This rig is a part of my Maya camera rig creation project. If you want to learn more about the rigs I have made you can see the whole project here. All rigs are available to download and are free to use.
This rig is a three-legged mechanism that is great for shots that have movement or are static. Great for not distracting the subjects being filmed.
Tripod rigs are pretty simplistic so there are not many controls to them. For this rig, it only needed to do two things.
I decided to make a tripod similar to the one below, that has the ability to change in size so the camera can film at different heights. I will use this rig with my Crane/Jib rig.
To create this rig I started with focusing on creating one functional leg that I could then duplicate to make the other two. To get the leg to move smoothly like an actual tripod would I use a combination of joints and set driven key.
Joints act similar to bones. A model attached to a joint will follow it. Set driven key is an animation tool that can have an object move in a specific way in relation to another object.
After completing the rig this is what it ended up looking like. It has a total of five controls.
https://www.loom.com/embed/95e01f8eb2a848718965eac655a72a4c
This control is used to translate, rotate, scale, and turn on and off the visibility of the rig. It also allows the aim control for the camera to be turned on and off and the controls visibility can be changed separately.
This is where the height of the tripod can be adjusted.