Critique my rig

Artwork Works in Progress
#1

Hi all

I hope I am posting in the right area.

I am working on a model and animations for a game we are making in UE4. The .blend file is attached.

I have taken a stab at a run animation, and it will need to be redone. However, I’m hoping for someone more experienced in Blender to point out if my animation is what needs work, or do I need to make improvements to the way the bone rig is set up?

If any further information is required, please let me know.

Cheers
Matt

SoulRunnerCharacter_02.blend (2.1 MB)

#2

Line up the IK poles. And then they don’t have to bounce all around. And the spine looks like it has like 2x as many bones as you need.
SoulRunnerCharacter_02.blend (2.1 MB)

#3

Hey, thanks! That’s looking much better. I have also moved the IK Pole bones in the rig in edit mode to mimic what you have done in pose mode in the run animation.

Which bones in the spine would you recommend deleting?

Cheers
Matt

SoulRunnerCharacter_03.blend (2.1 MB)

#4

Think of the bones not as mimicking actual bones in the body but rather as yielding pivot points. So 1 bone for the head, 1 for the neck, and you have 5 in the body. You might only need 1 pivot in the body, like below the ribcage, so then you would need 2 bones instead of 5. But you may want your character to be bendy like a snake.

And I’m not 100% on this but I think you want a straight spine (meaning only along the Z axis, not along Y or X).

#5

Cool, thanks a lot for this. This is very useful.