3D Art 1: Modeling Lesson 6.1.3

Bidped character from last time

if your Blender is glitching you must use the VDI

Blender

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CLASSROOM EXPECTATIONS

6.1.3 Rigging a Character for animation

Rigging your biped character

Today's Agenda

• You can open your save file of biped or create a new biped

• biomechanical- movement of living things

Taking your biped character and put "bones" in it to allow biomechanimal movements.

what are we doing today?

• This process involves creating a "skeleton" for your model, and the term for this is known as rigging.
• The rigging involves multiple processes to make the character look even more realistic.
• While rigging the following processes makes the model look more realistic:
• creating armature
• renaming bones
• applying inverse kinematics
• symmetrizing, skinning, and posing

rigging

• Open your Blender character model from the "Creating a Biped Character Model" lesson.
• Select Object Mode at the top left of your screen.
• Select your character.
• Select Modifier Properties (blue wrench icon).
• Go to the second modifier you created the last time you worked on this file, the Skin modifier.
• Press on Create Armature and you will see yellow lines on your character.

the steps...

• The yellow lines you see now are the bones of your character.
• Change to Edit Mode at the top left of your screen. The bones will now appear. If you select a gray dot, it turns orange. If you select the line segment of a bone, it turns yellow. This is how you know what you have actively selected.
• There might be a few bones that are not needed. You can get rid of them by selecting them, pressing X, and then pressing Dissolve Bones. If Dissolve Bones does not work well, you can also select Delete Bones to try pressing on a line segment if you have an extra bone

the steps...

• Before moving on, you will need to center the bones along the X-axis.
• Press shift + S, and press the option Cursor to World Origin.
• While holding down shift on your keyboard, select the bones that will remain centered in your character (spine) and/or those which do not need a copy on the other side. On your keyboard press '.' (the period key) (.) and then select 3D Cursor, then press one after another S, X, 0, then press enter, and finally press somewhere in your work area/viewport outside of your character.

the steps...

• Next, you will need to automatically name all these vertices you created last time, which are located on the left side. They will have a .L at the end if you do the following:
• on your keyboard press A, then go up top to the Armature option bar, press Names, and press Auto-Name Left/Right
• This will automatically add a .L at the end of all the items on the left side of the character.

the steps...

the steps...

Renaming the Bones

• You will review your automatic naming of everything on the left half of the character and keep the .L to indicate they are on the left side. This is important because soon, you will symmetrize all of these bones to the other side, and Blender will automatically add a .R to those bones on the other side of the X-axis to indicate they are on the right side of the body of the character.

the steps...

• Press on Edit Mode. On the bottom right of your screen, select the little green runner icon Object Data Properties. Press on Viewport Display and check off the Names checkbox. (unless you want to see the bone names, sometimes you do)
• Select the little green bone icon Bone Properties on the right sidebar area.
• Go through and select each bone and rename it when its name appears within Bone Properties according to body parts by double-pressing and rewriting over the old numerical name. Keep the .L for all left-side body bones and leave off the .L for the middle bones of the spine and head. For instance, the left hand will be renamed from its number to Hand.L. (some of us already did this part)

the steps...

• You should only have vertices and bones only on the left side so far. You should not have any bones on the right side of the body. If there are any left still, press X to get rid of them after selecting them. The spinal bones should be renamed as shown in the video, that is, the spine, or anything specific so you know which bone is which (upper leg, lower leg) and so forth. Keep the .L for items on the left side to indicate they are on the left side.

the steps...

Inverse Kinematics

• Now that all of your bones are named, the next thing you will need to do is to create inverse kinematics bone constraints to make movements more smooth. Inverse kinematics is the process of using equations to determine the motion of joints in a given position for an animation character's skeleton.
• At the top of your screen, switch your pivot point to Individual Origins to make the movement of your rigging smoother.
• While still in Edit Mode, select the line segment of the wrist bone, and press shift + D to duplicate it. Place this duplicate wrist bone in the same place and position as the original. (OR - Extrude the joint along the Y axis - either way works).

the steps...

Inverse Kinematics

• Press alt + P and press Clear Parent. Press S and move your mouse to scale this bone up. Rotate it so it is perpendicular to the wrist by using the Rotate tool and pressing R, Y, 9, 0 to rotate it 90 degrees along the Y-axis.
• Scale it to a point where it is larger than the character's wrist. Within Bone Properties, rename this new bone Arm.IK.L.
• Uncheck the Deform checkbox.

the steps...

