updates as of September 12th, 2014

At this time, I've corrected a few things that still lingered in the main setup:

• Due to the blendshape system I used to create the eyes, rotating them in their socket cause them to open slightly when the flower is slightly closed. I've set the blends so that they shut off if the flower is closed slightly, but allow enough leeway so they still bend a little before hitting the cut off point.
• I've added in controls throughout the small tree on top of the skull. This should allow for some more fine movement in the piece, and can be hidden or displayed via a new attribute on the head control curve.

A new feature I've added in was a more autonomous control setup for the tree stump.

The top directional control above the stump allows for it to shift about, while leaving the roots in their relative place. This control can switch between the local mode, which parents it to the leg joint of the main skeleton, or the roots control, which unlocks a global location control. This is also true for the base of the stump. By adding in a new control to the base, it can switch between the local control of the main skeleton, or a global control for the animator to place where they please.

Another addition to the rig is one at the head.

One of the animators I have testing the rig out requested the various branches have their own controls. I had at first thought of doing this in earlier stages, but had held off on it, thinking that animators would want to avoid as many minor controls. Looking back, it was a foolish decision, so now they've been placed at the various forks in the tree. I will need to update the nCloth file now, however, since the joint count has increased a fair amount.

Elsewhere, on the vine script front, I've made some strides. The curve itself can now match the positions of the joints in the standard version of the vine. I've also worked out how to add in attributes onto script generated controls that aren't just float numbers. Also, thanks to an expression a professor tested in the past when I had the vine scaling issue on the main rig, I've been able to scale up the script vines. It's still not a perfect setup, as paint effects cannot scale in the same way normal geometry does. However, I have found that, by adding in another attribute on the control, an animator can counteract over-scaling when attempting to re-size  the vine. While the control connects to the global scale of the paint effects, the additional attribute increases or decreases the pressureMax attribute on the stroke. This, in turn, can allow the paint effect to stay within a desired parameter of thickness.

The last aspects of the script I need to create are to be able to position the locators anywhere and have the base control be generated there, and the other controls for the rest of the vine to be moved by.