Blender 3D Cookbook

Linking the character and making a proxy

The habit of linking assets from library files is the most useful and used, I would say, not only in a Blender based workflow, but also in the industry. A linked asset, in our case a creature character, can be placed and animated even if not already completed in all its parts, thus it allows a team to work almost at the same time on the different aspects. In our case, the Gidiosaurus is still missing texturing and shaders, but can already be placed on stage and animated anyway.

To link an asset in Blender and keep the possibility of animating it through a rig, we must make a proxy of the rig itself. A proxy object overrides the animation controls of a linked object in a non-destructive way, so that an animator ...