I have built out a character to rig (please see attached image.) I have never rigged at all. So my basic question is she is wearing a suit and has a backback, jets on the backs of her legs, and mask. How do I go about rigging her all together. I have bought a couple rigging tut videos and have been looking through tuts but haven’t really gotten to my answer.
How do I go about rigging her with all these other things? Do I need to make it all one mesh? Do I just combine the mesh in Maya and start rigging?
Thank you very much for your time as I am new to rigging.
Well, in theory, the objects that are not part of the body like the jetpack, etc… would be either parented, constrained, or skinned to the skeleton of the body, again depending on your preference. That begin said you need to ask some questions like: Am I going to animate these parts for secondary or standalone animation off/outside the character itself? In that case you would want to give each of those parts controls for an animator to use. Then ask another question: Are these parts going to be deformed(i.e., squash and stretch or “pushing/smearing” the shapes)? In that case you would need to make joints or deformers for each object then give it controls and those controls would have parent groups that would be attached to controls on the body and then have attributes to allow for following the body controls or moving independent of the body. Does this make sense? It’s a lot to think about for just starting to rig, but it’s better to start that kind of thinking process now
[QUOTE=mattanimation;13003]Well, in theory, the objects that are not part of the body like the jetpack, etc… would be either parented, constrained, or skinned to the skeleton of the body, again depending on your preference. That begin said you need to ask some questions like: Am I going to animate these parts for secondary or standalone animation off/outside the character itself? In that case you would want to give each of those parts controls for an animator to use. Then ask another question: Are these parts going to be deformed(i.e., squash and stretch or “pushing/smearing” the shapes)? In that case you would need to make joints or deformers for each object then give it controls and those controls would have parent groups that would be attached to controls on the body and then have attributes to allow for following the body controls or moving independent of the body. Does this make sense? It’s a lot to think about for just starting to rig, but it’s better to start that kind of thinking process now :D[/QUOTE]
Yeah that was a great response thank you very much. I will just make her one mesh and leave the jet shes and backpack out since it is my first time. Does it matter about texturing? Bringing a normal map onto her after the rig is “done” would that mess anything up? Thank you again!
Will the character ever remove the backpack or jets? If not it might be a good idea to keep everything together in one mesh.
Another skinCluster would require some extra memory to calculate.
Assigning a normal map wont break the rig in any way.
You can often tell if something “messing” up the character by checking the inputs on the mesh, normally it would only display a skincluster node and a tweak node. And it would be your goal to keep it like that.
If your getting other inputs you can delete non-deformer history or duplicate the mesh and apply new skinCluster -> copy skin weight from old if the non-deformer can’t catch it.
You can change the mesh pretty much after the rig is done (although i don’t recommend it, or at least keep it to a minimum), but that will more or less be the case every time… Something always comes up that needs to be ready for… just keep it clean.
[QUOTE=Emil Claeson;13010]Will the character ever remove the backpack or jets? If not it might be a good idea to keep everything together in one mesh.
Another skinCluster would require some extra memory to calculate.
Assigning a normal map wont break the rig in any way.
You can often tell if something “messing” up the character by checking the inputs on the mesh, normally it would only display a skincluster node and a tweak node. And it would be your goal to keep it like that.
If your getting other inputs you can delete non-deformer history or duplicate the mesh and apply new skinCluster -> copy skin weight from old if the non-deformer can’t catch it.
You can change the mesh pretty much after the rig is done (although i don’t recommend it, or at least keep it to a minimum), but that will more or less be the case every time… Something always comes up that needs to be ready for… just keep it clean.[/QUOTE]
I wanted the back pack and jets as secondary motion when animated. But as this will be my first time I can go ahead and see how it goes without. I worked on it all day today and will do the same thing tomorrow. Ill try and get some WIP shots out end of tomorrow. Thank you
