Robot rigging

[elfenomeno]

Hello,
for a personal project im creating a robot character and im on the rigging stage and i have some question regarding this kind of rig:
-Should i make it one mesh or keep it at logical separate part?
-how can i do the cable?

Thanks.

[4602]

hello
it really depends on the kind of robot you are working on. if it's an assembled robot, such transformers, r2d2, iron giant, the characters from "robots", it's probably much easier to go with separated pieces. they are indeed rotating around gears and joints and there are many rigid areas which are better and easier to be treated separately.
if it's a more "bendable" robot or not based on gears you might consider modeling him in one piece, but there are not many robots of this kind.
...what cable?
4602

[elfenomeno]

thx for your answer,by cable i mean alle those cable and rope that robot have and that jiggle...

[4602]

once again it depends.
if the cables have loose ends you could rig them with bones or a tail.
it they are attached by both ends you could use curves. either built in tools such as a spine or spline controls, or a custom made curve with controls. for modeling it would be good to see how the cables are located and what their extreme poses will be. then it would be a matter of finding neutral poses, and modeling them in that position.
4602

[EricTRocks]

Check this post on XSIBase for the cables... it is about a gun turret but the same principles apply:

http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=11;action=display;threadid=32545

Later,
Eric T.