@ ALL --------------IMPORTANT
Hello to everyone. I need to share with you something that bugs me, and I shouldn’t keep my mouth shot anymore… SORRY
A few Newcomers keep saying that Pantin is a simple rig to animate. Well,I must say that that’s not true.
The easiest to animate rig is the one with less number of controllers with enough architecture and constraints to do the job automatically for you and allowing you to pose it with no limitations.
Pantin was not designed with the NEWCOMER in mind…Pantin as PEDRO were designed to show rigging capabilities , but not to make your life easier as animator.
Pantin has redundant controllers everywhere, and the mesh quality does not even needs such extra bones.
One more factor why the BAC final animations are jerky is on the rig itself. I have never participated again because I have to key too many bones on Pantin to produce a basic POSE !..plus the animation is always jerky when you have to manually handle many bones on the same area, we need to let the IK algorithm work for you…your animation will be smoother and you will produce longer quality animations in less time.
TAKEN FROM THE BOOK:
The thing to bear in mind when designing and building a 3D-animated character is to KEEP IT SIMPLE ! You could come build the most complicated character in the world, but if its very complexity makes it awkward to animate it completely defeats the object of the exercise. Internally, think of your character as being like a racing car. All the controls are cut down to a minimum and are easily accessible. There won’t be any cup holders, electric windows,climate control and the 1001 other gadgets that you might find on a standard roard car. This simplicity will speed up the work flow of your animation and mean that you don’t have to save as many keys on each part of your model. It will also make life a lot easier when it comes to controlling the animation curves of your scene. Less keys, less curves, less wasted time.
Bringing those words to Pantin:
Pantin has:
4 controllers for one simple foot? You move the “rolltoes” and you disrupt the pose !
MY PROPOSAL:It only needs one control with IK and an Action contraint. One to roll toes. Moving one of then does not interfiere with the other one! SIMPLE and efficient!
6 controllers on each hand? And he does not even have fingers?
MY PROPOSAL: One bone to roll 5 fingers that’s it. With the same arm’s bone you pose the angle of the hand…SIMPLE !
3 controller just for the lower LID? Another 4 controllers for the upper lid? I mean individually on each eye?
MY PROPOSAL: Only one bone with driven shapes…that’s it. ONE BONE ONLY
Specially the foot design is not good at all to animate walkcycles…the rooltoes bent the knee?
One more quick example: Pedro has a very short tail…almost hard to see, however it has 3 controllers plus one nurb curve aligning the IK chain?..Come on guys…Just posing that tiny tail you have to waste time and deal with frustration…plus the final pose won’t differ at all as if you were using a unique FK bone!
IT ONLY NEEDS ONE FK BONE, NO MORE ! Now the implementation is good to show rigging capabilities…but no for BAC where many want to learn the basics of animation with not enough free time!
My FINAL PROPOSAL:
The rig we will design has not the purpose to show off our modelling or rigging skills…it will be fully oriented for new to medium animators that want to practice more, create quicker and longer animations with much better results in arcs, plus more visual appealing. But we need a new mesh and a new rig…!
This is not personal against anyone, however bringing the bad points always creates discomfort among fanatics and friends…but this is a strict technical Thread and I hope you understand.There is nothing wrong in being controversial, as long as you are sincere in your beliefs.
Get use to use these keys: G(grab) R (rotate) RR (rotate on own center) and S (scale)…that’s all I would ask you.