Novice Rigger - Intro and a few questions

Rigging
1

Hello,

My name is Stefan Lipsius. I am new to the forums. I am currently a 3d animator for a small game studio near Toronto, Ontario. It is my first job in the industry, and Ive been there a little over a year. I wear pretty much every hat there is at my job, but I mainly focus on animation and rigging. I am also a Maya user.

I do have basic knowledge of rigging, as I do a lot of rigging at work, but I would like to learn so much more about it. Since I am the only rigger at work, I don’t have the pleasure of learning from those around me. I learned a bit of rigging in school, but most of what i know, I have learned from a few training DVDs. Eat3d’s - facial rigging for games, and Gnomon Workshop’s “The skinned character rig” and “Character rigging: The puppet rig”. They have been extremely helpful when it comes to what I consider “basic” rigging.

I do rather enjoy rigging though. The technical aspect of it keeps me thinking, which I love. So much so, I am thinking of transitioning into a rigging job. I know “junior rigger” isn’t exactly a common job, which is where my questions come in.

How do you go about getting your first rigging job? I know I need a reel, and I’ve seen some AMAZING ones out there, most recently Jeremy Ernst from Epic. But all the amazing ones come from long time pros. So what do companies look for in a junior-ish rigger? Any specific skills I need to demonstrate? Are there certain areas companies like to see you can deform properly? I just don’t know how to build a good rigging reel when I don’t know how to do all the super advanced techniques that you see on professional reels.

Speaking of advanced techniques… There isn’t exactly much in the ways of training out there. Where do you all learn all these advanced techniques? I know scripting is required, which I need to learn. But going beyond basic skeletons / set driven keys, how do you learn it all? I foolishly tried to replicate Jeremy Ernst’s facial rigging from Gears 3, but failed horribly.

Also, any tips or stories about how you first got your rigging job, or how you learned it all, I would love to hear anything you have to offer.

Thanks all. I know that is a wall of text, but I feel rigging isn’t something that can be cut short, or learned quickly. I know it will take time.

Thanks.

Stefan Lipsius

2

Well, you are going about it approximately the same way I did when I started out. I was an animator and occasionally a generalist and started taking on more rigging, until eventually I dropped the animation.

One possible route would be to continue on this path and focusing more on the rigging techniques. Ask for priority to be given these tasks, and try and pass the unrelated work to others whenever possible. Keep pressuring yourself to focus.

The other route you seem to be hinting at is getting another job with another studio. This will require the same focus to gather the necessary skills/credentials as you apply for jobs.

As for learning advanced techniques, a lot of it is just synthesis. You learn A and B, and what if you try A+B or A*B? Once you gain a wide overview of what you can do, you naturally begin to wonder about what you can do and cobble together solutions from random sources.

I rig in both XSI and Maya and I took CGWorkshop’s Python/TD/XSI course and it helped in surprising ways with my understanding of general rigging, OOP programming and rudimentary math and I came back to Maya with new ideas.

I wish Aaron Holly’s DVD’s were still available. http://www.fahrenheitdigital.com/dvds/rigging/feature-animation-rigging-dvd.php They had some great advanced ideas which I learned just from people blogging about what they had learned. Search for “Ribbon IK” and you’ll learn a whole new way to set up some very cool things. I use this in various incarnations for tails and tongues and cartoony limbs and feather rigs, even realistic creature facial rigs. It’s a simple principle with wide application.

Best of luck!

EDIT: Also to add. One thing I find very valuable is to prototype things. If you are trying to figure something out, make a mini rig isolated in a separate scene that JUST focuses on the problem you are trying to solve. And once you figure it out, work it into your full rig. You will save yourself a lot of mess, and also deepen your understanding by avoiding confusion.

3

Hey there Stefan!

I’m learning too just like you, although I’m just a student. So far, I’ve found the Art of Rigging series (available as e-books on cgToolKit). They show you some really great simple setups like stretchy spines, facial rigging and also introduce you to scripting with MEL. I know Python is the standard and much more versatile, but I found MEL easy to approach as something with NO programming experience.
http://cgtoolkit.net/osc/index.php?osCsid=bd1ec838b994d4b628af40e62ed6d96e

For MEL, I got Chris Mariffi’s book “MELScripting a Character Rig in Maya”. It was very good at introducing the concepts for me, even though I’ve not managed to write much more than a basic script or two at this point!

I think, once you’ve learned this stuff a create way to put that to practise is challenge yourself with something small at first that you really don’t know how to do. I did a bird rig the first time I touched rigging (it was awful!) but apparently not much info is out there on how to rig a bird, so it was something interesting to do.

I’m afraid that’s all the help I can offer at the moment! I’m learning too so I’ve not got the experience some of the people here have - so my advice might not be as solid, haha!

Good luck with rigging! It’s REALLY fun, but it can be really hard too!

