Rigging with Rigify

Here are a few tutorials that cover rigging with Rigify. I will be adding to this series often. My goal is to delve into every aspect of the Rigify addon.

Subjects that will be covered are:

  1. Using the standard Human Metarigs for rig generation.
  2. Adding to the human metarigs to expand rigs before generating a rig.
  3. Adding bones after rig generation.
  4. Using Rigify for more then biped/humanoid rigs.
  5. Lot’s of workflow tips not specific to Rigify, but to rigging in general
  6. Weight painting and skinning to a rig. Useful tips to weight your meshes to the Rigify Rig to get good deformations. (i.e. how to make auto weighting look good, or why auto weighting will never be enough…)
  7. rig.ui.py script changes to make your rig even better.
  8. How to use the rigify rig and it’s many controls and options.

Part 1 :Using rigify for any project. It’s not just for character rigging!

Part 2 : Human/biped rigging: Mesh preparation.

Part 3: Adding/Editing the Metarig

Part 4: Generating a rig. Basic skinning primer.

I will be adding to this series in the following days/weeks.

Good luck!

DanPro

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Part 5 : Mesh Parenting 101

Many topics not specific to Rigify in this tutorial.

Parenting mesh objects too an armature is looked at in detail. All the behind the scenes things that happen when you parent a mesh to an armature with automatic weights.

Two methods of parenting a “hard surface” object to an armature as well as meshes that will deform.

Ooh, how did I miss this? Will add to my watchlist :slight_smile:

Part 6 - Weighting and Topology 101

Like Part 5, this tutorial is not specific to Rigify.

Learn the “secret” to weight painting, normalized weights. Blender will always normalize the weights on a vertex to determine how to move the vertex. Blender will not force us to normalize the weights so this causes a lot of confusion between what we see and what blender does. Often, this makes it appear that blender is doing the exact opposite of what we wish to happen.

In addition, topology is examined. Learn how simple changes to a mesh’s topology can have a huge affect on deformations.

This is very helpful thanks!
Can you also add any addons that would useful for rigging.

I use a couple that are very useful for rigging. Copy Attributes is very useful and I will be using that a lot in future Rigify tutorials. I believe I’ve used it in my advanced tentacle tutorials. Also, the UI Management addon is great for organizing bone layers. Available here: http://blender-addon.blogspot.it/2012/09/bone-layer-manager-05-for-blender-263a.html I use this in the tentacle tutorials and will also be using it for adding new rig functions and new bones to the generated Rigify rig.

Thanks so much for sharing. I really need such tutorials now, awesome!

Three new videos designed to help in “stage one” of my rigging workflow. Stage one is where the foundation is set before further customization of the generated Rigify rig. This workflow is designed to maximize efficiency and minimize re-work.

Part 7A : Workflow tips. https://youtu.be/2k9Hk8gpHKk

Part 7B : Customizing the Metarig. https://youtu.be/bI_qdzpg1CQ

Part 7C : Clean Parenting Methods. https://youtu.be/r5HTYz-bVdU

Good luck!

Thanks for your tutorials.

I vill study your tutorials to learn more abouth Walk Cycles and maybe on the line solve the problem I still struggle with.

I start rigging characters one week ago and want him to walk like a human. Loock at my blend and give me some critics and feedbacks.
http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=43608

https://player.vimeo.com/video/183026196

Thanks
Kalle.

General rigging and animation support questions should be posted in the appropriate sub forums. In this case, Support > Animation and Rigging.

There are many folks here that can help you with any issues that you may have. If you are new to rigging and animation I would suggest three tutorials to start your education. Humane Rigging by Nathan Vegdahl, Animation Fundamentals By Beorn Leonard and The Character Animation Toolkit by Beorn Leonard and Nathan Vegdahl. The latter two can be found at CGCookie.Com and one is now free. Humane Rigging can be perchased at the Blender.org store or you can find it on youtube.

Thanks and good luck!

Continuing the series with weight painting:

Part 7D : Auto weight cleanup. 7D https://youtu.be/FbjKJXkDkzQ

Part 7E : Joint by joint and axis by axis weighting workflow. https://youtu.be/AuunjITq2e0

Good luck!

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Short tutorial to explain some very exciting additions to the Rigify addon for Blender 2.78.

The Pitchipoy arm/leg rigs now have IK/FK snapping! Also, there are new options for quadruped leg rigs!

Good luck!

How to transfer weights from one mesh to another. Also, some thoughts on rigging clothes and how different topology across two meshes can complicate deformations of skin and cloth.

How to create clothing from a body mesh to duplicate topology and weighting to get better results when rigging clothing.

Rigify Part 7G https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1InoQjSOvjE

Good luck!

I am absolutey loving this series. Helped me so much!

A quick tutorial to show an easy way to setup drivers for corrective shapes. A more indepth tutorial will likely replace this in the near future.

Good luck!

Hello. I’m trying to load a BVH motion capture files onto a rigged character with makewalk and I’m using the rigify armature PitchiPoy Version,but it does not work. I made a post here,but at the moment,no one replied :

Three more tutorials focusing on specific rig types.

Topics include bone placement to help ensure a good functioning rig when generated, how to use the rig controls and options, as well as customizing each rig type pre-generation.

Part 8

Part 8a Original Spine and Neck rig

Part 8b Pitchipoy Super Torso Turbo

More to come…

Good luck!

Thanks a lot for this series!

Your tutorias have been saving my life lately. Thanks a lot!