Manipulators
In Rumba, the manipulator is a plug-in object which fills the gap between the user inputs during the manipulation and the rig’s controllers. The manipulator reacts to the user inputs and can modify any controllers, at any time.
To perform advanced manipulations in Rumba (move on hover, multi fingers manipulation, …) the asset must be upgraded with Rumba manipulators.
Rumba manipulators can be added to any rig, and this process does not require to modify the rig itself but simply to add a layer of non-destructive information.
Within Maya, a Rumba manipulator is represented by a vanilla transform node that describes, with several attributes, which controller will be driven by the manipulator and the way to drive it. Then those manipulators can be associated with a specific object in the maya scene or a color painted on the asset mesh, allowing advanced manipulation in Rumba once exported.
The manipulators are not physically connected to the Maya nodes, so once you have created a set of manipulators matching your controllers, you can simply copy/paste them in any rigs based on the same controllers.