twist set up with a Fore Arm Twist Multiplier control to allow the animator to have varying degrees of twist.
That's it so far. Hopefully this rig can bring out the good old daxter we know and love when animated in the end.

Description
So after a little research and some experimentation I found that the rig I was previously building for the Orange Lightning wouldn't give nearly the amount of flexibility needed to animate his silliness. After watching my buddy play Jak 2 for a bit I realized that Daxter stretches... a lot. Just about every limb of his body is stretchy and I think his teeth even stretch with a broad smile. In order to achieve this, the new rig's core is built upon constraining joint chains to hair follicles which are attached to NURBS surfaces. Maya's hair system provides an excellent way to attach essentially nodal points to a surfaces and follow any deformation rather easily. So with that concept driving the whole shindig, the rig so far has the following functionalities:
-NURBS driven spine with upper, lower, mid, and pelvic/ chest pivot controls
-Free hip rotation setup
-Forward and Reverse Stretchy legs with Forward and Inverse Kinematic switch blending and Set Driven Channel box feet controls.
-Forward and Reverse stretchy arms with Forward and Inverse Kinematic switch blending. Also comes with NURBS driven deformation controls on the biceps and forearms. Also has a multi-joint forearm twist set up with a Fore Arm Twist Multiplier control to allow the animator to have varying degrees of twist.
That's it so far. Hopefully this rig can bring out the good old daxter we know and love when animated in the end.