Book description
A beginner's guide, this book presents basic theories and lays out a series of steps for constructing a human character rig from the ground up, just like in a professional studio. It gives hands-on experience with taking a completed character model, setting it up with a skeleton with kinematics and soft-skin deformation, and using data management to animate the character. All this is done while keeping technical and mathematical jargon to a minimum. The book also includes video tutorials corresponding to specific modules.
Table of contents
- Author
- Introduction
- Section I: Rotation
- Chapter 1: Hierarchies
- Chapter 2: 3D Rotations
-
Chapter 3: Joints and Joint Orient
- 3.1 What Is a Joint?
- 3.2 What Properties Do Joints Have That Other Types of Transforms Don’t?
- 3.3 What Is a Joint Orient?
- 3.4 How Do You Set Joint Orients?
- 3.5 What Is the Best Configuration to Set Up Joint Orients?
- 3.6 How Do Joint Orients Relate to Rotation Order?
- 3.7 Does Translating Joints Affect the Joint Orient at All?
-
Chapter 4: Primary Skeleton
- 4.1 What Is a Skeleton?
- 4.2 What Are Skeletons Used For?
- 4.3 What Is Forward Kinematics?
- 4.4 What Different Poses Are Characters Modeled in, and How Does That Affect the Skeleton?
- 4.5 What Is Skeletal Alignment and How Does It Relate to the Character Model?
- 4.6 How Do I Assess a Character Model for Skeletal Alignment?
-
4.7 Lesson 1: Creating the Basic Skeleton
- 4.7.1 Step 1: Load the File
- 4.7.2 Step 2: Create the Template Joint
- 4.7.3 Step 3: Expose the Joint Orients
- 4.7.4 Step 4: Create the Spine
- 4.7.5 Step 5: Create the Legs
- 4.7.6 Step 6: Orient the Leg Joints
- 4.7.7 Step 7: Create the Arms
- 4.7.8 Step 8: Orient the Arm Joints
- 4.7.9 Step 9: Mirror the Limbs
-
Chapter 5: Intermediate Skeleton Setup
- 5.1 How Do I Orient My Joints Properly? How Do I Determine Rotation Order?
- 5.2 When Do I Need to Customize My Joint Orients? How Do I Set Custom Joint Orients?
- 5.3 What Are Twist Nodes? How Do I Put Twist Nodes into My Skeleton?
- 5.4 What Twist Nodes Do I Need to Create for My Human Skeleton?
- 5.5 How Do I Insert a Twist Joint If I Need One?
- 5.6 Do I Have to Do All This on the Other Side?
-
Chapter 6: Inverse Kinematics
- 6.1 What Is Inverse Kinematics?
- 6.2 Why Do I Need Inverse Kinematics?
- 6.3 How Do I Create IK Chains?
- 6.4 What’s the Difference between Single-Chain and Rotate-Plane IK? What Is a Pole Vector?
- 6.5 How Do I Edit IK Chains and Their Parameters?
- 6.6 What Are the IK Essentials for the Humanoid Body?
- 6.7 What Is Spline IK?
- 6.8 Lesson 1: Building Standard IK Chains for a Human Arm
- Section II: Deformation
- Chapter 7: Introduction to Deformation
-
Chapter 8: Skinning a Character
- 8.1 What is Skinning?
- 8.2 How Does Skinning Work?
- 8.3 What Are the Different Types of Skinning Methods?
- 8.4 What Are the Important Parameters of Binding a Character?
- 8.5 Can I Let Maya Do My Skin Weights for Me?
- 8.6 What Is Artisan?
- 8.7 What If I Need to Move a Joint after Skinning My Character?
- 8.8 How Can I Save My Skin Weights so I Have to Do Them Again?
- 8.9 What Is Secondary and Tertiary Deformation?
- 8.10 Lesson 1: The Zeman Skin Weight Method
-
Chapter 9: Relationships
- 9.1 How Do You Make Relationships between One Node and Another?
- 9.2 Why Do You Need to Make Relationships between One Node and Another?
- 9.3 What Are Constraints and What Do We Use Them For?
- 9.4 What Are Expressions?
- 9.5 What Are Math Nodes?
- 9.6 What Are Driven Keys?
- 9.7 What’s the Best Method of Generating a Relationship? What Are the Differences between One Method and Another?
- 9.8 Lesson 1: The Reverse Foot
- 9.9 Lesson 2: The Pole Vector
- 9.10 Lesson 3: Driving Hand Poses with Driven Keys
- 9.11 Lesson 4: Driving Corrective Blend Shapes
- 9.12 Lesson 5: The Twist Rig
- Chapter 10: Conclusion
Product information
- Title: Essential Skills in Character Rigging
- Author(s):
- Release date: October 2015
- Publisher(s): A K Peters/CRC Press
- ISBN: 9781498788120
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