4

Thanks for the responses, you two!

@Clesage - Its good to know I’m on the right track at least. I don’t really need to ask for priority when it comes to rigging at my work since I’m the only person here that does the rigging. And I rig it for myself, since I’m the only animator. I know enough to get by with simple rigs, but I want to know more than just getting by. My weight painting has gotten much better lately, which is good. Ill definitely try and prototype some stuff. So thanks for that advice! I’d probably just jump right in and try and rig some advanced model, which can be good since it forces you to learn, but it can be bad at the same time. As you said, it can get messy / confusing pretty fast.

@Wuffles - Ya, I definitely need / want to learn MEL. Thanks for the suggestions for books. I do have SOME programming experience, so hopefully it won’t be TOO steep of a learning curve.

I think one of my hurdles is that I’ve never really used a professional rig before. Just the free ones you find online. So I really don’t know what you can do with rigging. I guess I can look at reels and try out some of the stuff I see. I just don’t know where to start. I do know I want to learn IK/FK matching though.

In one of my DVDs, they use target rigs. So technically, there are 2 or 3 bone sets for 1 arm. One is the set with the controls on it. One is the IK and one is the FK. Is this is a common thing? I didn’t actually try that, because I was rigging for games at the time, and I wasn’t sure if the extra bones would transfer into the engine. So I made my own version of it. But then I didn’t have wrist twisting, or the IK / FK blending or anything.

Oh so much to learn.

5

So I’m in a similar boat as you…I’m an animator who’se doing rigging on the side just to keep my mind fresh.

I can give a few pointers I’ve learnt:
1)Download the demo rig from the Setup Machine website. It’s IMO one of the better rigs I’ve had to animate with. Look at a ton of free rigs, dissect what you like and see what you like to animate with. I hate a lot of rigs with tons of features but are hell to animate with. The animator is your client.

2)I’d learn python over MEL. It applies to so much more, it’s more human readable IMO and simplifies a lot of functions. A really great tutorial is the 3DBuzz Modular Python Rigging tutorial. It’s expensive and a little rough around the edges, but great content.

3)Build a rig by hand and then build tools to repeat the processes. Really great learning experience.

4)PErsonally I like to separate the bind skeleton from the driving rig. Keeping everything modular lets me rip things out and completely replace them if I feel like it. It’s really easy to implement as long as you’re organized, and can save you so much debugging time

6

Wow, that 3dBuzz DVD looks fantastic. But yes, a little expensive ($180). I was expecting the typical $60 - $80. But, it looks worth it, so I`ll probably pick it up next pay.

Does having a bind skeleton with driven skeleton slow anything down (besides the build phase)? Does it work with games as well? I know game engines don’t like having a lot of bones, so I don’t know how all that works.

Does anyone have any suggestions of where I should start? What all riggers should learn first? So far my list is…

-twisting forearms
-IK / FK switches
-IF/ FK matching
-Good shoulder deformation

Since I’ve only rigged stuff for games, I couldn’t use deformers, but I know they are used a lot in film, to get proper deformation in the shoulders and such. At least, they use them in one of the DVDs I have.

7

It doesn’t really slow anything down too much. I mean, on a basic level, it’s another level of abstraction so there’ll be some performance penalty, but it’s very miniscule.

Really all it is, is:
Controls drive the rig/driver joints and the driver joints plug into the skeleton/bind joints.

So ie for my arm, I have the basic skeleton that everythings skinned to, and then an FK arm, and an IK arm that both feed into the bind joints, and the IK/FK switch toggles these.

For games, you’d just bake all the animation down to the bind skeleton and the game is none the wiser to how the animator animated it.

Unless you want to implement ingame IK, but that depends on a lot of other things too.

on your list, maybe add:
>twisting/nonbreaking everything! Spines, fingers, necks. etc…
>Good bum deformations. Basically anywhere there’s a ball and socket joint on the body is a troubling area.
>Reverse foot and I do reverse hands.
>Scaling and bending joints. Everything should be deformable and user friendly.

Never lose sight of user friendliness!

hmm…and another good source for info is brave rabbit

8

[QUOTE=StefanLipsius;14087]Wow, that 3dBuzz DVD looks fantastic. But yes, a little expensive ($180). I was expecting the typical $60 - $80. But, it looks worth it, so I`ll probably pick it up next pay.

Does having a bind skeleton with driven skeleton slow anything down (besides the build phase)? Does it work with games as well? I know game engines don’t like having a lot of bones, so I don’t know how all that works.

