How Do You / Did You Learn Rigging?

Hello,

I’m just about to start to write a document for my university course about character rigging and I’d like to find out your methods for learning the subtleties of rigging (I’m going to be writing specifically about 3ds Max, but I think this particular question is fairly universal).

Preferably, I’d like to know the differences in your learning methods as you’ve become more familiar and established with the concepts in rigging.

I think we can split up learning rigging into the following categories:
◦Tutorials - videos, webinars and articles
◦Documentation - official Autodesk 3ds Max technical documentation and MAXScript documentation
◦Deconstruction - viewing another artists rig and analysing how it works
◦Translation & Experimentation - for example, converting the principals of 2D animation into 3D using Max’s animation tools

When I seriously started rigging (but not when I was new to 3ds Max, so I knew how to apply IK and was aware of constraints) I would say would divide my learning as follows:
Tutorials - 85%
Documentation - 5%
Deconstruction - 10%
Translation & Experimentation - 0%

Now I would say I divide my time as follows:
Tutorials - 15%
Documentation - 30%
Deconstruction - 30%
Translation & Experimentation - 25%

Thank you for your time,
-Harry

Hey Harry,

I think this question is more about your personal learning style and how you learn any new quite technical skill than that of rigging specifically.

We had a thread that asked that very question here so that might help your answer.

There are a lot of external factors that can dictate your approach to learning rigging, such as time, scope, goals, etc…

For documentation I’d also add conceptual mapping or theory (i.e. working in 3D environments/basic principles universal to all tools, etc - not specifically bound to one tool).
And I’d also include mentoring, which isn’t exactly a tutorial because there is a feedback loop.

I’d probably answer much the same as you, but it might be very different for someone who has a different background (i.e. already is very familiar with a 3D tool) or who prefers to learn everything through experimentation.

I know you’re probably looking for numbers but I feel more comfortable explaining it than pinning numbers/% on it! I hope that’s okay!

Hi, thanks for replying,

My lecturer really likes claims to be back up by quantifiable data, so I was hoping numbers but that thread you posted looks interesting, I’ll see what I can get out of that.

Thanks again,
-Harry