Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hey, fellow animators, I’m Miloš Černý.
In a previous video we have finished the rig for main body parts.
If you didn’t watch it, go check out that one first.
Today let’s continue with rigging rest of the props.
But one thing I want to mention.
I will not be rigging this small chains here in this tutorial.
So if you are waiting specifically for them, you don’t need to watch the video.
The thing is, chains are especially hard to rig and animate.
These ones are attached on two places on top of that, which is even several times harder to do.
The reason is not only that rigging process is hard and not really suited for general
rigging tutorial as this.
But because the objects are chains they can not deform or stretch.
Which is really hard to do.
But ok, let’s start with the rigging and let’s start with the saddle first.
Hide the rest of the props and leave just the seat.
Select first spine bone and add additional bone for it.
This will be the main saddle bone.
The pivot is closest to the pivot of the first spine bone, so that’s why it’s a child of it.
By the way, please excuse the quality of the recording, it will get better, later in the video.
I have used a different capturing software for this part, and realized that quality is bad,
only after it was recorded.
It will be ok after the minute 6 in the video.
Sorry about that.
When done with the first bone, add another one to it.
Resize that one as well, to fit the model.
Now again add another bone to the first one, but not the second.
Align the position to the first bone, so they have the same pivot points.
And again, position it to match the model.
So these will be the main bones for the seat, now let’s rig the saddle pad.
This will not be hard either.
We need 3 bones for each side.
Which means one bone for Pelvis, one bone for one Spine and one for the other Spine.
And that for both sides.
So add a bone to pelvis.
Position it to start somewhere where the saddle pad starts.
And end the lenght of it where first Spine bone begins.
Now add another bone and make it as long as the first Spine bone is.
And then the last bone.
Now we need the other side.
So again create a bone for Pelvis.
This is a great example to show the power of CAT again.
Hit ‘Copy Bone Settings’ with first bone of the right side, selected.
And than ‘Paste Mirrored Bone Settings’ on the newly created bone.
And done, it will automatically match the whole chain on the right side to the left.
Simple as that.
Now we have to relink the bones, to be children of the Pelvis and Spine accordingly.
So select each bone and link it to what should be it’s parent.
Let’s quickly try out how the bones move, with creating a Motion Layer.
And it’s quite alright.
We will see later, if it works also with Skin on.
Always remember to rename the bones.
Especially these additional ones, because you will get lost in them pretty fast if you
don’t do that.
It’s boring, but it has to be done.
Ok so let’s apply a Skin modifier to everything, so we can test things properly.
First for the main body mesh.
It’s the same as we did several times in the previous video also.
Just don’t forget to exclude, helpers, platforms and also those new bones for the seat we just did.
Same for the seat mesh.
But here select just the new bones of course.
And try it out with Motion layer again.
Looks ok.
It does pretty much what I wanted it to do.
You can also try to manipulate the bones by yourselves, to see some particular movements
like I do here, if you want to check something specific.
Now let’s add this strap on the side here.
Add a new bone for the last saddle pad bone, because again, the pivots are the closest together
and we want it to be attached to saddle pad.
And just do a simple chain of three bones, with forth smaller one in the end.
I am again applying a new skin for the seat, just to test out if this number of bones is
enough for this strap.
You should do test like these anytime you are not sure about something.
It will save you some work afterwards.
Now for the cloth part.
The bones will be under the Pelvis again so add one to Pelvis.
We will put just 1 bone to the corner on each side to have a possibility to flap with the cloth a bit.
It’s important to not add more bones where you don’t need them.
More bones equals more things to animate.
So try the simplest solutions first.
Something like this might be ok.
When done, add a bone for the other side as well and rename them.
Again, apply a basic Skin, just to test out if it does what we wanted.
I can see this working quite alright for the animation, so let’s keep it like this for
now and let’s move to the horn.
Actually it’s not a horn, it’s a tusk, I know, but I named it horn anyway.
So first, think about where you will have the pivot for the bone.
Then, to which bone you want it to have attached.
This one will be under first Spine bone, because it’s the closest to it.
So create a bone for it.
Now reposition it as always.
For skinning, this will be a simple 100% value for all the vertices on the tusk.
So a pretty easy one.
We can actually do it right now.
Add that one bone to Skin modifier
And that’s it.
Skinning for the tusk done.
You can also test if the pivot is on the right place by moving it.
Now the water bag.
Here I was thinking to what bone do I want to link it.
In the end, I have decided for that last saddle pad bone, because the bottle is attached to
the pad actually and not the body of the dino-bird.
The whole bottle is again just one bone.
I didn’t want to deform it so I have used only one.
The skin will be the same easy one as with the tusk.
100% on that one bone.
Now if we try a Motion Layer for skin test,
We can see it’s working pretty well and not clipping into the body.
For the metal cage part I have decided to use a very simple method.
It’s not very sophisticated but very easy to do.
I want to be able to move the whole strap when needed.
But also deform it with individual bones.
So I created a bone for the middle neck and placed it to the end of the strap.
This will be our main parent bone.
From this bone we will create a chain of three bones for each side.
Something like this.
Now for the other side, just copy and paste the settings of the first chain.
With a setup like this, the chains will not be connected in the middle of the strap.
But we don’t even need them to be.
With this, you are able to animate the whole strap with just one bone, but also create
a wave animation of the individual bones for example.
If you need it.
Without any complicated rigging.
Now we need the same thing for the other strap.
Add new bone for the other neck.
Copy the settings of the first strap and just watch the magic happen.
It will create the same setup automatically.
You just need to offset it a bit to match it with the model.
But small things like this, is why the CAT is so nice to use.
Ok so that was pretty quick, now we need to do a similar thing for the bigger straps.
I will use the same method.
I don’t need any sophisticated controls for them.
I just want to be able to move them a bit when needed or when they clip into the body.
But I don’t plan any huge animations with them so that’s why a setup like should be sufficient.
This part is sped up a bit more, because we are doing almost identical process.
It’s just creating one bone after another and aligning them to match the model.
When done with one side, just copy and paste to create the other side again.
But check if it fits the model, because it might not be symmetrical.
Here it seems ok though.
For the other strap, just copying and pasting will not be enough, because it’s mesh is
a bit different.
But just simply go through all the bones and position them properly.
Nothing too complicated.
So now, to the last part remaining.
Feathers on the head.
I am of course not going to rig every single feather, that would be a real pain to animate.
I am going to separate them into chunks and each chunk will have left and right side so
they can split a bit.
The chunks will also need more then one bone, so they can bend a little.
I decided to use three.
And with these decisions done, it’s pretty simple to do the actual work.
You can watch how I do it but it’s the same as everything else.
I have set up the first chunk and did one side.
Then just create new bone an paste settings as mirrored to create the other side.
When done with the first two bone chains, just copy them to create second chunk, and so on.
Again, nothing too hard to do.
It just requires time.
Like everything.
Always check if they are on the right place and resize them if they need to be resized.
Don’t forget to rename them in the end and with this done, the whole rig should be ready for skinning.
But some more details to do.
Like changing colors for the feathers for example, to be more clear which side is which.
I am again applying skin, to check if the feathers can work with a rig like this.
Also organizing the layers is important.
Here I am separating main body bones from the prop bones, to be able to hide and unhide
them quickly, to avoid clutter during animating.
Things like these are useful, even though they might sometimes seem like they are not.
Every little thing that speeds up your work, or make your workspace cleaner, is useful.
So again guys, thank you for watching the video, I hope you liked it.
Also thanks to all my Patreons and see you in the next video.
I am Miloš Černý and Thank You for watching.