SDK's

Set Driven Key's are actually one of the rigging things I found the most interesting. Back during my first 3D animation class, we had used a Morpheus rig that had a very detailed customization options that gave many different hair options and adjust size of the body parts. I loved the fact that you could changed their hair and customize it and since then I had wondered how they did that. I had yet to touch rigging and have had only minor experience in modeling, so I had no clue. Once I learned about SDK's it was like I finally found that answer.

An SDK is a keyframe driven by an attribute value. The most memorable use of SDK's for me was when I had to do all the finger SDK's as it was the most time consuming and least enjoyable one. So I'll use that one as an example. All of the fingers are set up with three individual FK controls. In order to use the SDK's without creating values onto the controls, we created an anim pad between the controls and their pads, that way all of the SDK values would go onto the anim pad.

In order to set up an SDK, youd need to load the driver and driven into the SDK setup box. In the case of the fingers, the driver would be the Arm Switch control and the driven would be the anim pads. You set the values you want the driven to be for what the driver is set up to.