1 . A Good Rig (from my own experience)
1 . Open the outline view of the model, and the binding, hierarchical relationship and parent-child relationship of the model should be arranged neatly, and the naming should be very standard, and easy to find and operate. Clearly mark the left hand, right hand, left leg, right leg, etc. when unfolding, it is clean and concise when closing.
2 . The naming of each controller is also very intuitive, and the list attribute clearly shows what parts can be adjusted. For example, the wrist controller can choose IK and FK, and can hide and display the finger controller. This makes it easy to view, because sometimes too many controllers make it difficult to operate and view the model. Proper shadowing can improve efficiency and facilitate adjustment.
3 . Symmetrical models like characters, whether the model itself or rigs binding, should be symmetrical, otherwise the animation will be very strange.
4 . The wiring of the model is neat and standard. The bound model has a controller at the joint to replace the bone point, which is easier to key animation.
5 . The skin and brush weight of the object are well done, not only the human body, but also the clothing and props. The soft or hard texture can be felt through bone adjustment to avoid the particularly stiff feeling.
6 . Clearly distinguish IK and FK, or provide the option of switching between the two for users to control. Take hands and feet for example. IK uses the wrist to drive the whole arm, and FK controls the arm with wrist, elbow and shoulder.
7 . Lock the attributes that should not be adjusted, so as not to touch them by mistake and deform the model. For example, there is no rotation option for the controller of the face. This is also a way to reduce the workload, because the face is really impossible to twist. Only through displacement to make different expressions, to prevent the face from strange features.There are also some additional attributes, such as pupil size, mouth contraction, etc.
8 . The size controller is needed to facilitate animation and key frame. For example, the controller on the face can be used to adjust eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth separately. At the same time, there is a controller for the lower half of the face, which can be used to adjust the extrusion and deformation of the face, and can also make many changes in the expression.
9 . For some controllers, it is necessary to control an extreme value, such as the raising degree of the leg. When it is found that the die piercing means that the extreme value is exceeded, that is, the leg cannot be raised too high. This is to let the user understand the limits of each controller in this task, so as to prevent the user from making very strange actions that violate the laws of nature.
10 . The props on the body have a complete controller, because when the whole body is in motion, these items have to follow the corresponding movement.
2 . A Bad Rig (from my own experience)
1 . Wiring is not professional enough, it is all trilateral, which is not conducive to brush weight and easy to appear bad side.
2 . The name of the controller is finger, but none of the controller properties can be effectively controlled, which is equivalent to a useless controller.
3 . The weight is not painted well. When rotating, the model appears stiff, and the patch will stretch, so it is easy to pass through the mold.
4 . Without the binding of face, you can’t express yourself. The eye controller doesn’t work. The eye doesn’t follow. The whole model is very complex, but the binding is very simple, so the flexibility of animation pair is not strong.
3 . Good Rigs Induction and Summary
“Ultimate” rig pack, worthy of its name, has no less controllers on all body structures. This is a basic controller. You may need to practice basic and advanced body mechanics, which can be perfectly satisfied. From basic squash and stretch balls to complex and challenging walking cycles with bipedal skeletal equipment.
Whatever you want to use, these devices are designed for human mechanics. However, they do not include face control. This is because the purpose of this is to help you maintain full attention to the body movement in practice, without complex animation such as expressions, and be able to focus on body mechanics.
These models can be seen from the body shape of each character’s characteristics and personality, so it is convenient to use dynamics, but also can increase a lot of interest, according to the personality and shape to create the appropriate action and manner.
As we all know, the effect of animation “weight” is one of the most difficult to achieve. To depict weight in a movie, he needs the perfect balance of time and interval to deliver action on the screen. Therefore, it has no animation weight, so the weight demonstration of the object is more realistic, and it depends on people’s perception of the object and the degree of mastering the following movement.
This special flour bag equipment provides an easy to control model in the field of weight training, which can focus on weight training. This bag has little or no weight at all on the top, and the largest weight at the bottom, providing some good practice for realistic movements.
However, for real-world movies, this may not help because they don’t really have moving flour bags, but it still helps you understand how to make an inanimate object move. It is common practice to use flour bags for this purpose.
There’s no doubt that giving life to our carbon tigers is one of the toughest things in the structure of bipedal animals. The ape tiger is actually a bipedal outfit that includes switchable or interchangeable IK and FK arms, as well as breathing control and dynamic tail options. In addition, it has fill prop controls that allow you to work your way and control pelvic motion.
To handle the dynamic tail, you must enable it under cog control by switching the dyn-fk feature from 10 to 0. If you can use Maya well, you will find it easy to operate, even if you get help from many online tutorials.
This special character has been textured and designed using perfect proportions and statistics to provide a “polished” overall rig atmosphere. However, although the tiger is a tiger model, it does not support quadruped movement. If you want to do some heavy action aerobics, such as Tigress in Kung Fu Panda or dragon, then this equipment is appropriate.
The ghost is a unique “bipedal” outfit designed on familiar phantom models. The character’s upper body appears to have regular arms and torso. However, the lower body is made up of only a central control unit, making it look like it’s floating in mid air. A classic gear to create ghost graphics, this rig provides default textures. It’s also relatively light and get real results.
You can easily animate the character’s shoulder pads separately from the dedicated controls. Normally, you need switchable FK and IK spines, but this rig comes with simultaneous blending control.
This gives you more flexibility in animating any scene. Ghosts also provide you with many of the benefits of finger selection. Therefore, you can choose to animate by properties or using the viewport controls.
The character is asymmetric, with the left hand as claw and the right hand as a mace weapon. The control is equipped with a set of automatic piston driving function and mechanical device, which plays a role in the expansion process of props.
Another awe inspiring aspect is that it allows point deformation, even without any explicit correction of blend deformation. This is because of the precise mesh topology.
Like other gear created by tre vital, this one has no face controls. However, it has some standard eye and chin controls. The kit also has an IK tail and hair. You can see this role play here.
The dragon’s model is made of advanced skeleton automatic assembly mechanism, with a large number of IK and FK switches. These switches include controls for the spine, bones, wings, and neck.
The design of the drill is complex, with fine texture and several moving parts. All of these excellent properties make it different from other traditional video games or animation scenes.
Needless to say, the dragon is definitely the most complex structure in this list. Many appendages, such as claws, tails and hanging scales, challenge the knowledge and skills of any animator and try to bring them life.
But the real problem is that there’s no real-life biological movement. As a result, most rigging workers tend to rely on the movement of animals with similar mechanical devices. So his movement needs to refer to a lot of movie scenes to adjust.
This walking egg is obviously a unique and lovely quadruped robot that can fold its legs to form an egg shaped body structure.However, the best feature of the robot is the lockable function of its foldable legs. One of the features of this curious robot is that it can turn its screen eyes into ready-made guns.
Cute squirrels have thick and busy tails, the softest stomachs and lovely front teeth. They can win the hearts of anyone, and more importantly, as characters in movies rather than in real life. Here you can make good use of the rules of movement of the ball and practice following the movement and preparation.
You can easily apply overlapping motion to these squirrel rigs and follow the principle of a flexible tail. The rig also has integrated extrusion and stretching capabilities, allowing string deformation to be the default value. This is an ideal rig for all who want to perfect more “cartoon” animation appearance from rebound practice and practice.
Our beloved rabbit, Judy hoops, from the Oscar winning film zootopia, is an excellent bipedal character outfit for anyone who wants to practice animal behavior and movement in animation. It’s equipped with seamless FK and IK switches, mirror options and a movable pivot controller.
Judy has an advanced face controller that allows you to select the controller directly on your face instead of selecting any floating controller. In addition, the device is equipped with feature dynamics for those cute quivering cheeks, as well as micro facet controls for creating multiple expressions.
Mery is one of the Maya’s favorites, and it’s been around for a long time. This advanced bipedal kit is off the shelf, bringing really cool features. These include interchangeable clothing, face controls, elastic joints, and a 360 degree no flip arm setting. Bend controls are hidden by default to prevent confusion, but you can easily add flex joints to them.
Stewart is a professional quality drilling rig, generally belongs to advanced machinery. It is equipped with IK / FK switching and intuitive character flexibility control, as well as dynamic squash and stretch functions. This device teaches you a lot about the dynamics of motion and how it interacts with the overall panning of a given environment. The rig is basically for action sequences and magical body mechanics is an ideal way for animators at all levels to perfect their skills.
The zombie waiters in the movie Hotel tranylvania, which is a strange and interesting character, is exactly what you need to grasp perfectly, so that you can perfectly master the animation process of those strange but funny characters.The equipment provides intuitive control advantages of various body movements. The drill rig focuses on the terrible movements of your corpse as well.
The rig is also equipped with advanced anatomical specifications for controlled development to help you better understand the human skeletal structure. The advantage of using equipment is that it allows you to better study the basic structure of various supernatural characters.
An excellent humanoid device can help you animate humans on your journey. It’s named robot, which reminds us a little bit of bumblebee. Needless to say, one of the most difficult tasks in animation is to make animation for humans, but this robot aspet will help you to forgive the small flaws in the animation and make it a great device.
4 . Learn From Good Rigs and What Is A Good Rig
Plan action
If you don’t plan your rig correctly, many things will fail quickly. First of all – range of motion: it’s always good to build equipment in the most flexible way. The more poses and complex motions your equipment can perform without interruption, the more interesting it will be for the animator to use it, so the better the animation will be. But it’s not always easy to build equipment that is stable in extreme positions, and if you’re building equipment for a project that doesn’t just involve yourself, it’s wise to figure out what the character is going to perform and what he won’t be.
A stable rig can perform “most” of the actions that ordinary people can do. Don’t try to force in features that are not normally possible for a character you want to equip. If you need to add some additional features, for example, if you want to manipulate an accident victim or other extreme things, it’s better to make a special equipment for it instead of stacking everything in your master equipment file.
Good model
A clean model is essential; using a symmetrical pose with a clean topology will make the skinning process easier. If desired, you can always add asymmetry using blend shape, displacement, or skin weights, and then pass it on to the asymmetric render mesh. It is also important to have the right topology and edge flow in the right place. In order to be able to shape good-looking muscle activity and correct shape, it is important that your topology supports the correct creases in the desired area. For the first skinning process, try not to use extreme polygon density with the base model. Skinning a low resolution character is much easier and takes only a fraction of the time it takes to properly skin a subdivided character with more than 20000 vertices.
Joints
When you’ve almost finished your first pass, it can be very frustrating to notice that one joint is not in a good position. Unless you have a well-designed script manipulation toolset, but even then you have to be 100% sure that your joints are in the right position and orientation, which many people don’t spend enough time on. For example, elbow and knee joints, if the front axis of the joint is x, the elbow joint should not have any x rotation, but can only rotate on one of the other two axes. Failure to do so may result in IK handles with pole vectors not working properly.
Another good example is fingers, which have a lot of fingers, and you may need to get your work done quickly so that you don’t pay enough attention to your fingers. Once you start skinning and animating, you’ll notice that they don’t rotate because they should. It’s very important to take a look at the anatomical references. It’s always a good habit to study how things move and where something comes from. Learn about the different skeleton joint types and how to best represent them in the rig.
Control system and drill hierarchy
Using a specific naming convention for all equipment nodes and using a consistent equipment hierarchy will make it easier to use equipment in a larger pipeline, because equipment management tools are easier to obtain module names and corresponding nodes. A well-organized control design is another important topic – from the position and shape of the control to the level of detailed setting of the control system. A good gear always has more control than it needs to move characters, but it doesn’t show them immediately. Animators don’t want to be slapped with 300 controls on the screen.
In the block stage of animation, saying “less is more” is a good way, so the less control the animator needs, the more he can complete the main action of the character, and the better the effect. All other controls should be hidden for use in the next animation. Therefore, if anything in the animation needs artistic guidance, the animator is likely to want to slightly change the shape of the object or move the volume without interfering with the regular skeleton transformation. Adding muscle / volume controls (as controls for offsets) to move certain areas of the mesh is important in equipment that needs to be displayed as flexible, fleshy, and dynamic.
In addition, the ability to squeeze and stretch different areas can be life-saving straws to meet specific shooting requirements. It is important to separate all the heavy features from the animation equipment. Things that slow down your gear files are very annoying to animators. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to performance, and if it is too slow, try isolating them in cache / render rig files that the animator does not need to process. If your animation may need some important features, try proxy them and add an appropriate switch to turn off the evaluation of those features when the animator needs them.
Skinning
You can solve the weight problem of each character faster with a hammer or other tool. As a result, good-looking deformations can be obtained faster than using high-resolution meshes. A good workflow is to have a low resolution version of the mesh that you can skin paint master deform (or use it for layout / block assembly), and when you are satisfied with the results, transfer these weights to the high resolution version of the character. Since Maya’s initial skin weights are not very good, even the new heat map skin doesn’t work well, a good workflow is to harden all weights, so use a hard brush with a value of 1 to normalize skincluster weight
Normalization is set to interactive, and then begin to segment the weights to the correct bones. This can quickly remove these effects from joints that are not needed. From there the application goes smoothly for the first time and will soften things back again. Pay special attention to the max influence value, because Maya obfuscates the weights if smoothing will involve areas of other joints. Therefore, it is a good idea to turn off maintain Max influences, just to make sure Max influences is set to a very high value. When you are satisfied with the results and transfer the weights to the high-resolution version, try to use post normalization from this point on to add joint weights to new joints in a non-destructive way.
Muscular system
The muscle system can add missing dynamic mesh deformations to the rig, but you need to really pay attention to how to place the muscles, which muscles you want to include in the rig, and how to constrain them to the rig. Just add some NURBS spheres, stretch and scale them to represent muscle mass, convert them to muscles, and then the parent object constrains the control to the nearest joint, which may look fancy and may not be too complex. But in fact, it is. So you really should take the time to plan a muscle outfit, consult resources, analyze and develop methods to constrain muscles in a meaningful way. Otherwise, you’ll only get a different type of “chaos gear.”.
Also, muscle is a very heavy computational process, so it’s a good idea to use a low resolution mesh without hand, foot, and face geometry to save some computing time, wrap it up as a full copy of your character mesh and blend it into the output mesh, as described in the deformation theme. To increase the stability of muscle equipment, it is a good idea to model the muscle as simply as possible, rather than being too flat or too curved.
For larger muscles or muscle groups, such as pectoralis or trapezius, use multiple muscle objects to cover the entire attachment area, rather than using only one scaled and stretched object to cover flat and wide surfaces. This makes it unstable, and the deformation doesn’t look like it was expected. This in-depth article should now give you a good grasp of the workflow, key technologies, and principles to create a piece of equipment suitable for any project. Make sure you use this guide in the next assembly process and see for yourself that it’s good not only for the quality of the rig, but also for the speed at which you create the rig.