How Am I To Rig This?

[MienFTW]

Okay, so I came across a download link to HALO Spartan models. And I was wondering if anyone can help me with rigging it.

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Any tips?

PS: I will not include the the link to the models mainly because i forgot it, all i know is that I got it from halocemaps.org.

[AgusAnim-3D]

I think that this is one of the better tutorials on youtube, it help me out a lot:

Part1:

Part2:

Part3:

[GordGoodwin]

Cool vids AgusAnim-3D :yes:

However, there are some major issues with them I feel I should point out…

@myself

The first thing I noticed in that video is that he positions the armature in object mode… that is not a good idea! It is best to clear the transforms of the armature with alt+G/R/S so it is at 0,0,0. He also positions it in the center “by eye” which is also not a good idea, because it can easily lead to asymmetry (aka. twice as much work). The model should have been built along the axis line, and with mirror enabled so that it is perfectly centered and symmetrical, so that when you zero the armature it is automatically centered and aligned.

His approach for “mirroring” the leg bones from one side to the other is not ideal. Also, when he does the thumbs he makes each one individually instead of mirroring them. I would suggest that you watch this video to see a more efficient/accurate technique. Nathan’s video, by the way, was my introduction to rigging in Blender.

And also at the end of part 3, he applies the constraints in a very sloppy way and the feet become twisted. He mentions that the weight maps were wrong because of forgetting to turn off deform on the feet bones during the heat weighting, but it’s not the problem I’m talking about. It’s a result of his legs being mirrored ‘manually’ and also not aligning the bones in edit mode first - so they don’t move at all when the constraint is applied. It just was not good practice.

There are many more tutorials in my signature you can check out. I have watched them all myself to make sure they are not misleading in any way. Unfortunately I don’t think I will be adding this tutorial since I see too much potential to mislead newcomers. Which is unfortunate, as I think he otherwise did a very good job with it.

I really don’t like criticizing other people’s work, but when you make a tutorial it is crucial that you understand what you’re doing. By making it you are saying that you know the subject well enough to teach it to others. I have been studying rigging in Blender for a few months now, and I still don’t feel ready to teach others!

[Jesus_Freak]

lol i just did that 2 days ago. i just made simple armatures and pressed ctrl-p >> create from bone heat. then i adjusted the distance of each bone. i wasn’t able to rig the fingers but thats all i needed.

ps. u can use google sketchup to download models, and then u can import them into blender. u can find anything there. pm me if you want to learn how to import them to blender. thats where i got my mc, and it was already textured