• Now orbit up to the elbow! Select the line segment/bone of the elbow and duplicate it by pressing shift + D. Press to confirm its placement directly over the original elbow.
• Press on the duplicate bone at the elbow, to extrude, and while keeping it on the Y-axis press E, Y. Move your mouse to drag it out a little bit on the Y-axis and click to release.
• Keeping the new bone selected, press alt + P and press Clear Parent. On your keyboard press S to scale this bone to be a little bigger than the original.
• Press G and Y to move the bone away from the elbow while staying on the Y-axis. Rename this new bone Elbow.IK.L.
• Uncheck the Deform option in the Bone Properties panel for the elbow and for any new duplicated/IK bones to ensure these bones do not deform the mesh when posing the character.

the steps...

Create Inverse Kinematics of the Ankle/Leg

• While still in Edit Mode, select the line segment of the ankle/leg bone, and press shift + D to duplicate it. Place this duplicate leg bone in the same place and position as the original.
• Press alt + P and press Clear Parent. Press S and move your mouse to scale this bone up in size. Rotate it so it is perpendicular to the wrist by using the Rotate tool and pressing R, Y, 9, 0 to rotate it 90 degrees along the Y-axis.
• Scale it to a point where it is larger than the character’s ankle. Within Bone Properties rename this new bone Leg.IK.L.
• Uncheck the Deform checkbox.

the steps...

Add New Leg Bones

• Select the line segment/bone of the knee and duplicate it by pressing shift + D. Press to confirm its placement directly over the original knee.
• Press on the duplicate bone at the knee, to extrude while keeping it on the Y-axis press E, Y. Move your mouse to drag it out a little bit on the Y-axis and click to release.
• Keeping the new bone selected, press alt + P, and press Clear Parent. On your keyboard press S to scale this bone to be a little bigger than the original.
• Press G, Y to move the bone away from the knee while staying on the Y axis. Rename this new bone Knee.IK.L.
• Uncheck the Deform option in the Bone Properties panel for the elbow and for any new duplicated/IK bones to ensure these bones do not deform the mesh when posing the character.

the steps...

Create Bone Constraints For Arms

• Great job. Now select the original wrist bone. Up top where you usually change modes, switch to Pose Mode.
• Select the blue bone icon of Bone Constraint Properties in the sidebar. Press on Add Bone Constraint and choose Inverse Kinematics.
• Press on Target and choose Armature. Select Bone, type to search for IK, and find the arm.IK.L bone.
• Press on Pole Target and choose Armature, then the bone you choose will be the elbow.IK.L. Uncheck the Use Tail checkbox and change the Chain Length to 2.

the steps...

Create Bone Constraints For Legs

• Great job. Now select the original leg bone. Up top where you usually change modes, switch to Pose Mode.
• Select the blue bone icon of Bone Constraint Properties in the sidebar. Press on Add Bone Constraint and choose Inverse Kinematics.
• Press on Target and choose Armature. Select Bone, type to search for IK, and find the leg.IK.L bone.
• Press on Pole Target and choose Armature, then the bone you choose will be Knee.IK.L. Uncheck the Use Tail checkbox and change the Chain Length to 2. (Sometimes you may need to adjust this to 3, if you have a wrist bone. This is talking about how many bones you're adjustiing further up in the chain.)

the steps...

Copy Rotation

• Ensure all your original bones (wrist, elbow, ankle & knee) are not crooked. Under the blue Bone Constraint Properties icon adjust the Pole Angle number accordingly.
• Next, select your original wrist/arm (just one or the other, not both), go to Bone Constraint Properties, then Add Bone Constraint, and press Copy Rotation.
• Under Target select Armature, and for Bone select Arm.IK.L.
• Next, select your original ankle/leg (just one or the other, not both), go to Bone Constraint Properties, then Add Bone Constraint, and press Copy Rotation.
• Under Target select Armature, and for Bone select the Leg.IK.L.

the steps...

the steps...

A great description of IK

Symmetrization

• Change to Edit Mode.
• Press shift as you select all of the bones (except the spine and head) on the left-hand side (you can also press A and then shift-press to deselect the spine and head).
• Right-click and select Symmetrize.
• This will copy the armature to the right-hand side of your character and also name all of these bones as the same but with .R at the end.

the steps...

Skinning

• Make sure you are in Object Mode.
• Select your mesh and then your armature together by holding shift.
• Press Ctrl + P and then choose the Armature Deform With Automatic Weights option.
• To return everything to the original position, press A to select all and Alt G and Alt R to reset. (Again, this step is not always necessary)

the steps...

Posing

• Now, you are able to move your character and pose it in different positions.
• Change the mode to Pose Mode. You will begin by moving the arm, which can be done by selecting your IK bones and pressing G to move, or R to rotate.
• You can switch views to adjust the way things move. Orbit around your character and notice how the different views affect how you are able to move the rigging.

the steps...

the steps...

Congratulations! Share the results on the class Padlet.

You Did It!

Creating a Quadruped

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MATERIALS NEEDED

Blender