Bear in mind that Jake was released at the beginning of 2011, well before the release of Harmony 9.
Presumably the version of Harmony used was 7.8, therefore before the availability of curve and bone deformers, and well before envelope deformers were developed.
So the tools available to pull off these tricks were very limited: cutters, drawing subs, skew and scale.
Wander was released 13th september 2013, so they will have been working on the show in Harmony 9, possibly Harmony 10 which will have given them access to curve and bone deformers in addition to the other tricks they have developed over the years.
Shows what can be done in early versions of Harmony, Mercury riggers seem to be even more clever than you think.
Some studios certainly have people writing custom scripts.
Toon boom also write and provide custom scripts for studios.
The scripting is quite powerful but there are limitations to what can be done. Pose copier is the most advanced script I’ve seen.
Harmony also has a plugin SDK so if you are familiar with c++ you can create your own plugins.
I don\t think these Mercury rigs use any custom scripts, it’s all down to thoughtful character design, and in the case of Jake’s head breaking it down into individual components and clever use of cutters and masking.
This makes for an impressive 3D effect, but there are then a lot of pieces that need to be moved.
This makes the rig complicated to use and a lot of work to animate. Although as Adam pointed out once you have built up and saved poses for the various positions, it becomes easier as these poses are a basis for yet more poses, and so on.
Here is one of the rigs I have created here at Toon Boom. There are some invert cut items, and a lot of curve deformation, but overall, it works with a hierarchy of pegs.
THIS RIG IS AMAZING!!!
(*how I did not read this message before!!!)
After a few rigging tutorials from Digital Tutors (pluralsight)
I have the skills…to understand… I can see the light!.. "neo to morpheus: I know kung fu" matrix movie*
I am deconstructing this file right now!!! (*and learning a lot how to organize complex rigs)
