Character Rigging

Today I have finally gathered together the energy and patience needed for my first go at character rigging. 

This was all done with a lot of trial and error, and a bit of help from:

http://www.creativecrash.com/tutorials/rigging-with-a-biped-3dsmax

[Internet] [Accessed 14/03/2011]

Using the Goldfinger model I had previously created, I will use the 'biped' system to animate him. Firstly, I set my character model to see-through so I can see the bones to edit them. Next, the biped is made by clicking create > systems > biped. Click and drag to make the biped the same height as the character. Scale and position each bone so it is in the centre of each body part it relates to.

The image below shows both arms raised. The character's left arm has had all of the envelopes adjusted properly, while the right arm is how it did look without any adjustment.

Envelopes (the red rings seen in the image below) are the markers for which part of the body is affected by the bone. All vertices inside a bone's envelope will be moved with that bone. The image above shows that the envelope on the right arm didn't cover enough of the vertices so it needs to be larger.

With half of the body complete, the envelopes can be copied to the other side by clicking 'copy' in the envelope parameters, clicking the opposite bone, and clicking paste. This will increase your productivity 50%!

Both images below show how the character looks after moving an arm and a leg.

The upper arm envelope is not set correctly as a crease has appeared. However, this will not be visible while the character is walking, so it is not necessary to fix. I will come back and alter it if I have time before the end of the module.

Once the biped's bones are fully in place and all of the envelopes have been adjusted properly, the biped can be made to animate very easily. Below is an image of the character ready to walk by following 'footsteps'.

Footsteps are achieved by clicking on the biped and going to motion > biped > footstep mode. Under footstep creation, have 'walk' clicked then choose 'create multiple footsteps'. Change how many steps you want in the dialogue box then click ok. Click 'create footsteps (append)' then under footstep operations click 'create keys for inactive footsteps'. The path is then set, just press play. Each footstep can also be selected and rotated to create different movement paths.

My next post will hopefully be a short rendered video of the character walking. Fingers crossed...