Rigging Help & Techniques

This is thread was created for the purpose of discussing rigging techniques in Blender. Information shared here is collected and organized on The Rigging Repository Blog.

Think of this thread as an interactive manual… you can post examples or ask questions for others to learn from…

This thread is intended to be a resource for users interested in sharing and discussing rigging techniques. This thread is not in the WIP section because it is meant as a resource, and the more people who contribute the better!

http://imgur.com/5wdEA.jpg

If you are looking for Manny the Mannequin, he is now in the characters section of the blog.

**Special thanks to everyone who has contributed content or links to this thread!

Oh I should also point out that the glaring problems with the rig right now are that the spine is very cumbersome and easy to crink, and the fingers cannot be scaled all at once or they will flip (this is because he wasn’t rigged in the standard rigging position, and his fingers are not even). Since the reference was posed this way, I decided to go with it. And because he is not made for animation, I don’t think the finger issue is too big of a deal. But I imagine the spine could be better with B-Bones or something…

I look forward to hearing ideas! :eyebrowlift:

creative commons? :eyebrowlift2:

yeah… well more like public domain I suppose… :slight_smile: There’s no sense in trying to control the content that appears in this thread! :rolleyes:

Good Idea for a thread, my rig is 90 percent complete but has mo mesh at the moment I can upload it if you think it might help other new users to rigging.

Hi Feelgoodcomics!
Here is my Rig/rigging system for Blender. It is called BlenRig. The latest release is version 3 Alpha 2, it is based on mesh deform and has a muscle simulation system based on Shrinkwrap.This is the thread where I post my progress:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=138117

There is also an animation test at VIMEO along with other things including tutorials on how to reuse the previous version of the rig.

This is my webpage, where you can download all the versions of BlenRig:
www.jpbouza.com.ar

I´ll be glad to discuss rigging techniques here! It might end up being a good resource.

Don´t forget to check out BenDansie´s Thread, cause he wants to do some kind of community based human characters wiki.

Cheers!

Oh, that´s a pretty good skeleton you have there! It is nice to see that you´re sharing it!

Sudai:
I would be very delighted if you posted your rig! :smiley: Even without a mesh.

jpbouza:
Thanks for all the links! Your blenrig work is fantastic! Really detailed! 517 bones wow! :eek: I will analyze your latest rig, and offer some suggestions.
This thread could go well with Ben Dansie’s thread, since his is focused on character appearances and this thread is focused on character mechanics. I want to stress that fact, so I will add a notice in the first post - we’re only concerned about mechanics in this thread!

Well here’s the Rig I’m working on, hopefully we all end up with a good resource of rigs to learn from, the more rigs we get to look at the better our knowledge base will be. :slight_smile:

Sudai

Attachments

Sudai_RIG_WIP.blend (151 KB)

Thank-you Sudai, I will take a look at your rig in just a moment. :yes:

This thread is for getting our hands dirty, so I thought it was fitting to start with a hand. I have attached a hand rig made using the hand model from jpbouza’s blenrig 3.0 model.

It is relatively easy to animate, as I believe that should be the goal of every rig (except for Manny). Actually it’s interesting, that’s why I chose not to animate Manny, since the more realistic you get the more complicated the rig gets, and the more involved animation becomes!

I was looking over your blenrig this afternoon jpbouza, and I noticed your hand setup is very manual. It offers a lot of control, but can drive an animator crazy instantly when he/she needs to make a fist! :eyebrowlift2: lol. So I thought I would have a go at a different solution.This version takes advantage of the dual armature setup I just learned of recently from Pepeland’s Blog [file]. It allows bones to be driven directly by other bones (in the other armature).

I can already see ways in which it can be better, and I would like to include optional IK on the fingers, but I thought I would post it anyway. This rig is the first one I’ve made using 2 armatures, so it is highly experimental!

The finger controls assume that the animator usually wants to curl the fingers evenly, but offers the ability to override this (by scaling the _CURL bone). The palm can be curled with the PALM_CURL control. The controls are setup to only allow motions they were intended to be used for, so don’t be afraid to just fiddle with it. It’s pretty simple (although a little tricky to setup - realistic rigs usually are).

EDIT: If I were to rig this again, I would not use 2 armatures. It works fine, but the setup becomes more complicated than it needs to be. Constraints can be driven by bones in the same armature (which I didn’t realize at the time), and I believe the controls could be setup in the same way using transformation constraints.

EDIT2: I have re-done this rig using a single armature with the same result. Check it out here.

