Following are some of my research projects:

Group Constraint:

It is a challenging issue in rigging to have dynamic constraint relationship between a group of nodes where it is possible to animate the driver of the system. Currently in Maya it is not possible to create bi-directionality using the available tools. I am currently developing a Maya plug-in to address this challenge. Main features of this plug-in are as follows:

• Multi-way relationship with dynamic driver (or master) without any cyclic issue.
• No popping of the nodes when switching occurs. When animation is updated the node takes care of any popping automatically.
• One frame switching of driver, no need to create two consecutive frames to switch the driver. 

Skin Sliding Deformer:

Sking sliding is a very useful feature for realistic skin movement as well as some detailed deformation for cartoony characters. My method explores idea of using approximation of local area to calculate the movement of vertices. This is developed as a Maya plug-in.

Multi-input Mixer:

This project explores scattered data interpolation using radial basis functions in a Maya plug-in. The node takes multiple inputs and calculates a single output(0 to 1) based on how close the inputs are to the goal state. Each input also has an importance value which specifies how much a particular input (relative to other inputs) influences the output. The output of the node can be non-linear to fit different requirements. This node is very useful for driving corrective shapes or detailing shapes when different action units are combined. For example, on face we can trigger a blend shape when smile and mouth open are triggered.