Keywords: Maya, Rigging, Joint Handle, Annotation, Joint Labelling, Visualization

Maya Rigging series of articles:

Handle

Handles had been hidden by default, check Display Handle first.

Then switch to Select By Component Type (hit F8), and click symbol + to check option Selection Handles

Then you can move the handle away from the pivot, now you can select the joint by handle.

Another way to toggle the visibility of Handles:
Display -> Transform Display -> Selection Handles.

Annotation

Create -> Annotation:

Then select the Annotation and move it to the destination.

You can also modify the display name of annotation, and you can hide the arrow.

Joint Labels

Sekelton -> Joint Labelling:

You can add prefabricated label for single joint, e.g. shoulder:

or you can add empty labels for all the selected joints:

You can also change the label to customized label:

You can also change the label position:

Labels are very useful for motion capture while mirroring skin weights, use the label matching for more accuracy.

Viewport - Joints

Show -> Viewport -> Joints.

This’s very useful to hide the joints to highlight the motion capture data.

You can also toggle the visibility of polygons, controllers and joints.
Alt + 1 : Toggle visibility of controllers.
Alt + 2 : Toggle visibility of polygons.

Or you can override the viewport playblast.

Highlight Skeleton

Display -> Wireframe Color:

Another higher priority way:

Change Curve Width

For more details of controller will be explained in next article: [Maya]Rigging 04 - Controller.

Script to change curve line width in batch:

from maya import cmds

result = set()
selList = cmds.ls(selection=True, long=True) or []
for obj in selList:
        children = set(cmds.listRelatives(obj, fullPath=True) or [])
        while children:
            result.update(children)
            children = set(cmds.listRelatives(children, fullPath=True) or []) - result

for node in result:
    #print(node)
    if cmds.objectType(node) == "nurbsCurve":
        print(node)
        cmds.setAttr(node  + '.lineWidth', 2)
Shading Mode

Enable X-Ray Joints mode to display skeleton overlayed the mesh.

You can also cycle rig display mode (Alt + A) to hide joints and controllers.

Curve Tools

See: Maya Curve

References

Realtime Creature Rigging Workshop (7 / 19) : Control creation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jO9jQQfSL8

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