Tech Art - Week05 - Basic Rigging

 Creating Joints

Use Skeleton → Create Joints to activate the joint creation function.

First, I created the Root Bone, Pelvis Bone, Spine Bones, Neck Bone, and Head Bone.

Then, I created the arm and leg joints separately. After naming the bones, I used Skeleton → Mirror Joints to mirror and duplicate them. Finally, I connected them to the corresponding parent joints to complete the base skeleton.

Skin Binding

Use Skin → Bind Skin to automatically bind the character mesh to the skeleton.

Then, adjust the weights with Skin → Paint Skin Weights so that each joint can correctly deform the corresponding part of the character model.

Controller Setup

In general, spline-based shapes are used as controllers to constrain the skeleton. However, there are some important points to note. To ensure the controller and the joint have consistent pivot orientation, after adjusting the controller’s pivot position, use Modify → Match Transformations → Match All Transforms to align the controller with the joint.

However, this does not reset the controller’s Translate and Rotation values to zero. Once the controller is moved during animation, it becomes difficult to reset it to its original position. To solve this, I created a new Group with Ctrl + G, renamed it, applied Match Transformations to the group as well, and then placed the controller inside the Group. This effectively resets the controller.

In this rig, some controllers are placed far from their corresponding joints (e.g., Clavicle and Spine controllers). For these, it is critical that the pivot position matches the joint pivot to avoid rotation issues. After placing the controller, pressing D + V quickly snaps the controller’s pivot to the joint’s pivot.

(Optional) The main reason for creating a Group is to keep the original Rotation aligned with the joint. If you want to keep the controller Group’s transforms clean at (0,0,0), you can also use Freeze Transformations to reset Translate and Scale back to (0,0,0) and (1,1,1).

Once all controllers are created, use Constrain → Parent to constrain each joint to its corresponding controller. This way, the controllers can drive the skeleton.

To ensure the controllers also follow a proper hierarchy, set them up similar to the skeleton’s hierarchy. For example, when the Up-Arm moves, the Low-Arm and Hand should follow.

Finally, assign colors to the controllers for better visual clarity, making it easier for animators to identify them.

With this, the rigging of the character is complete!