Character rigging

Artwork Works in Progress
21

I have played a little more with shoulder set up. Now it is as I like it.
Relevant sliders are on the Shoulder_Mechan bone. So animator can decide wether the arm will hinge with

  • shoulder but not along vertical axe
  • shoulder all axes
  • FK spine (FK hips usually)
    combinations of here above

Please test here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/182898111/Shoulder6.blend

Edit: One important remark, the model is not skinned yet. I decided to skin him at the end of the rigging process.

22

Its a nice spine rig! As soon as I can wrap my head around it I’d love to put
it in my own rigs. You can get ik as well as nice arcs!

I wonder if that way of doing the spine could be applied to other body parts. I honestly can’t think of a reason why not. I’m kinda tired of the IK>FK only paradigm.

23

Hello, I am slowly progressing with stretchy-squashy FK IK arms. The shoulder had to be redone because of evil cyclic dependencies that were unfortunately revealed later during the progress as the rig becomes more and more complicated. Also the model is slightly updated.
http://rapidshare.com/files/184727018/Arm8.blend

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/6323/rigfr8.png

24

OK, now both arms has FK chain with squash and stretch effect (connected to Y scale manipulator):
http://rapidshare.com/files/184918568/Arm14.blend

25

yeah, the problem was with me not opening the file in 2.48, but in 2.47… uurrrr…
Something that might help people keep track of your versions is if you could use the same naming conventions for whenever you have a new update. If you need to know what is new and what you altered last, just make a new window with a text editor in in, and jot it down in there. Works for me, might work for you. I backtracked all the earlier files I downloaded to delete them, which is not very handy.

Nothing to comment on the rig really, just waiting and seeing where it goes.

26

Today I have finished the arms.
Features:
FK with SS
IK with SS
SS effect for FK as well as IK could be switched off
FK - IK switching
Propagation of arm rotation along its Y axe (very nice and not too complicated to do with BB features in Blender)

Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/185448226/Arm29.blend

Armature is now set up so one arm is FK and the second IK. Please give me feedback after playing with it.
IK SS is base on IPO driver, my own method.
Once again the model is not skinned but you can see DEF armature to work as expected. Switches in 3d will be added later on. Now you can use constraints with appropriate names.

Next step: Hand

27

Oh I have forgotten one FK arm feature:
Multiple selection rotation
Same as FK spine, you can pick more FK bones and when rotate all rotates simultaneously (not only the active one which is standard in Blender).

28

And the recent snapshot:
http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/3339/rigzr5.png

29

Rather bigger update.

I realised need of little tweaks or bugs. So arm was redone slightly.

Because of this I had to delete right part of the rig. Right arm and leg will be done when left ones will be approved as really final.
Because IK arm is separate armature, there is special chain CopyIK arm within standard controls armature so animator can use VisualCopy for seamless FK IK switching.

http://rapidshare.com/files/189177216/Leg6.blend

Hand is ready. Uhh

  • Hand rotation is controlled by IK or FK hand controllers.
  • Palm has special feature of rolling (thank you Nathan for great BBB script)
  • Each finger can be controlled by one bone as well as per segment (or combination of this)
  • Maybe I also prepare some hand poses library as this is now quite easy in Blender and may speed up animation.

FK Leg is ready as well.

  • Hinge constraint for leg
  • Multiple rotation of FK leg segments possible
  • SS effect as well

Next step - IK leg

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/9154/rigqt8.png

30

After reviewing foot concepts that I had prepared I spent this day with rather totally new solution. The one where you do not need to counter animate the tip of the foot (which is mostly the solution I have seen in foot rig (Mancandy, Biped, …)) With this one I am really happy because foot rig/animation behaves like real foot when you make a step.

So here is my set up that I will implement.

  • four pivot solution (ankle, tip, heel, and midfoot)
  • two controlling bones
    • CTR Foot for grabbing and ankle rotations
    • CTR Roll for tip and heel rotation (using CTR Roll rotation) and for midfoot roll (using CTR Roll scaling)

http://rapidshare.com/files/189364468/Foot.blend

I have test it and it seems like really nice solution for easy animation. And also really fast to rig, only few bones.

EDIT: And of course, big thank to Nathan for his roll script (which uses one bone of this solution)!

31

OK, also IK leg with SS effect is ready and the foot rig are ready.

http://rapidshare.com/files/190068385/Leg20.blend

Next step - deforming armature leg chain

32

nice to see your progress ! kudos on the rig :slight_smile:

33

Thank you malefico, I am honoured :slight_smile:
I hope to finish today leg deformation rig.

  • then to copy all limbs to the right side (oohhh, does anyone know how to make this as easy as possible or is there even any script? I have named all .L bones correctly, I promise)
  • then skinning,
  • then GUI,
  • then curving/bendy bones - here is the concept, quite effective and fast solution I believe http://rapidshare.com/files/190112432/BendyBones.blend
  • and eventually the release - HURRAY :slight_smile:

Next phase will be the face rigging.

34

Oh, man, you are doing awesome job!!! Can’t wait until the release :slight_smile:

35

To have some rest I played with rig colour code and gizmos. Also some little corrections were made.
Here is actual state:
http://rapidshare.com/files/190649895/GUI1.blend

Attachments

Rig.PNG915×915 103 KB

36

Just to give you some update. I have started to design GUI for the rig first. Hope to finish it soon. Later I will add switches. Following testing of switches I will finish the right arm and leg (I decided to have left side really finalised before copy all the stuff to the right side).

Attachments

GUI.jpg1024×663 46.3 KB

37

OK - GUI design seems final, now I will play with constraints switches.

Attachments

GUI_WIP1.jpg744×755 129 KB

38

Ok you HAVE to tell us how you made the GUI. That is amazing.

39

This is in fact just the picture. I have taken some print screens from Blender and played with it in GIMPHOTO. So in fact it is just a cheating - no real programmed or python GUI (but lots of animators say that all 3d is about cheating so I guess it is ok :slight_smile:

40

So it’s(gui) nonworking? What’s the point? :stuck_out_tongue: Love the progress. Keep it up.