Rigging and Skinning - Animating with Blender: How to Create Short Animations from Start to Finish - page 132

3. When you've gotten your basic rig
built, move any helper bones that
have been added onto a separate
bone layer so you are only left with
the controls. This includes bones that
are in the middle of true IK chains,
like most leg bones. They will never
be directly manipulated during ani-
mation and their presence on the
screen adds clutter. At this point, you
choose your deformation methods
and use them to bind the mesh to
the controls. We'll examine the spe-
cifi cs of the different methods later.
4. Test the deformation. Switch the
B-Bones to Stick mode, as in Figure
9.7, to declutter the display, or to
Shape mode if you are using custom
bone shapes. The words above the head in Figure 9.7 are custom bone shapes. Enable the X-Ray option so
the armature controls will show through the character mesh. Start once again by manipulating the controls
to see how the bound character reacts. If you have saved actions from a previous round of testing, bring them
out and see how the mesh acts. In a later section, there is specifi c advice for testing your rig.
5. Refi ne the deformation. Now you go back and fi x problems with the deformation, either by adjusting
the binding parameters and methods or changing the structure of helper bones.

Figure 9.7 The upper half of the mother's rig switched to Stick mode, show-
ing some custom shapes

This is where the “iteration” kicks in. The approach now becomes a cycle of testing and adjustment, going
back through the steps until you have something that performs reasonably well. The important thing is to
make sure that you can manipulate the controls easily and that the character mesh reacts in a predictable,
controllable way. Even if the deformers aren't perfect at this point, it's okay. Using this method allows you to
refi ne the helpers and deformers throughout the course of your production. As long as you don't change the
actual controllers, which are the only bones that will receive keyframes, you won't have to redo your anima-
tion every time you make an alteration.

Building the Rig in Layers

There are several reasons to build your rig in discreet steps and sections as presented here. First, it provides a
clean interface during animation. There will be quite enough going on when you are keyframing your char-
acters' motion that you won't be able to afford any clutter. Second, it allows you to refi ne both the deformers
and the helpers throughout your production, even after you have begun animation.

Let's take a look at the controls, helpers, and deformers for the mother character from The Beast while we dis-
cuss some rigging practices.