When to use root bone over others?

Support Animation and Rigging
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1

This is a question I’ve had for a while, someone who does character animation should know the answer:

When doing character animation in a scene (not for a game), when should one use the root bone over others?

An example of what I’m talking about: I use rigify for my characters, and there are two ways to move it. I could grab the root bone and have the character move that way. The biggest issue I have in doing this is that it is hard to properly sync the feet to the ground and it looks as if ‘sliding’. Or I can move the character using the torso bone along with any IK bones. The issue I have with this is that it is impossible to copy animations which means more time spent animating.

I don’t need to reinvent the wheel because I’m sure people have already figured this out. I just don’t know how.
Thank you for your time,
Xen

2

Hi, that’s a good question, If you are animating the character on the spot walk cycle for example then you can use the root bone to move it forward. if you are animating the character from pose to pose then that will need moving forward only the limbs and torso that will be more time consuming but will give you the ability to personalise the style and feel of the character movement and mood.
The root bone in that case can give you the ability to relocate the animations within the scene or change directions.

1 Like
4

Thank you for the help.