Noob Questions - Rigs & How do I add things?

Support Basics & Interface
#1

First addons / mods like Rigify. I mean I need to know (1) Is Rigify compatible with the latest version of Blender? (2) If not compatible where do I get good current addons for Blender? (3) Where do I place Blender mods? Like after I download and unzip it where does it go?

Next, if I go to one of those free sites that community share meshes because I don’t want to craft from scratch myself and they gave legal rights and permissions and all is above board; after downloading a mesh made by someone else where to I place it after it’s unzipped? How do I get it from the file into Blender?

Last, what is the very best rig out now for humanoid body movements? Realistic dancing and swordplay in mind.

#2

Rigify is built into Blender and has been for quite a while now.

Google is your friend. Tons of resources available.

Most addons can be “installed” from the User Preferences pop up (File>User Preferences, Addons tab) then click the “Install from File” button at the bottom of the window. If the addon was installed correctly, you’ll see an entry with a checkbox. If that doesn’t work, unzip the file to the “Scripts/Addons” folder

Put it wherever you want and open it like you would with any other program.

Not sure how to answer this. I’m not an animator so I’m not qualified to comment. There are plenty of great rigs out there to play around with and judge for yourself. http://www.Blendswap.com is a good place to start.

#3

Think about your work-flow and organize your folders accordingly.

In general, I set up a folder for each project, so each one of those ‘community share’ meshes has its own folder, which is a subfolder for my ‘Blender’ folder (Note: this is not an OS folder with the program and scripts and so on. This is for my working blend files, textures, tutorial files and so on.) When I work on a larger project, I copy any asset folders to the larger project folder, keeping the same name so it’s easy for me to find.

A rigify rig will let you animate dancing and swordplay. While there are plenty of great rigs out there, there are also plenty of awful or incomplete rigs, so if I were you, I’d stick with rigify, at least until you have some experience with rigging and animation in Blender. I’d also recommend you work throughHumane Rigging, for insight into how rigging works.

#4

Thanks for answers both of you. I’ll have to experiment. I’m just going to pick on one thing -

Google is NOT my friend. Google is an evil step mother that wants me to work on chores assigned years ago. DuckDuckGo and Youtube are my evil step sisters that beat me if I ask for anything. The only true friends I have are the little mice on the forums.

I could cut down on learning time if number placement in quotes were properly recognized and only information published in 2015 was shown. In English. Both British and USA English (why in god’s name youtube makes me choose between the two - like i’m to stupid to figure out a diaper is a nappy).

#5

Didn’t mean to cause you grief – maybe I should have said “A good search engine that you’re comfortable with that meets all your needs and doesn’t beat you senseless every time you turn around is your friend”.

#6

Maybe not. But Google can be useful if you know how to trick it into doing what you want. For Blender, the main trick to getting current information is to use the Blender version number instead of a year. So “Blender 2.7 addons” rather than “Blender Addons 2015” Also, sometimes specific search terms are helpful. In rigging, those terms would be ‘rigify’ and ‘pitchipoy’.

Now, how in the seven hells is a newcomer supposed to guess the magic word ‘pitchipoy’ to do a search for a Blender rig? You’re not. That’s what we little mice are for. :wink:

The other bit of advice I have for you is to read the blender release notes. And read them for earlier versions, as well, since features are cumulative, and the release notes only cover recent changes and additions. But you’ll find better and more accessible Blender documentation there than in any other place on the web.