• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Chapter 7: Rigging and Skinning: Hands OnBy Roland HessThe best way to animate a complex mesh object like a character is through the use of Armatures. Anarmature acts like a skeleton: you actually move the bones of the armature and those bones drive theanimation of the character mesh. The process of building an armature is called "rigging," and the process of attaching the armature to a mesh is called "skinning."Many artists are intimidated by the complicated controls and advanced functionality of the freely availableBlender rigs and are put off from rigging altogether due to its perceived complexity. The armatures areexcellent, and their creators have put great amounts of time and effort into making them flexible andefficient.It is possible, however, to create a fairly useful rig without creating dozens of hidden control bones. That iswhat you're about to do.Getting StartedOpen the file "hank_for_rigging.blend" from the "examples" folder on the included disk.Figure RST.01: The screen when you open "hank_for_rigging.blend."This is the Hank mesh that you will be familiar with if you have already worked through Chapter 6. The firstthing to notice before you even begin building an armature is that Hank has a rotation and a scale.Figure RST.02:It's always a good idea to begin working with character animation and armatures in a completely cleantransformational state. With Hank selected, press Ctrl-A to apply the transformations, leaving Hank lookingexactly as he does but removing the transformations.Figure RST.03: The Properties panel for Hank after applying transformations.Callout: Before working with armatures, use Ctrl-A to Apply all transformations to your mesh.Now that Hank is ready, create the armature.Use the spacebar toolbox to Add->Armature. That new object sticking up from the ground at Hank's feet is abone. Just like adding mesh objects to the 3D view, the armature and bone begin their existence in Editmode, which will allow you to add and destroy bones, create parent/child relationships between them, andadjust their positioning to fit inside Hank's body. During this stage of armature creation, the TransformManipulator isn't very useful, so turn it off by using Ctrl-Space->Disable or by clicking the pointing finger disable button on the 3D header.Figure RST.04: The new armature, with a single bone.With the manipulator gone, it's easy to see that the top ball of the bone (called the "tip") is yellow, while thebottom ball (called the "root") is purple. Yellow, as elsewhere in Blender, indicates that the tip is selected.You can see this by pressing the G-key to enter Grab mode and watching the tip move around as you movethe mouse. Notice that as you move the tip away from the root, the entire bone grows along with it. Whenyou're done moving it, press the RMB or Esc-key to cancel the transformation, putting you back to whereyou were when the bone was first created. If you accidentally accepted the transformation with the LMB,remember that you can always Ctrl-Z to undo.
 
One other thing to notice is that neither R-key rotation nor S-key scaling seem to have any effect on thissingle bone node.This bone will be the master bone for the entire armature, meaning that all other bones you add will beconnected to it either directly or indirectly, so that when the master bone is transformed, the entire armaturewill follow it. You could leave it pointing up like this, but most people find that this sort of master bone isbetter visualized horizontally.Switch to a side view, and, using the G-key, move the tip of the bone back and downward until it lines uphorizontally with the root of the bone. Holding down the Ctrl-key while doing the transformation will help youto get it right on. The length doesn't really matter, but you should make it stick far enough out behind Hankthat it will be easy to select even during a cluttered animation session.Figure RST.05: The tip of the master bone moved back and down.RMB click in the center of the bone (anywhere on the bone except the tip and root balls) to select the entirething. When you do this, more information appears in the Transform Properties panel, as well as in the editbuttons. One of those properties is the bone name. LMB click on the bone name, in either the ArmatureBones or Transform Properties panel, and rename it "master."Figure RST.06: The bone renamed to "master."Notice how a part of the bone is hidden by Hank's feet? When you go to work on the rest of the armature,this could certainly be a problem. If the mesh hides the bones, how can you work on it? You could use the Z-key to toggle into wireframe mode, but there is a better way.Figure RST.07: The X-Ray button.Enable the "X-Ray" button on the Armature panel of the Edit buttons. Now, the armature will always draw infront of the mesh.Callout:- When beginning an armature, add a master bone at the same location as the mesh object's center.- X-Ray will show bones that would ordinarily be hidden by a mesh.The Spine, Neck and HeadYou could add a bone for each and every vertebra in the spinal column, but fortunately you don't need thatlevel of articulation. As Hank is a very simple mesh, just two spine bones, with one each for the neck andhead, will suffice.Use the toolbox to add a new bone, with Add->Bone. When the new bone appears, RMB click on the mainbody of the bone to select the whole thing, then use the G-key to move it so that the root of the new bonerests near the pivot point of Hank's hip.Figure RST.08: The base bone of the spine, moved into place.RMB select only the tip of the spine bone and move it to the small of Hank's back. Although the spine on acharacter like Hank would be flexible along its entire length in real life, if bent, it would mostly deform thebody in two different zones: the upper and lower back. So, it makes sense to put the pivot point of one of your bones at that same point in the body.Figure RST.09: The tip of the spine base, adjusted to the small of the back.From here, the rest of the spine is easy to construct. Hold down the Ctrl key and LMB click on the indicatedareas in the illustration:
 
 Figure RST.10: Ctrl-LMB click here to Extrude the base of the spine several times.Ctrl-LMB clicking with a bone's tip selected extrudes new bones in a chain. If you've done it correctly, youwill have something that looks like this:Figure RST.11: The spine, neck and head bones.Your armature doesn't have to match exactly, but the crucial elements are that the neck bone's root shouldbe at the rear base of the neck and that the head bone be very close to vertical.Before you go any further, press the A-key twice to select all of the bones. On the Armature panel in the Editbuttons, enable the "Draw Names" button. You will see that, with the exception of the "master" bone, the resthave fairly useless names like "Bone.001" and "Bone.003". By RMB selecting each of the bones in turn, andusing the Properties or Armature Bones panel, change the names to "spine.base," "spine.top," "neck" and"head."Figure RST.12: The bones given useful names.Callout: Ctrl-LMB extrudes a new, connected bone when a bone's tip is selected.Adding ArmsUse Numpad-1 to change back to a front view.You could now create each side of the body individually, but that would be wasted effort. By enabling the "X-Axis Mirror" button on the Armature panel, you can have Blender help to create a symmetrical armature.Figure RST.13: "X-Axis Mirror" enabled.While X-Axis Mirror will mirror any transformations you make across the center of the armature as long asthe bones are named correctly, it will not create the mirrored bones for you. You could create a single bone,then use the duplication and the M-key mirror tools to reflect it on the other side of the armature. This is sucha common action, though, that the process has been shortened dramatically for work with armatures.RMB select the root of the master bone. You might have to MMB rotate the view to get a good shot at it. If so, be sure to use Numpad-1 to go back to the front view before continuing.Press Shift-E. Shift-E in armature Edit mode triggers a mirrored Extrude. Pull the extruding bone up and tothe right until it looks like this:Figure RST.14: A mirrored extrusion.Note: You may be noticing some differences in the way that your bones have "rolled" around their longestaxis, compared to our illustrations. This should not cause any trouble, but if it bothers you, try selecting all of the bones and pressing Ctrl-N to fix their rolls.RMB select the right hand bone and move it to the top of Hank's chest. Then, select the tip of the same boneand place it where Hank's shoulder joint would be. The bone on the left side of the screen will followeverything that you do to the right. These will be the collar bones.Figure: RST.15: The collar bone in place.RMB select the tip of the collar bone on the right half of the screen. It's now easy to Ctrl-LMB click at theelbow, where the hand joins the arm, at the start of the fingers, and at their tips. Doing so extrudes the
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...