First Blender Rig By Sudai

Hi everyone

here is an update on my first rig in blender, Made some more progress
via trial and error and the helpfull tips from Vertex pusher and FeelgoodComics,
sorted out the bones to layers added more Ctrl bones and a differnt foot rig.
I still have to make FK controls and hopefully
an IK switch if I can understand the process,
also rig the hands and head.

Sudai

PS:There are more bones on other layers

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You show lots of promise on the screen shots, I think any end user animator will definately enjoy the simplicity of what you presented. And from what I have seen recently, there is a rather big demand for riggers, so keep it up, and you will soon find a future in this field!

Thanks Kbot
Its good to know I’m on the right track, never had much success with rigging in the past but I seem to be able to experiment and test in blender a lot easier than in other apps I have tried in the past, I also plan to release the rig when it s up to a good standard . Next challange after all the rigging will be adjusting all the wieght maps I bet that will take an age :slight_smile:

What part of NZ are you in ? I’m in akl.

The Naki, and its been getting colder and colder good covering of snow on the mountthe other day. good reason to stay inside and learn stuff.

Hi I Had a break from the rigging and done some retopology work on the Makehuman mesh, I Still have more adjustments to make before I move on to the other sections of the model, but have got a good reduction and improving the loops in the problem areas as I go. That Retopo is a very impressive tool so if you havent tired it yet give it a go.

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After playing around with the mesh editing tools in Blender on the make human torso I have decided to have a go at creating my own mesh, I havent built one for a while its been 2 years with out a Computer so Im rusty as, hopefully it pans out ok I know I need the practice, more rig work as well.

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Nice work, Is this for a game project or animating with your rig? The Model is low poly enough for the GE but the rig looks a bit complicated

Hi Rorkimaru

This project is just my Blender learning curve, Ive got an animation concept that I want to try and produce once I learn the tools dont know if the game engine supports constraints and IK but would be nice if it did. Still heaps to learn done some more IK work today and trying out the pole target option, I could have reduced the vert count a bit more after useing the mirror modifier but have moved on to modeling my own character, I did manage to get rid of the Tri’s in the mesh and used 4point Tris to mantain quads in the model heres the file if anyone wants to use it.

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Tweaked_torso.blend (156 KB)

Ah right, As far as I know you can’t use all the constraints in the GE but you can just keyframe the constrained bones and then they work too.

Would be good to try out a character in the game engine oneday when its finished, tried IK setup on the fingers but ended up getting all weird angles and twisting will have another go later. Did manage to set up pole targets for the knees and elbows thus getting rid of four ik constraints and finaly got the head tracking.

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For hands, I’d suggest using vector IK, see http://animateit.wordpress.com/2008/05/30/vector-ik/ (there’s also some videos from blender conferences, siggraph, etc on it, and for that matter you might find a nice tutorial on the mancandy dvd files).

Make sure to get the fingers roll correct, I have a tendency to neglect that myself. There’s also a post there I did on how to do shoulder rigs that deform properly (took me months to figure it out). The technique is kindof cool, since it makes for a fairly flexible rig (you can either rotate the forearm around the upper arm, or rotate the upper arm around it’s y axis, both work, though I’d suggest not consiously rotating the forearm that way on purpose, I just make the rig that way because I thought it’d work better with IK :slight_smile: ).

Joe

Hi Joeedh

Thanks for the links, Im trying out something very similar to what you have on your blog (the finger rig) I guess its just a case of more trial and error, I would like to check out the vids but Im on dial up :o I think I will put some FK controls on the fingers and have the option of IK later on when I sort it out, I have Also been trying to learn that ik switch via a driven bone setup so I can hopefully have one on off driver instead of having to turn off the ik manually

If it’s of any help, there is a human rig for free use on the OWF website, that you can take apart. It has a simple to use but quite powerful hand setup. You can download it at:
http://www.openworldfilm.com/owffms/FMS/download.php?id=46

If you take a look, let me know what you think, cos I designed a lot of it, and it would be nice to know of any snags.

Matt

Don’t worry about the vids, their mostly just some animation stuff I did before starting animation school (and really suck). I’m actually glad you can’t see them :slight_smile:

The IK setup isn’t too tricky, though there is one thing that can trip you up. To drive a constraint properly, you have to press the “show” button on the constraint (to show the constraint ipo in the ipo editor), unclick the little running guy (so it’s not tied to the current action) then press “show” again. It’s very important the little running guy icon is not enabled when you create your driver.

Once you have the right ipo, you then create an ipo for the Inf channel, that goes from 0 to 1 (or whatever the range is you want for your control obj). Then you go to the nkey panel, and add a driver, type in the name of the armature, change the “Object” dropdown to “Pose”, type in the name of the bone, then select a channel (e.g. LocX or something).

Joe

HI Matt
I like the rig it poses well (will give it a decent look later) thanks for sharing your hard work,Bound to learn something new from it. my WIP is attached if anyone wants to check it out.
do you have any links to animations done with your rig ?

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Sudai_Rig.blend (379 KB)

Also thanks Joe for the tips on that IK FK Switch I will give it another try, I Cleaned up some more Bone roll angles and put in some FK controls for the fingers, definatly learning lots should have a good Biped Rig by the time
Im finished. Im off to render the Defualt Cube and give my brain a rest :smiley:

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Hi all

I have started work on a very basic mesh to go with the rig hopefully those extra little
bones help out in the problem areas when its weight painting time, I also updated the finger control shape to something thats easier to select at all angles, no ref images for the mesh (like you can’t tell lol) just using the bones as ref points and seeing what pans out.

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Looking good so far. This is way more complecated than my first rigs, and more complecated than any I’m still comfortable making.

I just do it one bone at a time , and work on it until I understand whats going on and try and & improve it if I can , Yesterday was a lot of doing one step over and over , I tried removing some rotation contraints yesterday but the bone was still acting like it had it.:confused: In the end I just deleted it and started with a fresh set, I hope it all works out at animation time…

here’s my modelling progress

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