Attachments

handDemo_FGC_jpbouza.blend (338 KB)

Hey feelgoodcomics! Nice, very Useful, I think I’ll add that mechanism to BlenRig!

There’s no need to use two Armatures for that. Using 2 Armatures might drive you to certain refresh problems when working with Ipo controllers. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Anyway, that setup can be achieved by just adding the controller bones and some transformation constraints (as they let you keep manual rotation, whereas the copy rotation constraint).

Still, I woudn’t remove the IK option, I find it very useful, specially for achieving very subtle poses in an easy and fast way.The two mechanisms can coexist in the same rig!

Sudai, nice rig! :yes:

I like the idea of having the head track to a controller. But I would strongly recommend adding a way to override this behavior, because I can think of scenarios where this would not be desirable…

Personally, I prefer to have the shoulder controls stay where the shoulder is (like the shoulders in this horse rig). It makes it feel more “controlled”, atleast I think so.

The hip control is very clever! Though I usually find that the pelvis pivots best from the hips, like Nathan Vegdahl does on Wrinky in this tutorial video.

The spine is very FK based, leading to a lot of work for the animator, and I don’t blame you. Spines are difficult! BUT, there are ways. Take a look at B-Bones for one example… I will be tackling alternative spine rigs next, so I will discuss it further when I do…

Just some things to consider for your final version :wink:

Thanks again for posting! :smiley: It’s a great rig! :yes:

jpbouza,

I totally agree, having the ability for IK is very vital. This is likely very possible with a single armature. I’m just playing with possibilities :slight_smile:

What kind of refresh problems with the IPO occur? :confused:

In the first version of BlenRig 2, the panel switches where in another armature. Those switches drove the IK/FK and stretching functions of the rig. Unfortunately, the effect of the controllers did not refresh when you pushed the play button. So, If you are going to have IPO drivers, it is a good Idea to have them in the same Armature.

I see… so then I went about it the right way if I were to rig that way at all, since that’s exactly what I’ve done here - the control rig is the only one doing the driving :yes:

There is something I have yet to try, and I have a feeling it will be impossible without 2 rigs because it is pretty much a dependency cycle… :eyebrowlift:

I am currently playing around with setting up the equivalent of a ribbon spine. I’ve noted that using a mesh for the ribbon is both not going to work, and unnecessary. MCHammond came very close to it with his spine setup, but it’s a little too ‘freeform’ for my taste. I will post an example if I can get it working…

feelgoodcomics

Hi cheers for the feed back , the head does have separate rotation bone for more control
of the head once positioned by the tracking control :confused:,
with the spine shoulders etc a lot of my build is personal preference at the moment, I did have an Ik chain set up for the spine but to me it felt like the ik was taking away all my control for subtle poses of the spine Joints ie with regards to martial arts.

Looking forward to more posts and info

Sudai

Hey Sudai,

Sorry I didn’t realize that the starry thing was a head control. Very cool :slight_smile:

I know exactly what you mean with the spine, Manny is an extreme case of this very problem. Perhaps we are all agreed then to find as many variations of spine solutions as we can? :wink:

Edit: I want to elaborate on what I meant regarding your shoulder controls, because I see it on your head control as well… When I rotate the head forward for example, I notice that the pivot of the control bone, and the pivot of the head bone it is controlling are not in the same place. This makes it more difficult to animate (in my opinion), because it doesn’t feel under control… it creates a kind of disconnect between the controller and controllee, you know? :confused:

It is possible to offset the control shape from the bone location, by moving the vertices of the shape. This allows you to put the shape in a different place than the bone, so you can have your control shape wherever you want it, and the pivot point can be wherever you need it to be.

I just want to make sure you’re aware of this :yes: Cheers!

Okay, one last rig before I call it a night…

This is a non-stretchy spine/torso demo. I threw this together pretty quick just to give an idea of what can be done using segmented B-Bones. I’ve seen many different setups like this, so I’m sure there are many variations that could be done with minor tweaking. I will continue fiddling with the ribbon spine tomorrow… :eyebrowlift:

PS. 100 posts yay!!! :spin:

Attachments

nonStretchySpineIdea.blend (87.1 KB)

Hi I done a quick heat map and very quick pose to show the head track working on a mesh, I do plan on updating all the bone control pivot locations if you check out the foot control the pivots are lined up and yes I understand your disconnection sensation when
working with the controls.

Sudai

Attachments


very cool Sudai :slight_smile:

I sense some ninja fighting action! :smiley: