Tutorial Art Design: rigging

Articles by "rigging"

BASIC / Rigging 101

NOTE:

This 101 on Rigging will grow overtime. With my 101 blog articles, I often update it and adding more information as I found more.

Ok, finally I am pretty confident to start writing post about Blender rigging and hopefully this can be useful for everyone.

I shall touch the basic of rigging in Blender first, and hopefully improve my writing to more advanced rigging in few posts to come.

I am actually basing my Blender rigging post from Nathan Vegdahl's DVD on rigging, with some extra notes based on my own understanding and experience with this area.

RIGGING IS AN ART

My rigging background is from Maya and I have become too familiar with Maya rigging workflow. I use Maya for over 8+ years now, my main are of focus is on character animation and rigging too.

BY NO MEANS, I am an expert in rigging, but I am about intermediate level. I am a teacher and mentor, so I know the general foundations pretty well.

While my Blender knowledge is 1+ year old. I am new to Blender rigging. So I am a student again.

I wish there are more Blender riggers out there can mentor or share their techniques. Or actual Blender projects that can push me better with Blender rigging. But I guess if I keep looking I will find a way.

So, I am not totally blind with rigging, but at the same time I am new to Blender rigging. Luckily Blender Rigging has some similarity to Maya. And more.

Anyhow, one needs to be brave to take first step and start learning.

BLENDER RIGGING

When switching to Blender, there is a slightly different approach. Conceptually, rigging in any 3D package is pretty similar.

But I don't like how people often oversimplifying things. Rigger cannot just switch from one package to another, there is always a bit of learning curve, but they may be able to learn it faster if they have experienced in that area.

Yes, rigging can be automated, like MIXAMO Rig or all kinds of automatic rigging script out there. However, they are good for generic character. There is nothing more beautiful than a nicely rigged character that works well for particular animation.

Using particular 3D tool, whether it is Maya, Softimage, Houdini, 3dsmax, Cinema4D, Lightwave, or Blender, a really good rigger needs to be flexible and switch his/her ways of thinking to suit the rigging tool set in hand.

It is not certainly not just different in UI. There is always advantages and disadvantages of one tool over another tool.

Quoted from Nathan Vegdahl: "Rigging is a mean to and end". So, every rig should have a purpose. When rig is complete, that is when animation can begin. RIGGING is just part of process to get to the final.

BLENDER WIKI ON RIGGING AND ARMATURE

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Rigging/Armatures

BLENDER DVD ON RIGGING

Nathan Vegdahl's "Humane Rigging DVD" is probably the only Blender Rigging DVD out there. I could be wrong, but this is certainly one of the BEST rigging DVD out there.

There are also some Blender rigging video tutorials from CMIVFX (the Mammoth Rig) but unfortunately they use older Blender version. They did try to kind of explain the difference, but still it is not easy to study rigging tutorial using old Blender when you are actually using new Blender interface.

STEP BY STEP RIGGING CONCEPT (this is the same on every 3D software)

Analyzing and preparing the 3D model to be rigged. Do clean up, make sure it has good topology. Make sure it is face the FRONT axis of the world.
Consult your animator and clearly understand on what this rig is going to be used for (what animation).
Break down the rig into smaller functions: Face Rig, Eye Rig, Leg Rig, Arm Lig, Torso/Spine Rig,
Draw and place joints (or bones) in place.
Create controls and apply constraints
Paint weighting
Corrective Shapes
Body Rig and Facial Rig
Advance additional layers: Muscles, Dynamics

BLENDER EMPTY, ARMATURE EDIT MODE AND POSE MODE

Blender has its own unique way in handling rigging.

Like Nathan stated on his rigging DVD, there are 2 very important Objects related to rigging:
The Empty and The Armature.

Empty (or sometimes called NULL) is an object that only has Transformation information (position, rotation, scale). It cannot be rendered, but it appears on 3D viewport as a shape.

Armature is similar to Empty, but it has more to it. For every Armature object, it consists of bones hierarchy (aka bone chain), Armature has 2 mode to work with: EDIT MODE and POSE MODE.

To switch to Armature Edit Mode, you select the Armature object and hit TAB.
To switch to Armature Pose Mode, you select the Armature object and hit SHIFT+TAB.

Animator animates in Pose Mode. Armature is a single object that actually contains a lot of other objects and information, but able to maintain a Single Actions animation data.

BONES IN ARMATURE

Bone in Blender is simply powerful.

Bone in Pose Mode is Transform-able (Position, Rotate, Scale).
Bone can be saved as Pose Library.
Bone can be extruded.

As single bone can be squashed, stretched, and broken into segments (like for tail)

BLENDER CONSTRAINTS AND DRIVERS

There are also 2 features that relates closely to rigging: Constraints and Drivers.

This is quite common in all 3D package, but Blender has its own set of Constraints. In Blender, there are some constraints that are available for all common object (including Empty)

There are also more constraints that are only available inside Armature and can be applied when you are in Pose Mode:

Well, both seems to be showing all the constraints, but things like Inverse Kinematics is something that specific to Armatures and Bones.

BLENDER SPLINE IK SETUP

Spline IK in Blender is very interesting.

The Bone Constraint Spline IK itself is pretty simple, easy to setup. We need CURVE object that will drive the Bone. But how do we drive the CURVE? How do we CONTROL it? The answer is HOOK. Apparently we can also exchange HOOK with BONE!!

Grease Pencil => Curve => resample Curve (simplify) => Polygon Edge Mesh => Skin Modifier => turn this into a BONE CHAIN

HOOK Modifier - Blender Diplom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7WXOM3iQYM

PARENTING CONCEPT

Ctrl+P to parent.
Alt+P to unparent.

In Blender, Bone is can be FREE, PARENTED, CONNECTED.

Maya users switching to Blender rigging will be a bit shocked to find this (yes, that's me). We understand the idea of having broken-hiearchy-joints, but the modularity of Rig and the Mesh in Blender is shockingly simple in implementation.

SILHOUETTE SHAPE ON CAMERA DEFORMATION

For a more advanced technique, you will something called Pose Space Deformation fixes.

I think Shape Tweak for Silhouette can be done using AniSculpt tool from Pepe:
http://www.pepeland.com/

PRESERVING VOLUME WHEN USING ARMATURE DEFORMER

ROTATING JOINTS FROM INDIVIDUAL PIVOT

Animator from Maya will understand this "gotcha!". By default, Blender Rotation is not actually based on Joint Individual Rotation. But you can do that if you like to, especially when animating something like tail.

In Maya, there is a lot of restriction on how we can transform Joints.

In Blender, we are FREE to Transform Joints as we please, to move them in space, to scale in any axis, to rotate in any pivot, it will all work, in a Animation Pose kind of way anyway. Probably the Rigger will tend to say => well, we probably need to rig cleverly.

However, in Blender, actually animator don't need to worry about that. Sometimes having JOINTS just moving and deforming character into POSE in 3D is more important.

In Blender, you might notice that ROTATION was not set to EULER by default, but QUATERNION. I was shocked too at first. This is so unusual. However, when animating for ROTATION, animator don't care about XYZ, but more about the SPACING and TIMING to get the POSE. They should not deal with GIMBAL LOCK stuff.

DRAWING AND PLACING BONES (Edit Mode)

Unlike Maya where you draw Joints and need 2 Joints to create Bones, in Blender you always start with a Single Bone. You cannot have just a single entity called Joint. I think similar concept is used in Softimage.

Blender default Bone axis is down in Z axis. Unlike Maya, which typically down in X axis. This means the bone Twist Axis is Z axis by default.

To turn on the Axis visibility of Armatures (all the bones) you do that on the Property panel:

JOINT ORIENTATION (Edit Mode)

Twist of Bone can be adjusted at anytime in Edit Mode. It will not affect the weighting or mesh.

QUATERNION VS EULER (Pose Mode)

Blender has 2 types of rotation for every object, which default on Quaternion.

Euler rotation is prone to Gimbal Lock.
With Quaternion, we don't need to worry about rotation, just pose your character.

MAYA: JOE ALTER L-BRUSH AND BRAVE RABBIT SHAPES

I often got the Pose Space Deformation mixed with Blendshape Corrective Shapes. PSD is probably a more advanced topic.

Something like this would be nice, L-Brush from Joe Alter.

http://www.lbrush.com/

NOTE: I switch back between Maya and Blender and trying to find a similar or equivalent tools in Blender. I think this is a good way to think of it. In Blender, we are all sharing skills and trying to brainstorm for the best and simplest of tool possible.

There is also this one from Brave Rabbit:
https://vimeo.com/80840525

CONTROL AND CONSTRAINT (Pose Mode)

Rig controls in Blender are BONES itself. They are created in Edit Mode, but you do the constraints in Pose Mode.

If you want to do parenting of object geometry, you do it in Pose Mode.

Shape of CONTROLS in Blender can be changed easily. Any MESH can become the SHAPE of controls.

BIND AND SKIN WEIGHT

Parenting Mesh to Armature will give you option whether you want to have Auto Weight. Blender Bone Auto-Weighting is really good. It's like Heat-Map and just works beautifully most of the time.

Select the armature and go to Weight Paint Mode

SPECIAL: ACTION CONSTRAINT

https://vimeo.com/8754153

HOTKEYS FOR RIGGING

USEFUL HOTKEYS WHEN DRAWING JOINTS/ARMATURES

E key = extrude bone
F key = connect between 2 Joint Point (you must elect 2 points only)

ALT +F
Reverse Joints

CTRL+SHIFT+C

To quickly add Constraints

BONE: Edit Mode

This is where you will want to work to edit, extrude bone, etc.

You don't need to Freeze Transform the Shape (unlike Maya)

BONE: Custom Shape

Need to be done in Pose Mode

Alt + P Clear Parent

When creating a quick control, you can quickly extrude bones and then Clear Parent

FOR CURVE

v = change vector handle type

USEFUL HOTKEYS WHEN POSING IN POSE MODE
A = Select All Bones (blue color)
Alt+R = reset rotationg
Alt+G = reset position
Alt+S = reset scaling

Don't forget there is also ARMATURE MENU apart from HOTKEYS:

WORK IN PROGRESS: Sverchok for Bone and Rigging and Procedural Character anc Creature Creation

Don't be scared. Everything will be simpler in time! Remember EDGE => SKIN MODIFIER => BONE.

You can create all kind of complex bone, procedurally and parametric. With a good setup, of course.

Just an unfinished work in progress. Sorry for Grease Pencil scribbles.

USEFUL HOTKEYS FOR WEIGHT PAINTING

RMB Click = select armature joint that you want to paint weight around the mesh points
F key = change brush size

USEFUL RIGGING RELATED LINKS

How to Rig An Arrow
https://vimeo.com/94007193

Rig - Animator Blog
http://www.riganimator.com/tips/animtip/

Suchan Raj Blog
http://suchanspot.blogspot.com.au/

RIGGING / Bone Modeling Helper Add-On For Facial Rigging

REALISM vs SUZANNE-ISM

Just yesterday, I stumbled into this website of "Higurashi no Suzuri". Not sure if that is the owner's name. Let's just call it the website of Mr.Higurashi-sama. However, "Ishidourou" is another ALIAS of Mr.Higurashi. I will have to confirm with him via email.

Here is "Ishidourou" YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSNi8Xxsd9Q7hEK6lZPuc2A

Great respect for him for writing and sharing his Blender Add-On to help when creating Bone in Blender (aka Armature object).

After installing the Add-On, you will get this additional Panel, this is quite intuitive.

Bone Modeling Helper Add-On

However, you want to check out his long video demo for the Add-On (around 30 minutes). I cannot read Japanese myself, however, the video is pretty self-explanatory.

VIDEO DEMO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_BEGXA0pEo

ENGLISH VERSION (Update!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fFv9znBZOo

WEBSITE:
http://stonefield.cocolog-nifty.com/

Feel free to spend some time to watch the video demo.

This Blender Add-On is simple and practical. It does not try to do too much setup, but more for general usage. Such as converting to BONES from SELECTED MESH.

For that particular function, I also wanted to point out this interesting setup where ishidourou is showing how we can rig Suzanne Monkey Head just by using the Edge Loop, around the are of Circular Face Topology.

This is not a totally new concept, however, I figured out a few things after studying his video and trying it myself in Blender:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk8Ma5ne2pk

FACIAL RIGGING AND SETUP

With the topic of Facial Rigging, I actually have a very high interest in it. Sometimes more than biped rig alone. Biped is biped. However EVERY FACE is different. Unless it is a generic facial rig.

I have a bit obsession of Human Faces back then (and still now) and I do draw a lot of portraits. One my old dream is to be a character designer for more cartoony and stylistic character.

These days, we all know it that "realistic looking" and "hyper realistic" high detailed creature is the big thing or in high demand. I think stylistic character still have place. Both equally important.

JASON OSIPA's book "Stop Staring" has become THE ONLY CG BOOK that talks in details about facial rigging and goes about explaining how to set it up, particularly using commercial software called Maya.
http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470175044.html

That book has been updated and republished few times. "Osipa Style" has become really famous and becoming the "Industry Standard" of Facial Rigging. Both for realistic and stylistic face.

There is also another book that talks about Rigging really well, it is becoming a very rare book:
"CG Toolkit The Art of Rigging Volume 1-3".

That book talks about whole body rigging for human character and mechanical robot creature, but also touch a bit on "advanced facial rigging".

Having been a bit of a rigger and using Maya for over 10 years, I still often need to adjust my brain to really understand the ESSENCE OF RIGGING that is more general and applicable in other packages.

Currently, I am adapting to Rigging system in Blender. I am more experienced in character rigging using Maya. So I want RAGE a bit about Maya Rigging. I have serious love and hate with Maya and rigging.

Maya Rigging in summary:

Maya's Rigging involves JOINTS, DEFORMERS, CONSTRAINS, and CONTROLS. => I think these are some ELEMENTS of RIGGING. Blender has some equivalent to all those. And not forgetting SKINNING (assigning Cluster or Group or Vertices) and WEIGHT PAINTING.
Maya is a node based but also has some familiar and friendlier 3D environment like Blender, on the surface. Unlike Houdini 3D which is a fully node based, can work with almost hardly no interface in 3D view.
Being node based, it is a breeze for Maya to setup Expression, Connection, from one object to another. Blender can do this via Python and Drivers and Bone Constrains.
For Facial Rigging, typical Maya setup is to use Blendshapes and Set Driven Keys => In Blender terminology, it is just like Shapekeys and Drivers. However, there might also be some differences between the two. PROS and CONS. Blender has Action Constrains(!).
Facial Rigging can be created JOINT BASED or BLENDSHAPE BASED. For Game Production, actually Joint Based is what is more commonly used. Vertex Animation is not always supported and can be heavy for game engine.
Maya's "ADVANCE" architecture has become both a curse and a blessing. In one way, it is very flexible, on the other hand, when not careful creating and implementing Tools, CHARACTER RIG can easily be broken.
All "advanced" rigging setup has been cleverly using Maya's systems. Such as MUSCLE, RIBBON, STRETCHY, and so on. Blender has some of those features as a built-in system, ready to be used especially for Rigging.
Maya has thousands of useful MEL scripts and many AUTO-RIGGING scripts, just like Blender's Rigify and others.
Maya is very popular in CG industry for Rigging and Animation. There are PLENTY of good rig setup in Maya. Now, I also found many interesting CHARACTER RIG SETUP using Blender out there. Many of bipedal rig is using RIGIFY. Make Human is using RIGIFY too.
In the end Maya's Rigging == becoming pretty much scripted and procedural.
Maya has MUSCLE and specialized "advanced" like tension map plugins and also things like POSE SPACE DEFORMERS, etc. I talked a bit about it at my Maya blog.

http://mayaspiral.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/soup-tension-map-x-peak-auto-squash-and.html

Here is another example of Maya Face Rig by Image-Metrics showing Face Control on the right. This is a Blendshape based.

BLENDER BONE FOR FACIAL RIGGING SETUP

I am actually fairly new to Blender Rigging, in fact, I know very little about the whole workflow. From the HUMANE RIGGING DVD by Nathan Veghdal, I learned a things such as:

Blender Armature object has 2 Modes: Edit Mode and Pose Mode
Edit Mode to draw and edit the BONES
Pose Mode to setup Controls and Animate.
Blender use Bone inside Armature Object. Maya uses Joints. Joint is a single point source, Bone is more like a Capsule.
Blender has specialized Bone Constrains apart from normal Bone Constrains
Blender CONTROLS is built in and setup inside Armature System. Unlike Maya where we actually use NURBS Curve.

I have reserved a seat for JEREMY DAVIDSON's Biped Character Rigging in Blender at PL Puppeteer Lounge (PL), hopefully after the workshop I can understand Blender rigging a lot better:

http://www.blendernation.com/2014/05/30/biped-character-rigging-workshop/

I remember there is an old Maya Rigging DVD that talks about how to rig a Baboon, the Rig uses Joints that goes along the Edges:

So the concept of using Bones along facial lines is definitely not new, however in Maya the issue is:
- Joint Weighting
- Keeping Joint as Broken Hierarchy
- To be able to reset the Joints

Maya's Capsule based Skin Weighting helps a bit when weighting Joints, however, Blender Bone does it better.

There are many conventional rigging in Maya to make the above works. Joint based will work, but can be painstakingly harder.

However, I figure out that in Blender, somewhat the result of weight is much better, and the Bone system in Blender Armature just perfect for this kind of Joint Based Facial Rig.

BLENDER QUICK FACE RIGGING SETUP

Anyways, in regards to out "Bone Modeling Helper" Add-On, I did a quick exploration on how we could do a quick cartoony rig using Blender Armature system and Bone, below:

NOTE:

The Setup could be much better. I should have done some broken parenting and adding Ear Jonits. I am just showing how it can be done UNDER ONE MINUTE.
This does not mean Blender Armature system is good only for stylized cartoony character. You can use it for realistic head.

BLENDER VS MAYA FOR RIGGING

As a technical artist, I need to be fair. I would say that comparison between tools is PRETTY TIRING. Just like comparing between iPhone and Android phones. Or comparing Canon and Nikon camera.

<<< Personally, I think iPhone has a lots more added value for the price. And for camera choice, I actually like Fuji and Olympus approach, but I have Nikon.
Let them fight or CHOOSE! >>>

However, in all seriousness, IDEALLY it is necessary to be OPEN-MINDED for what tools available that can be suitable for work you are doing. We know that it is very difficult for anyone to accept a new way of working or thinking.

Our mind often goes into "reality distortion field" when COMPARING 2 THINGS for their VALUE and BENEFITS.

In fact, I learn a bit or two by using Blender that I can apply if I need to work inside Maya. I use both.

POSE LIBRARY

Blender has a built in Pose Library for its Armature system:

Blender Armature system and Paint Weighting are very flexible. Accidentally deleting Bones will not kill or crash or break the rig. The painting is much more stable.

It takes me a while to adapt to this "new" rigging system in Blender (it's simpler than Maya), but I am really happy with Blender system because of it's SIMPLICITY. I got too familiar with Maya's INPUT system where we need to be careful with the order of inputs for Rigging, such as:

UV => must be be done before Skin Cluster
Blendshapes => need to be before Skin Cluster
Skin Cluster => skinning mesh into joints => normally the last in hierarchy

Of course, we can do "transfer" etc, but does not always work perfectly.

MAYA: It does not always work. We need a script solution. Google Search

BLENDER: there is always a way around that. If not, ask Blender developers.

While in Blender, I found that:

We can change the TWIST of BONE anytime
We can edit the bone position easily at anytime
Armature Bone in Blender can in a hierarchy or as "a broken rig" and both will work fine.
Bone can always be reset to original position.
Blendshapes can be added anytime and there is a specialized Library for Blendshapes
Bones Pose Library is provided.
Animation Action of Armature
1000+ bones will not slow down Blender.

Blender Rigging System is SIMPLE and PRACTICAL. We can get complex if we want to.

Blender Game Engine (BGE) also respect the Blender Facial Bone Rigging

BONE FACE RIG AND ANIMATION INTO UNITY

Blender's Armature and animation imported into Unity via the BLEND.

When importing to Unity:

Delete the Polygon Subdiv => conversion does not seem to always work 100%
Delete the default cube, can be deleted inside Unity too I think.

When we want to make changes, we can just do it in BLEND and updates inside Unity actually Blender

BLEND and Unity are seriously made for each other.

ANISCULPT SHAPE KEY

Once upon a time ago, there is a Blender Add-On called Anisculpt allowing animator to sculpt and refine the "profile" of their animation from the shot. This is called "Blendshape Fixes" in other package to fix an ugly pose on pose basis. "Pose Space Deformation" is kind of related to this, but not exactly the same.

The Add-On is no longer needed because Blender Shape Key can do it:
https://vimeo.com/27100314

GENERALIST AND SPECIALIST

There is a trend that has been going for years: a trend of SPECIALIZING. In reality, a good 3D Artist needs to have some good understanding of general knowledge of 3D, as well as specializing in one or two areas.

To stick with our topic, I think (COMPUTER) ANIMATOR should have knowledge of RIGGING. Animators will work very closely to riggers, but animators SHOULD NOT be dumb. Especially Computer Animators. Computer Animators SHOULD NOT look down on the traditional hand drawn animations either. If one being ignorant of the others, the result could be disaster.

Sometimes, with matter of rigging, ANIMATORS can CHEAT. Sometimes a complex rigging is unnecessary. All Animators need for animation just Bones.

However, for some complex animations, we do need things like constraining objects, advanced IK, crowds, motion captures, animators should take advantage of what computer offers.

Obviously, some animators are more technical like me. Some are not. Some are more artistic and just amazingly good with understanding of TIMING and SPACING, etc.

The problem is usually TIME and ENERGY required for a single person to do everything. However, I think most of really good BLENDER artist is a good generalist and as well a specialist.

It is a debatable topic. However, if we care about being INDEPENDENT and making sure ARTISTS have freedom to produce works and no dependency on the "state of industry", we always need to be adaptable and have multiple skills. Both equally important and so balance is needed.

In a way, the more IDEAL RIG is to GIVE MORE CONTROLS to ANIMATORS to build shapes themselves for ANIMATION. Of course the are certain boundary within productions, like to maintain the shapes, ANIMATOR need to be aware of the model.

RIGGER <=> ANIMATOR <=> MODELER. Animator should push the Model.

A bit like DEVELOPER/PROGRAMMER/CODER <=> ARTIST, the intermediate solution seems to be NODING, the procedural or parametric way to do things.

BECAUSE YOUR TOOL IS STUPID...

Clever artist choose the right, practical, simple tool.

Anyway, that's all my rants on rigging and Maya. Both Maya and Blender have something to like about, in term of rigging. Blender Rigging can hopefully continue to improve.

Here is an advice:
Make the tools work for you. Do not be dependent to other's complex script. Know your tool inside out and always learn for alternative.

Maya under Autodesk is NOT good. I have serious doubt with this company. Slow in development, no proper support. I do like Maya as the tool, I really don't like the corporation that ask for $$$$ for yearly update that does not update the basic tools.

Blender should be in every University and education institution and NOT big greedy giant like Autodesk.

Thus, for me, love for Blender continues to grow. Make this Baby Godzilla works for you.

ADDITIONAL CREDITS

Thanks also to my friend, Veta, for sharing the link to Mr.Higurashi-sama website above. Otherwise we could have missed such great add-on!

VETA ANTARES:
http://blenderia.blogspot.com.au/
https://www.youtube.com/user/dotline11/videos

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

Facial Expressions - A Visual Reference for Artists by MARK SIMON
Jason Osipa's "Stop Staring"

BLENDER ARMATURE & RIGIFY

(Before I jump into Blender Armature object via Python, I have to talk a little bit about Blender Armature and the Rigify Add-On....)

Ok, so I am a highly curious person about Blender Armature object. I will really investigate it like a newbie.

Blender Armature is like an Empty that it does not render, but it has a lot of special features in it. Just like Blender Curve and Blender Text object, they are special.

For every Armature object, it consists of Bones hierarchy (aka Bone Chain). Armature has 2 modes to work with: EDIT MODE and POSE MODE.

To switch to Armature Edit Mode, you select the Armature object and hit TAB.
To switch to Armature Pose Mode, you select the Armature object and hit SHIFT+TAB.

Animator animates a rigged character in Pose Mode. Armature is a single object that actually contains a lot of other objects and information, but able to maintain a Single Actions animation data.

(That is pretty much some basic Armature information that we need to know. Next, I talk a bit about Rigify...)

Apart from my interest with that Bone Object called Armature in Blender, I have also big interested with Art of Rigging inside Blender back then when I first use Blender 2.5x, and now even more so.

I definitely need to study Nathan Vegdahl DVD "Humane Rig" again. I never actually finished the whole rigging process.

http://cessen.com/stuff

http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/product_info_n.php?products_id=157

There are too many questions in my mind at the time. Not that I get less questions today, I actually have even more questions than before. But some important questions are answered along the way.

Last Friday, when I was at University computer room, I investigate Blender Rigify Add-On a little bit and use it from user's point of view from scratch to prepare the armature, run the Rigify script and skin "Make Human" mesh and also a random bi-ped creature created using Skin Modifier.

I like Rigify system, it is quite solid, a lot of magic happens in the background. Such as how Rigify uses Layers to separate the actual Skin Bones, Mechanics and the actual Controls.

One day I will spend some time to deconstruct the system that is implemented in Rigify.

For now, I will just use the meta-rig armatures for a test.

BLENDER ARMATURE VIA PYTHON

Like other special Blender Objects, the best way to investigate an object is to start from Properties.

With Armature, we need to go to Edit Mode and investigate each Bone in the hierarchy to truly understand what is happening.

Bone in Blender cannot exist by itself. It always needs 2 "joints" that is connected to each other to form a bone. Each Bone in Blender always has Head and Tail. The relationship between one bone with another bone via Parenting is important. As well as to watch for the "Local Rotation Axis" for each bone that is determined by the Roll value.

Now that we have a bit clearer picture about Armature object and Bone object (element of Armature), we can then start looking and digging it using Python Console.

I rename my Armatures as 'MyArmature' for now.
To check the Bones element inside Armature, we simply go down in the object level
Using the Python Console, we can see there are 3 bones, named "Bone", "Bone.001", "Bone.003".

I found it interesting how Python looks up Dictionary data.

Listing Methods/Functions that the Bone object has. Notice that we need to specifically point into certain Bone whether by name or index in order to dig deeper and get information.

Blender API help on Bone:

http://www.blender.org/documentation/blender_python_api_2_67a_release/bpy.types.Bone.html#bpy.types.Bone

NOTE: By no means I understand Blender Armature and Bone as whole, but here I am trying to walk you through the process on getting information using Python and use them. Often time we don't need to understand everything (sometimes impossible), unless you need to go into more complexity.

GET BONE INFORMATION

Ok, now what information do we really need to accomplish our problem in turning Armature into Skin AKA Create Skin from Bone?

Let's think.... we know that Skin Modifier only needs Polygon Mesh Edge component. What is the bare minimum of an Edge? 2 Points that are connected together.

Since we know Bone always has Head & Tail, while Edge always has 2 points that are connected, we can sort of solve our problem of "converting bone into skin".

So, we need:

1. Locations (2 XYZ positions) of Head and Tail for every bone (local position is fine)

2. Based on those Locations info, we can create Points and connect them into Edge

3. The rest, we will figure out later.

CREATE EDGE USING PYTHON SCRIPT

I am looking at these to understand how to create an Edge.

http://blenderscripting.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/using-frompydata.html

http://blenderscripting.blogspot.nl/2013/05/adding-geometry-to-existing-geometry.html

Slight modification to the script and then I got this below script that will create a mesh object which contains 2 points and an Edge. Exactly what we need at bare minimum.

import bpy

# HELPER FUNCTION THAT CREATE EDGE BASED ON SUPPLIED POSITIONS

def createEdge(coord1 = (-1.0, 1.0, 0.0), coord2 = (-1.0, -1.0, 0.0)):

Verts = [coord1, coord2]

Edges = [[0,1]]

profile_mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("Edge_Profile_Data")

profile_mesh.from_pydata(Verts, Edges, [])

profile_mesh.update()

profile_object = bpy.data.objects.new("Edge_Profile", profile_mesh)

profile_object.data = profile_mesh

scene = bpy.context.scene

scene.objects.link(profile_object)

profile_object.select = True

EDGES FROM BONES FOR SKIN MODIFIER

With the helper script above, we can easily turn every Bone into Edge by looping every Bone in the Armature and then run the script.

NOTE: In the script below, I am actually referencing the Object Name, instead of Armature name. Maybe you want to modify the script so that it works on Armature.

import bpy

# ACTUAL FUNCTION THAT TURN BONES INTO EDGES

def boneToEdges(armature_name='metarig'):

myRig = bpy.data.objects[armature_name]

# which armature to work on

#myRig = bpy.data.objects['Armature']

#myRig = bpy.data.objects['metarig']

# this actually return STRING NAME of bone

boneNames = myRig.data.bones.keys()

# the actual data to each

myBones = myRig.data.bones

for i, bone in enumerate(myBones):

#print(bone.name, bone.vector)

# every bone has HEAD and TAIL

#loc = bone.vector

head_loc = bone.head_local

tail_loc = bone.tail_local

createEdge(coord1 = head_loc, coord2 = tail_loc)

boneToEdges("MyArmature") # Change the name to your Armature Object Name.

Running the script above and I get multiple Edges objects like below:

We are not actually finish because my scripts is a bit of half done. It only creates Edges from every Bones. We need to Join (CTRL+J) all the edges into a single mesh and the Remove Doubles (merge overlapping points). Once we have a single mesh, we can then apply Skin Modifier.

You can quick select the Edges created using the script using the QUICK SELECT script below and then CTRL+J to join them into a single mesh, and then you can Remove Doubles..

import bpy

# Get all objects named "NAME*" and put it in a list

mesh = bpy.data.objects

sel = [item for item in mesh if "Edge_Profile" in item.name]

for item in sel:

item.select = True

USING THE SCRIPT ON RIGIFY (HUMAN-METARIG)

Let's try this on Rigify Bones. If we use the script on the Rig object (with controls), we get something like below:

If we use the Human Meta-Rig object, we get slightly cleaner Edges that potentially can be used for Skin Modifier.

With slight clean up and connecting and Remove Doubles, we get a Skin Modifier ready edges, that we can easily turn into a mesh:

BVH Motion Capture Data to Skin Modifier

If we import BVH data into Blender, we know we get Armature that is already animated, right? So we can use the script above to "Skin the Bone".

Below is from JPOP Group "Perfume" Motion Capture Dance data which was made available for download and really popular last year:

The Skin is dancing in no time.

Once we create Edges that is "Skin Modifier ready", we can easily modify the Skin and quickly Auto-Weight it to the original Skeleton.

I actually quite like the fact that Blender has separate Edit Mode and Pose Mode. We can match the Bone in Edit Mode (the default pose), regardless the animation in Pose Mode.

VIDEO DEMO "Bone to Skin"

SOME LIST OF GOOD VIDEOS ON WORKING WITH BVH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzYotTZVhcM
https://vimeo.com/12340788
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe1ySIpWZgo

DOWNLOAD FREE BVH
https://sites.google.com/a/cgspeed.com/cgspeed/motion-capture/cmu-bvh-conversion

HORSE BVH?

I am trying to get Quadruped BVH data, that would be interesting. Anyways, for Biped BVH data, there are quite a lot on the Internet. I wish I have my own Kinect to do mocap data, that will be fun.

OTHER LINKS

http://www.blender.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26496&sid=bbfac66a1deced62a45d9b4bbd0bda8f
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?181392-Armature-Bones-and-Poses-with-Python

MODELING / Exploring Anime Form in 3D Using Skin Modifier

Skin Modifier character works.

I have not committed to character design and modeling for a very long time. There are plenty of reasons and "distractions" along the way:

3D is such a big area. I was a little bit naive thinking that I can master every areas. Well... I tried and I end up classified into CG Generalist Artist. Although I always focus on Character Rigging. I like something that is a little bit technical. Mastering this art and craft is not easy either. You just have to keep doing the skill you want to really master.
There are so many 3D tools and the "industry" is very tool-centric. Cinema4D for motion graphics. Maya for feature film. 3dsmax for game and architecture. Houdini for feature film VFX. Softimage for game and feature film. And so on, and expectation keeps changing. I manage to juggle 3 tools: Maya, Houdini, Blender. Those three just clicks. Blender, which I discovered just 1 year ago, is the most freeing and because there is no restriction with licensing and really open, if later stage I need to recruit a team of CG artist for projects, I can use Blender on any machine and work right away. I may use commercial tool as needed, but for everything else, Blender is sufficient and always available (hopefully this will stay true for years to come).
I feel that I gotta work on my ANIMATION skill. I was at Animation Mentor for a bit, before I got disappointed by their approach on acting. Animation is acting? Animator has to be an actor? I do not really think so. I actually prefer Jason Ryan's animation style which focus more on OBSERVATION OF MOTION and THINKING ABOUT THE STORY TELLING. Maybe I am a little bit "purist".
I was working on my RIGGING skill. I am now confident to do advance rigging in Maya, while for Blender, I am still getting used to it. The transition from Maya to Blender is not as easy as I thought, maybe because I am thinking too complex about Blender rigging. Where in fact, it does not have to be complicated. One just need to understand the rigging tool in Blender a little better. Nathan Veghdal "Humane Rigging" DVD for Blender is the best source to learn Blender rigging. I am still studying this. Once I have a better understanding about this, I will make a special post about Blender Rigging and how I would approach it.
I studied area of LIGHTING and RENDERING. I studied Mental Ray for Maya for a while, which is a little bit "wrong" and "useless", just because Mental Ray is not the right way to go after all. It is really stupid and convoluted. One would better of studying Renderman and shader creation. I recommend every 3D artist to learn Renderman either Pixar Renderman or 3Delight. Or, alternatively, download Houdini and studied Mantra Shading and Rendering technique. Anyhow, Blender Rendering and Cycles rendering is just so brilliant and flexible that those are probably all you need to create your 3D.
I gotta learn PROGRAMMING. Funny to think when I first started that I feel afraid of programming. I studied graphic design and my first programming block was Action Scripting. In CG, I realized that knowledge of C++ and C are beneficial. Anyhow, these days, if you want to learn programming for CG, learn Python. You may also want to learn Game Programming using Java, Javascript, just in case. Anyways, learn the foundation of programming well.

So, after going through all those long journey and finding areas I actually like and I am sure I can be really good at, I am now at the point where I think: Yes, I can do it. At this stage, I don't think "technical" is an issue anymore. Providing time and research, you can easily tackle any technical issue. What needed is motivation and dedication to create something good that you can share.

BACK TO CHARACTER DESIGN...
So finally, I started to feel like exploring this area of CHARACTER DESIGN again.

I feel driven to create some (original) 3D characters again even more because now I wanted to print out some 3D toy (3D printing will become more accessible) and at the same time, I want to make animation again. I am thinking of creating proper YouTube channels for animation. I also want to create some 3D virtual characters (Augmented Reality), and eventually, providing time and money, I eventually want to make children books or series of animations.

Plenty of ideas to realize, so waste no more time!

SKIN MODIFIER FOR CHARACTER DESIGN
The great thing is that for anyone wanted to doodle and model 3D character design, you now have Blender feature called "Skin Modifier". Why? Skin Modifier makes it really fast and easy to work on IDEAS for 3D character design form and shapes, by simply drawing the point and lines. I like this A LOT.

Well... of course there is ZBrush and its ZSphere that has been around for a while if want to model by connecting SPHERES. I got one ZBrush license too, which unfortunately, I hardly used. Just because ZBrush never really feel right for me. I like ZSphere, but ZBrush is a little bit strange. I can use it, but it feels complicated. Maybe using Mudbox would be easier, but no time to learn yet another big learning curve. And for general public, ZBrush has some cost.

Blender Skin Modifier for character form development: Simple. Easy. Fast. I will talk a bit more about Skin Modifier later. I will talk about Anime and Manga a little bit first.

THINKING OF ANIME AND MANGA
The 3D Industry is so obsessed with the idea of realism and complex details that I think it is starting to get really tiring. I feel that stylistic 2D animation (like hand drawn) or 2D/3D hybrid animation will make a big come back.

I am a big fan of Level 5 Game Studio (Dragon Quest) 3D character style.

This kind of style:.
http://shadosk.deviantart.com/

Surey, there is a place for realistic and highly detailed 3D sculpt like below, for which I have nothing against for, but those works probably belong in the museum.
http://kuksi.com/artworks/sculpture/

Anyways, whether you go realistic way or cartoony/simplistic way, there are place for both. Well, maybe if 3D was mostly cartoony, I would say the opposite: "Time for more realistic looking character!". There is one thing that needs to be considered thought: CHARACTER APPEAL and whether CHARACTER belong in STORY. This is quite interesting topic to study.

Can the character be cartoony to tell a very realistic story? Can serious detailed and realistic looking character tells certain simple story? Probably there is a certain BALANCE.

Before knowing 3D animation, I am first into 2D animations and drawings. Many CG artists came from different backgrounds. My background passion of character design is rooted to Japanese anime, Disney works, and French comics (Smurf, Lucky Luke, etc). and others (Steven Sterk, etc).

With 2D animation, background tends to be highly detailed, but character is simple, so it is easy to animate (to draw) and not too tedious.

In 3D animations, both background and characters can be simple or highly detailed and complicated.

Japanese anime is especially a big influence. Before anime, there is manga (Japanese comics). It is always full of great story that is based on a really strong and appealing character design.

Below are some of my all time favourites Anime and Manga artists:

Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest, etc)
Osamu Tezuka, the God of Manga (Astro Boy, Buddha, Kimba the White Lion, etc)\
Miyazaki Hayao, the God of Anime (Ghibli Studio)
Eiichiro Oda (One Piece)
Otomo Katsuhiro (Akira)
Koji Morimoto
Naoki Urosawa (20th Century Boys)
Fujiko Fujio (Doraemon)

Depends on your own preference, "anime" or "manga" simplicity may be appealing or not. But you can learn from it. There are some complex looking anime character too, like Akira, City Hunter, Gantz, Samurai Champloo, Saint Seiya, Cowboy Bebop etc. I am not a big fan of Naruto though, sorry Naruto fans!

Keep in mind thought that sometimes "simple character" (but perfectly design) can be pretty complicated.

Simplistic characters are easy on the eyes:

Charles Santoso https://www.facebook.com/artofcharlessantoso --> cool concept artworks, very original

Kid Qube:http://www.kidqube.com/
Boring 3D:http://www.boring3d.com/
Final Fantasy IX (compared to the rest of Final Fantasy, I found this one to be the most appealing)Just google search "Final Fantasy IX".

Check out this robot character design from Japan, I think it has so much appeal and not intimidating. I think this kind of approach is really cool. It is probably modeled after Astro Boy.
http://www.robo-garage.com/en/

OLD WORKS
I opened up my shoebox and bring back some of my old works from the past:

This is RAVE.

This is LUMIA.

This is UZ.

Each one of the character has incomplete story and animation, but they are all original characters, and I did put a lot of thoughts back then. I am quite proud of them and feel like to bring them back. Re-model, re-rig, and re-animate them again?

Or create brand new character design with complete story. Keep working until you got all the ARCHETYPE characters (hero, heroine, good, evil, old, young, fat, skinny, etc based on your original character design.

Long talk short:
Skin Modifier is a perfect tool to explore simple "Anime" form of character design in 3D.

It does not have to be literally "anime", but what I mean is more like BLOCKING your character design FORM. Getting that beautiful silhouette of "deformed" characters.

Think Pokemon characters for example, every Pokemon characters, albeit simple and kiddish, Pokemon is actually well thought and designed to have recognizable silhouette.

It is totally up to you how you would like to refine your characters.

EXPLORING SKIN MODIFIER
Today, I stumbled into this stylist figure character designed by Hajime Ueda.
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/hajime-ueda

I feel that maybe can study Ueda's works and try to recreate something like that in Blender, using Skin Modifier. We don't care about the details, just the FORM and SHAPE of this character design in 3D.

So I tried doodling with Skin Modifier today for few hours and this is the shape I got:

This 3D character doodle is done with Skin Modifier ONLY.

Armature can be created automatically on top of Skin Modifier.

Hands:

LOOSE Point Weight for hand area works really well with many branching of fingers like this.

Feet:

This area is a little bit tricky, sculpting will be better. I decided just to make it so that as if the character is wearing socks or Ballerina shoes. It is all about simplification.

Head:

I am not very happy with the head shape actually. And I cannot get EARS to work as I wanted. I guess for the head, if you want to use SKIN MODIFIER, just get it to roughly follow the shape that you want and use sculpting on top.

I don't think Blender Skin Modifier can create inner topology for around face area like in ZBrush. It is slightly different. You can do it like this though. So you create eyes like E.T character that bulged out to get some details topology, which later you sculpt back in:

I also think the scale of my character might actually the reason why I cannot create detail areas properly such as Eyes, Mouth, Ears.

Anyhow, we can also approach detailed area differently later using Nicholas Bishop "Dynamic Topology" feature that is coming soon. Read all about it on his blog:
http://nicholasbishop.net/wordpress/

Blender "Dynamic Topology" is like Sculptris but inside Blender.

For areas that require detailing, Skin Modifier alone will probably not be sufficient. But getting the character's blocking FORM looks perfect at this Skin Modifier level, will help a lot down the line.

Getting the correct PROPORTION is the tricky part. Doing some Life Drawing exercise will help a lot in understanding the proportion. Having references also help.

Remember that you need both FLAT/EDGE and SMOOTH areas to have a solid character. Like in 2D, you need both CORNER and CURVE to have a really good design.

The Low Poly and High Poly. Now looking at this angle, I realized the proportion is a little bit off!

Looking at that angle above, I realized the proportion is a little bit off. No problem, it is still at Skin Modifier form exploration stage. Quick tweak:

BEFORE TWEAK: Looks like Pixar Elastic Mom from The Incredibles or one style of Dreamworks generic secondary/tertiary character. With big hip and deformed look, a little bit too chubby for teenager. Teenager tends to have the skinny awkward look.

AFTER TWEAK: This is more anime character, teenager proportion. Maybe the head is a little bit big still. Now the hands look a bit small. Continue tweaking!

Getting the correct proportion (or the proportion that looks right), really important! Check your character form from all different angles.

Once you like the form, then you can keep it and maybe reuse it in the future with slight tweaking. It is also really easy to mix and match the parts because all the connected parts are just Polygon POINT and EDGES.

Further explorations:

Turn the character from female form into male form
Create all kind of characters of different age group
Property of character: fat, skinny, muscular, strong, weak, etc.
It does not have to be human figure, try creating all kind of aliens.

SHADE AND COLOR IT MAYBE
You can apply different materials while it is still in Skin Modifier mode.

It does not have UV yet, but for a quick test, you probably create duplicate and try Vertex Painting. This is a quick way to generate character design ideas before committing into a final design.

Check this one tutorial to Vertex Color and Cycles from OENVOYAGE Blender Blog:
http://oenvoyage.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/quick-tutorial-for-cycles-and-vertex-colors/

SCULPT IT MAYBE
Next stage will either be further developing the character with Sculpting or right away adding details like: facial features, facial expressions, clothing, accessories, etc. All parts can be created using Skin Modifier.

For now, I actually feel just to create all kind of 3D forms using Skin Modifier based on existing character designs or later to come up with own ideas. Above Hajime Ueda character study is one thing. I gotta do more study.

It is actually always a good idea to start by sketching and drawing the character in 2D and have something like character sheets if you want a more solid modeling works. I have not been practicing 2D drawing for a while so that is probably what I should do every now and then.

Sometimes I admit I am lacking of patient, I like to work ideas and make it really fast and move on to the next ideas. Well, I guess I like to work in iteration and come back to the same work again time to time.

Anyhow, I guess that's all for this post. I suggest you to give it a try and get into Skin Modifier workflow in Blender. It is really fun for working on ideas for organic character design.

UPDATE: 2D v 3D
I am a believer of both approach. Of course, I am more into CG (computer graphics and generated) side because I think hand drawn animation can be too time consuming. But hand drawn "look" and "style" (like anime) also has its charm.

More 2D animation greatness in here:
http://www.catsuka.com/

UPDATE 2012.10.11:
I am also interested in using Skin Modifier workflow to have some kind of modular rigging method that follows the HOMOLOGY.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(biology)

This is one video that is interesting to look at: (it is Maya rigging, but can be applied to Blender)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9v4xmNKMKPk

Definitely a good study or exploration on how you could "blend" between the shape of one creature to another creature based on their close similar feature of anatomy.

If I have time, I want to see this happening, otherwise, I leave it to other artist that might be inspired to do it.

UPDATE 2012.12.12:
See also the works of this Blender artist:
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/low-poly/3-male-sculpting-base-meshes/

FUTURE INSPIRATIONS

ENCHANTED DOLLS
http://www.enchanteddoll.com/galleries/index.html

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RIGGING IS AN ART

BLENDER RIGGING

BLENDER WIKI ON RIGGING AND ARMATURE

BLENDER DVD ON RIGGING

STEP BY STEP RIGGING CONCEPT (this is the same on every 3D software)

BLENDER EMPTY, ARMATURE EDIT MODE AND POSE MODE

BONES IN ARMATURE

BLENDER CONSTRAINTS AND DRIVERS

BLENDER SPLINE IK SETUP

HOOK Modifier - Blender Diplom

PARENTING CONCEPT

SILHOUETTE SHAPE ON CAMERA DEFORMATION

PRESERVING VOLUME WHEN USING ARMATURE DEFORMER

ROTATING JOINTS FROM INDIVIDUAL PIVOT

DRAWING AND PLACING BONES (Edit Mode)

JOINT ORIENTATION (Edit Mode)

QUATERNION VS EULER (Pose Mode)

MAYA: JOE ALTER L-BRUSH AND BRAVE RABBIT SHAPES

CONTROL AND CONSTRAINT (Pose Mode)

BIND AND SKIN WEIGHT

SPECIAL: ACTION CONSTRAINT

HOTKEYS FOR RIGGING

WORK IN PROGRESS: Sverchok for Bone and Rigging and Procedural Character anc Creature Creation

USEFUL HOTKEYS FOR WEIGHT PAINTING

USEFUL RIGGING RELATED LINKS

FACIAL RIGGING AND SETUP

BLENDER BONE FOR FACIAL RIGGING SETUP

BLENDER QUICK FACE RIGGING SETUP

NOTE:

BLENDER VS MAYA FOR RIGGING

POSE LIBRARY

BONE FACE RIG AND ANIMATION INTO UNITY

ANISCULPT SHAPE KEY

GENERALIST AND SPECIALIST

BECAUSE YOUR TOOL IS STUPID...

ADDITIONAL CREDITS

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

OTHER LINKS

BLENDER ARMATURE & RIGIFY

BLENDER ARMATURE VIA PYTHON

GET BONE INFORMATION

CREATE EDGE USING PYTHON SCRIPT

EDGES FROM BONES FOR SKIN MODIFIER

USING THE SCRIPT ON RIGIFY (HUMAN-METARIG)

BVH Motion Capture Data to Skin Modifier

VIDEO DEMO "Bone to Skin"

OTHER LINKS

FUTURE INSPIRATIONS

MKRdezign

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