Week 7

Rigging

to create the skeleton the bone tools window was used as it has all the options needed in one place. to create bones, the 'create bones' button must be pressed and then click and drag in the screen. when left click is pressed a new bone is started which is linked to the previous bone. to end a bone right click; this makes a bone nub, which can be deleted.

i started with the thigh bone and made 3 bone links; the thigh, calf and a small nub for the ankle. i put a bend in the leg at the knee to help with the IK solver which would be applied later. to make a second leg i used the mirror tool in the top toolbar.

for the foot a single bone was made parallel to the ankle.

to check that the bones orientation is correct the fins options can be turned on. i used the front fin to make sure the bones were the right way round i.e the front of the bone facing forward.

next i created the root bone which is used to control the centre of gravity and the characters waist/hips. this was just a single bone similar to the foot but slightly smaller, positioned in the centre of the character.

for the spine/body i used 3 bones travelling vertically from the root (but not linked to it), and then added one small bone for the neck and another for the head.

the shoulders are a short bone positioned just below the neck bone. i used mirror again to create a second shoulder bone. to arms were created like the legs, by dragging three bones out and then having a slight bend to help the IK.

Image above shows the eye bone, which is used to move the eye by rotating it. it is linked to the head.

after creating the skeleton, the bones needed to be linked together, using the select and link tools. the upper arm bones was linked to the shoulder, the shoulder to the top spine bone, the third spine linked to the root and both thighs to the root.

next the IK chains were added.

IK chains were used in the arms and legs.

to control the movement of the bones, control objects were linked to the chains. the chain is the child of the control object. this allows movement of the chain without selecting it directly.

Foot controllers

Moving the foot controllers moves the legs with IK motion.

The same principle is used for the arms...

...and the root

Moving the root object controls the whole body, and therefore bends the knees.

the rig works well as the controllers allow easy access to the IK chains, however the arm control is limited. my character will need more complex arm movements, so i will need to look into how to get more arm control, namely separate rotation and bending.

another improvement needed is to add fingers to the hand, but first the mesh needs to be edited itself to allow for finger animation.