Does anyone have any suggestions of where I should start? What all riggers should learn first? So far my list is…

-twisting forearms
-IK / FK switches
-IF/ FK matching
-Good shoulder deformation

Since I’ve only rigged stuff for games, I couldn’t use deformers, but I know they are used a lot in film, to get proper deformation in the shoulders and such. At least, they use them in one of the DVDs I have.[/QUOTE]

Most of those techniques you’ve listed ARE in the Art of Rigging Vol 1. (I know twisting forearm, IK/FK matching and switches are covered, as well as adding extra bones for deformation. Also, the IK/FK method you listed there seems to be common place (from my experience), and ideally, should translate into the game engine if you’re only baking animations from the control bones (i.e. the one that is orientated to both). The Art of Rigging is a no-nonsense book and just throws techniques at you. Also, if you do have programming experience then go for Python, although MEL is used as examples in that book (the lessons however are adaptable across all languages). It’s only $10 so give it a go. :slight_smile:

9

This is always a tough question…
When hiring new riggers there are 2 types of reels that impress me.

First, if I see a reel that demonstrates a rig that has all the commonly found features that are well implemented, and deform the character well that usually says to me that I can hire this guy or gal and give them a specific task on a character and they will deliver. There is always a time in production where I need people like this.
What it means from your end is that you should make sure your rig includes things like a foot roll, stretchy spine and limbs, space swapping, Fk/Ik switting, offset controls and etc. None of this stuff is complicated but it illustrates that you’re competent in a 3d application and that you have the patience to take a character to the finished state.
Bonus if you can show how you implemented some of these features, and even more props if I see something novel in that implementation.
If you really want to spice up this reel then throw in some cloth/hair for this character and maybe a hint that you have the basic understanding of scripting (preferably in Python).
I hire people with reels like this!
Here’s an example:

Second type of reel that impresses me is if you can demonstrate that you solved a complex problem that many have struggled with but few have figured out before. This most likely comes in a form of some development but I’ve also seen some serious hacking of Maya with nodes to get the desired effect. Most common examples I see of this are auto rig builders. Which, while usually not impressive at least show that you can design and develop a workflow to solve a particular challenge. That said, there are some very complicated problems inherent in the auto build process that few are able to solve in a convincing manner and those solutions could be impressive.

Now to be honest there are very few people who can do both of these different things equally well and a production needs require both talents.

In general what I would say to anyone getting into rigging is figure out how each element or tool you use in rigging fundamentally works! This is the key to being able to solve any production problem with confidence.
The biggest break in my approach to rigging came when I had to reverse engineer constraints I used in 3dsmax because we decided to recreate their behavior inside the game engine to avoid exporting animation data for automated helper joints. After this experience I finally began to actually understand how 3d application works and what it is that I actually do when I rig. This was also my first adventure into linear algebra.

10

Thanks for the insight guys! I really appreciate it. I’ve starting my learning, so I’ll post my progress later in the week when I actually have something to show.

I’m starting with doing everything manually, and I’ll leave scripting out of it, for now. I want to get my head around the hierarchy setup first.

Thanks again!

11

Another question for you pros. How much of this stuff do you know by memory?

I’m just thinking, ya, I can follow tutorials, and make a good rig and reel from it. But, that doesn’t really mean I’ll know it all by memory. Obviously there will be stuff I will forget and have to look up later. Is that frowned upon in the work place, or for a new rigger, would that be expected? It is an extremely technical job, with a crap ton to know. More so than animators who just have to animate. Don’t really need to know too many tools or all the ins and outs of the programs.

12

I certainly don’t know everything by memory, but the stuff I do regularly I know how to do almost instantly due to practice. However even with something I haven’t needed to do for a while, after a few minutes thinking about it I can usually remember generally speaking what is needed. This purely something that will come with experience.

Part of the fun of rigging, is knowing your 3d package so well that you know all of its little tricks and then when you get a tricky rigging task you know which will be the best methods to achieve the required results. You will find after a while you will almost have a little black mental book of sneaky tricks you always use to do all sorts of things.

The things I look up online or through me reference books are usually more to do with anatomy, such as finding how a rare animal is structured or things like that.

13

I don’t think any studio expects you to memorize everything as a junior. As long as you’re pleasant to work with and get the work done in time, they don’t care how you do it as long as it is legal and doesn’t compromise anything.

With rigging or anything technical, I find if you can break down what you need to add, you can often just logically work your way through the steps.

Often as a junior, you won’t even be full on rigging everything from scratch. Most studios here will have an autorig…you’re just there to make sure everything goes fine and to debug things

Like the first time most students set up a reverse foot, it’s such a confusing concept. But if you’re breaking it down, it’s completely logical and a no-brainer.

What I like to do though is keep all my reference books on my Kindle. It’s easy to carry around and I have a gajilion books on everything from scriting languages, to anatomy that I can look at anytime.

14

Hey Stefan,
Thanks for posting your questions, I’m in a similar situation. I just graduated school this past June and wasn’t really sure where to go next for the Rigging career path (they didn’t teach very much about the subject). I was fortunate enough to get the advice to learn Python, which has been keeping me busy. Good luck in the future and hopefully both of us will have luck in developing our skills.

Scott